Michael Shayne

Richard Denning ("Mr. and Mrs. North") was perfect casting for the red headed, Irish private detective, who had a taste for cognac, brawls and broads.

Michael Shayne had a voluptuous blond secretary named Lucy Hamilton (Patricia Donahue). Lucy's younger brother Dick Hamilton (Gary Clarke) was a college student who sometimes got involved in Shayne's cases. Tim Rourke (Jerry Paris) was a reporter friend. Shayne was also friends with police Lt. Will Gentry (Herbert Rudley).

In one scene Shayne returns to his office. He is in the outer office used by Lucy. He overhears Tim and Lucy in his inner office. Tim Rourke is moaning in pleasure. Lucy says that feels good doesn't it. Tim says "Oh yes. Don't stop". Shayne closes his eyes and walks into his office. Lucy is massaging Tim's neck because he has a headache.

All these characters except Dick Hamilton came out of a series of novels by Brett Halliday, who was a consultant for the series. Each of the roles was extremely well cast, but the series chose to focus pretty much entirely on Shayne. Richard Denning was a terrific B-movie actor and easily carried the show. (The great Lloyd Nolan played Michael Shayne in a series of 1940's movies that ignored the other characters in the novels and the Miami setting. Hugh Beaumont played Shayne in a later, cheaper movie series. Jeff Chandler and Robert Sterling, among others, played Shayne on radio.)

The hour long "Michael Shayne" was produced by Dick Powell's Four Star Productions ("Richard Diamond", "Dante"). Young writers Richard Levinson and William Link ("Columbo", "Mannix") were under contract to Four Star at the time (rather unhappily), and they wrote many of the episodes.

Actor Mark Goddard had a role in Four Star's "Johnny Ringo" the previous season. Four Star offered Goddard the choice of playing Dick Hamilton or being on "The Detectives" with Robert Taylor. Goddard chose the latter.

The "Shayne" episodes had great pulpy titles that were taken from the novels: "No Shroud for Shayne", "Dolls are Deadly", "Die Like a Dog", "Framed in Blood", "Marriage Can be Fatal", "The Body Beautiful", "Murder and the Wanton Bride" and "Blood on Biscayne Bay".

Some of the luscious women Shayne encountered: Julie Adams, Lola Albright, Julie London, Carol Ohmart, Susan Oliver, Carol Rossen, Patricia Crowley, Mona Freeman, Alexis Smith and Rita Moreno. One episode even had Helen Hayes.

The producers should have spent a few extra dollars to get Lloyd Nolan to guest star as Shayne's father.

All the series regulars except Denning were fired during the second half of the season and replaced by much younger actors. This could have been a cost containment move, or maybe they were trying to compete with the glamorous "Surfide Six", a series about much younger Miami Beach private eyes. "Surfside Six" premiered the same year and drew a larger audience.

The new Lucy was explained by saying the old Lucy ran off and got married (to Tim Rorke?) and Shayne's replacement secretary just happened to be named Lucy too. I seriously missed sexy Paticia Donahue.

Shane Black's movie "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" (2005), where Val Kilmer plays a gay private detective, was based on a Michael Shayne novel by Brett Halliday. The novel was called "Bodies Are Where You Find Them" (1941). That novel was turned into a Dell comic book at the time of the TV series.

I would like to offer one correction to what Cheyenne-Bodie has written about Michael Shayne, and some additions to his list of the "luscious women" who appeared on the show.

Margie Regan did replace Patricia Donahue as Lucy Hamilton at some point in the 2nd half of the show's only season. But Richard Banke did not replace Herbert Rudley as LT. Will Gentry, and Meade Martin did not replace Jerry Paris as reporter Tim Rourke. Instead, Banke played a new policeman and Martin played a new reporter. If the new actors were cheaper, then every scene with them was cheaper than a scene with Rudley or Paris. But there were scenes with both policemen and scenes with both reporters. To see what I mean, please buy the DVD Michael Shayne Detective V.01 at Critics' Choice Video, or amazon.com (which calls it vol.1). There are 2 episodes on this DVD: "Shoot the Works" with the original cast, and "Marriage Can Be Fatal" with Ms. Regan, and both of the policemen and both of the reporters.

I have an ulterior motive in asking you to buy this DVD: the more people who buy vol. 1, the better the chance of vols. 2,3, etc. appearing. I bought the DVD myself for this reason, even though I already had both episodes on VHS.

Gary Clarke as Lucy's brother Dick Hamilton was apparently fired and not replaced at all. I think Lucy's brother was added to the Patricia Donahue episodes as a chaperon, similar to Aunt Harriet in the '60's TV version of Batman. When Ms. Donahue played Lucy, it was sometimes obvious that Lucy and Mike were a couple as well as private eye and secretary, but they couldn't actually be sleeping together with her brother hanging around. When Ms. Regan played Lucy, the relationship was friendly but strictly professional, and the chaperon was no longer needed.

Two of Roger Corman's leading ladies, Beverly Garland and Betsy Jones-Moreland, were in one episode each. Ellen Burstyn (using the name Ellen McRae) was also in one episode. Donna Douglas, with Ross Martin as her husband, was in "Murder is a Fine Art," one of the 2 episodes with Carol Ohmart (Vincent Price's wife in the original House on Haunted Hill). Grace Lee Whitney (Capt. Kirk's Yeoman in the 1st season of Star Trek) was in 2 episodes, including "No Shroud for Shayne" with Rita Moreno.

Joan Marshall was in the episode "Murder 'Round My Wrist." She was also the leading lady in William Castle's Homicidal, she prosecuted Capt. Kirk in the Star Trek episode "Court Martial," and she played Phoebe (not Lily) in the first pilot for The Munsters.

Yvonne Craig was in the next to last episode, "It Takes a Heap O'Dyin'." Her many other credits include Batgirl in the 1968 season of Batman, and Star Trek's 2nd green-Orion-slave-girl (Marta in the episode "Whom Gods Destroy").

Sue Randall (Miss Landers, the school teacher, in Leave It to Beaver) was in 2 episodes. Nancy Rennick, who looks and sounds a lot like Ms. Randall, was in the episode "Marriage Can Be Fatal," which is on the Critics' Choice DVD. The mansion in "Marriage Can Be Fatal" is the same one that played the Clampett mansion in The Beverly Hillbillies.

Audrey Dalton (the leading lady in William Castle's Mr. Sardonicus) and Merry Anders were in "Dead Air," the last first-run episode of the series. Five years later, Ms. Anders played the woman who drowned in a phone booth in Get Smart. A year after that, she put on a black wig for the recurring role of Officer Dorothy Miller in the revival of Dragnet.

And in 1958, Merry Anders played Lucy Hamilton in an unsold Michael Shayne pilot, made by a different company, with a different cast, and even a different format. Mark Stevens played Michael Shayne and directed this pilot. The Mark-Stevens-pilot and the Richard-Denning-series-episode "The Heiress" are available on a single tape from emoviez at ebay. The guest stars in "The Heiress" include 2 future Star Trek women: Susan Oliver (Vina in "The Cage/The Menagerie") and Celia Lovsky (T'Pau in "Amok Time").

These comments are based on the Michael Shayne episode list available at the Classic TV Archive, and on the episodes that I have acquired through on-line purchases from Hollywood's Attic and from various ebay sellers, including emoviez. I've enjoyed these old shows very much, and hope to find more of them, especially the Patricia Donahue episodes.

Merry Anders is a jealous actress n wife to John Gabriel. Audrey Daulton co stars.shayne is hire to investigate Anders for attempting to kill her husband. Typical 50/60s detective show,He drives around Miami Beach in a nice convertible.