Research Catalog

Title

Lucille Kallen papers, 1938-1999.

Author

Kallen, Lucille

Supplementary Content

Finding Aid

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Coca, Imogene
• Tolkin, Mel
• Tamiment Playhouse

Description

21.44 linear ft. (45 boxes)

Summary

The Lucille Kallen papers consist of correspondence, personal papers, financial papers, scripts, book drafts, publication materials, clippings, scrapbooks, and some photographs.

Uniform Title

• Admiral Broadway revue (Television program)
• Bell Telephone hour (Television program)
• Your show of shows (Television program)

Subjects

• Motion picture plays
• Admiral Broadway revue (Television program)
• Women novelists, American
• Photographs
• Galley proofs
• Financial records
• Kallen, Lucille
• Television comedy writers
• Scrapbooks
• Bell Telephone hour (Television program)
• Contracts
• Television scripts
• Manuscripts
• Coca, Imogene
• Tolkin, Mel
• Tamiment Playhouse
• Clippings
• Radio scripts
• Your show of shows (Television program)

Genre/Form

• Clippings.
• Contracts.
• Financial records.
• Galley proofs.
• Manuscripts.
• Photographs.
• Radio scripts.
• Scrapbooks.
• Motion picture plays.
• Television scripts.

Access (note)

• Collection is open to the public. Library policy on photography and photocopying will apply. Advance notice may be required.

Source (note)

• Engel, Herb

Biography (note)

• Lucille Kallen (1922 -1999) was a prolific writer, proficient in many genres, who helped shape the early direction of American television humor, but is perhaps best remembered as the author of the C. B. Greenfield mystery novels.

Indexes/Finding Aids (note)

• Finding aid available in repository and on internet.

Call Number

*T-Mss 2000-026

OCLC

NYPT05-A6

Author

Kallen, Lucille.

Title

Lucille Kallen papers, 1938-1999.

Restricted Access

Collection is open to the public. Library policy on photography and photocopying will apply. Advance notice may be required.

Biography

Lucille Kallen (1922 -1999) was a prolific writer, proficient in many genres, who helped shape the early direction of American television humor, but is perhaps best remembered as the author of the C. B. Greenfield mystery novels. Kallen, who was was the only female writer on the staff of Your Show of Shows in a time when men dominated the industry, also wrote for radio, theater, and television. While still establishing herself as a radio writer in the late 1940s, Kallen was teamed with Mel Tolkin as a writing partner at the Tamiment Playhouse, a summer theater in the Poconos run by producer Max Liebman. It also was at Tamiment that Kallen first met the comedienne, Imogene Coca. By 1949, Kallen was working in New York with Tolkin as co-writers for a new television program, the Admiral Broadway Revue, which featured Sid Caesar as host and a cast that included Coca. The show was reincarnated the following season as Your Show of Shows. Kallen, who was joined in the writers' room by such notables as Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner, was the only female writer during the entire run of the show. She developed material primarily for Coca and was credited with creating some of her best writing in sketches concerning the bickering married couple, the Hickenloopers. When Your Show of Shows went off the air in 1954, Kallen was chosen to become head writer for the short-lived Imogene Coca Show.

Kallen remained in New York even after many television studios moved their primary operations to the west coast and continued to submit scripts to television series. She also worked on a variety of theater projects. During the 1960s, Kallen began writing fiction for publication. In 1964, her novel, Outside There Somewhere!, was published. Although the comic, feminist novel was critically praised by the likes of Betty Friedan, it was not a huge success. In 1979, however, her first detective novel, Introducing C. B. Greenfield, was nominated for the American Book Award. This mystery novel spawned a series of five books featuring the characters, C. B. Greenfield and Maggie Rome, that became internationally popular. After the Greenfield books, in later years Kallen worked on an uncompleted novel titled, Sacred Bull. Her final work in progress, Fannie DeWitt, appears to have been inspired by her hospital experiences while being treated for an illness. Kallen died on January 18, 1999.

Indexes

Finding aid available in repository and on internet.

Connect to:

Request Access to Theatre Division Special Collections material

Finding Aid

Occupation

Television comedy writers.

Added Author

Coca, Imogene.

Tolkin, Mel.

Kallen, Lucille. C.B. Greenfield: a little madness.

Kallen, Lucille. C.B. Greenfield: no lady in the house.

Kallen, Lucille. C.B. Greenfield: the piano bird.

Kallen, Lucille. C.B. Greenfield: the Tanglewood murder.

Kallen, Lucille. Introducing C.B. Greenfield.

Kallen, Lucille. Outside there, somewhere!

Tamiment Playhouse.

Added Title

Admiral Broadway revue (Television program)

Bell Telephone hour (Television program)

Your show of shows (Television program)

Research Call Number

*T-Mss 2000-026