Time Out For Ginger

Infobox Play
name = Time Out For Ginger


image_size = 230px
caption = Original "Playbill" for "Time Out For Ginger"
writer = Ronald Alexander
characters = Howard Carol
Agnes Carol
Joan
Eddie Davis
Ed Hoffman
Ginger
Lizzie
Tommy
Joan
Mr. Wilson
setting = The living room of the Carol house
date of premiere = November 26, 1952
country of Origin = United States
subject =
genre = Comedy
web =
playbill_event =
ibdb_id = 2363 "Time Out For Ginger" is a Broadway comedy by Ronald Alexander that ran 248 performances at the Lyceum Theatre from November 26, 1952 to June 27, 1953, before becoming hugely popular in regional theatres throughout the 1950s and early 1960s. Jack Benny starred in a one-hour October 6, 1955 "Shower of Stars" television broadcast, and the play was later adapted into the feature film, "Billie", starring Patty Duke.

The Broadway production starred Melvyn Douglas as Howard Carol, a middle-class husband and father of three girls, one of whom, Ginger (Nancy Malone), wants to try out for her school's football team. At first supportive of his daughter's goal, he begins to feel pressure from Ed Hoffman (Philip Loeb), the president of the bank where he works, and the community at large. The setting is the Carol's living room.

In 1954, several of the original cast members, including Melvyn Douglas, Nancy Malone and Philip Loeb, took the play to Chicago, where Steve McQueen replaced Broadway's Conrad Janis as Eddie Davis. [ [http://www.mcqueenonline.com/ginger.htm Steve McQueen] in "Time Out For Ginger"] Loeb had been blacklisted from television and radio several years earlier and the production was his last major role before he committed suicide on September 1, 1955.

Liza Minnelli played Ginger at the Bucks County Playhouse in 1964. [ [http://www.ralphmiller.com/playhouse/bcphis64.html Bucks County Playhouse] Liza Minnelli in "Time Out For Ginger"]

Ronald Alexander

Ronald Alexander was born Ronald George Alexander Ungerer in West New York, N.J. on February 16, 1917. He dropped out of school early and worked for a while in a factory, was a boxer, and performed as a singer with a band. He also organized Broadway performers for a unit of the USO run by his sister. On Broadway, he appeared in small roles in "The Patriots", "Light Up the Sky" and "The Closing Door."

In addition to "Time Out For Ginger", Alexander wrote the Broadway comedies "Holiday For Lovers" and "Nobody Loves an Albatross", the screenplays for "Return to Peyton Place" and "Billie", the Walt Disney TV movie, "Johnny Shiloh", and several episodes of "The Dick Van Dyke Show". He also wrote a sequel to "Time Out For Ginger" called "Time and Ginger" in which Ginger is married to Eddie and has to confront her own daughter's sexual rebelliousness.

Alexander died of cancer on April 24, 1995 at Calvary Hospital in the Bronx. He was 78. [ [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CEEDF133DF930A35756C0A963958260 "New York Times"] , April 24, 2008, Ronald Alexander obituary]

References

External links

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* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0700175/ "Time Out For Ginger" ("Shower of Stars" broadcast)] at the Internet Movie Database
* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058972/ "Billie"] at the Internet Movie Database
* [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0018712/ Ronald Alexander] at the Internet Movie Database
* [http://www.ibdb.com/person.asp?ID=8472 Ronald Alexander] at the Internet Broadway Database
* [http://www.archive.org/details/Time_Out_For_Ginger A television pilot] based on the play at The Internet Archive
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