September 26, 1960 - December 28, 1962
Helen O'Connell interviews Peter Lorre on location at his Beverly Hills home. Helen remarks that Peter's home reminds her of an old English pub. Peter remarks that he does not scare easily and does not go into such character unless being paid to do so.
Topics discussed include why Lorre does not like to do interviews. He says "its against his grain." He remarks that his father was very strict and always told Peter it was not polite to talk about oneself.
Peter remarks and shows off what he can do with his ears (wiggle them) and how it cost him two jobs in his young life...once working in bank and once on stage.
Peter remembers running away from home to become an actor...first time on stage in Germany as an extra, inventing the word "Kreep," and why acting is no job for a grown up man. However, he does state that is is very proud of his profession which he cannot live without.
Peter gives his opinion comparing the actor of decades ago with the contemporary actor of today and the studio's approach of creating publicity for actors.
A retrospect by Lorre when he first came to Hollywood and would never go to parties which he considers a bore. His friendship with Humphrey Bogart and the few friends he hangs out with today including Burl Ives and Joe E. Lewis.
After a one minute interruption for n NBC Bulletin, Lorre tells Helen O'Connell how Sidney Bernstein introduced him to Alfred Hitchcock who would love to tell stories and Lorre would automatically laugh at then in the right places, putting him in contention to act in Hitchcock's first talking picture, The Man Who Knew Too Much and Lorre's first English movie success.
NOTE:
There is a brief Pauline Fredericks NBC bulletin from the United Nations, related to conflict between Tunisia and France, interrupting the program for one minute.
Here's Hollywood (568 broadcasts) aired as a half-hour interview program, weekday afternoons on NBC at 4:30pm. On October 2, 1961 the show was reduced five minutes giving way to a live news broadcast with Sander Vanocur which aired at 4:55pm.
Here's Hollywood was the leading daytime show for two years. It was the first TV broadcast of its kind, using two mobile vans equipped with 2" video tape equipment which traveled to the homes of celebrities...two locations each day, one star in the morning and one in the afternoon. Most of the interviews aired were ten minutes in length. Two different interviews comprised the full length of the half hour program. Occasionally, one subject would be interviewed for the complete program. Occasionally programs were produced outside of the United States...Hawaii, Germany, France. Five color broadcasts were attempted and then the concept abandoned, due to the complexity of 2" quadruplex video tape at the time.
Dean Miller conducted interviews from September 26, 1960 to September 29, 1961. He was replaced by Jack Linkletter who conducted interviews from October 2, 1961 to December 28, 1962. Joanne Jordan conducted interviews from September 26, 1960 to June 9, 1961. She was replaced by Helen O'Connell who conducted interviews from June 13, 1961 to December 28, 1962.
Note: Only a handful of the 1,100 different interviews survive. Most were erased, discarded, misplaced. NBC Archives have only two surviving kinescopes, one with Joe E. Brown (12-2-61), and one with Linda Darnell (12-4-61). UCLA Film & TV Archive has 46 different subject interview kinescopes on separate negative film and separate optical film.
Archival Television Audio has 82 broadcasts on audio tape, originally recorded by Phil Gries at the time the broadcasts first aired. Most of them are complete interviews. These television Audio Air Checks represent the greatest number of known surviving HERE'S HOLLYWOOD broadcast episodes.
UCLA FILM & Television Archives retains, in their vaults, the greatest number of individual original HERE'S HOLLYWOOD separate 16mm Kinescopes and coinciding separate optical and magnetic sound tracks, representing approximately four dozen shows. Almost ALL of these broadcasts remain in analog form, and not view-able as composite video and audio.
