I've been talking about the famed audience member "Mrs. Miller" here and it turns out I have her name wrong. It was actually Miss Miller. According to WikiPedia, which as we all know is never wrong about anything, her full name was Lillian Miller and she was born in 1897 and died in 1990 in Los Angeles. She began sitting in audiences back in 1940 in the days of radio and was on so many radio and TV programs that she eventually had to join AFTRA.
I seem to recall that when Merv Griffin launched either his CBS late night show or the syndicated series that followed that, Miss Miller was in all the commercials heralding his arrival. She really did become something of a celebrity.
My longtime pal Marc Wielage, who works in video production, wrote me to say…
Way back around 1982-1983, I actually worked for Merv Griffin for a couple of years when he owned Trans-American Video on Vine Street (located in the Merv Griffin Theater).
One time, I was standing out on Vine waiting for my partner Rod to pick me up from work, and an elderly woman came out, walking very slowly and standing at the curb. A car with another old woman rolled up, and the first elderly woman began berating her for being late, complaining about the weather, angry about her seat in the theater, and all that stuff… and of course, it was Mrs. Miller. Who knew she was a diva? Very angry woman.
The guys at TAV told me that Merv always made sure they saved a seat for her in every performance, though she only turned up 2 or 3 times a week. For some reason, Merv had a soft spot for her. I dunno what happened to her after Merv ended the show in 1986. Maybe switched over to Carson?
To me, the interesting question would be: Did she move out to Los Angeles when Merv did? Or did he move her? Or did she just decide that television production in New York was dying out so if she wanted to keep sitting in audiences, she had to go west?