I've forgotten the precise sequence of my adolescent crushes but I think Abby Dalton came a bit before Mary Tyler Moore and somewhat after Betty Rubble. Ms. Dalton did an awful lot of TV and movie appearances before I became aware of her on a TV show called Hennesey, in which she starred with Jackie Cooper. It's one of those programs I haven't seen since it first aired — in this case from 1959 to 1962 — and I'm not sure if I'd like it now but I liked it then.
She was one of the reasons. She was very lovely and very funny so it wasn't a surprise that when Hennesey was canceled, she went directly to another series — in this case, The Joey Bishop Show. He played his wife on this sitcom and she was again very lovely and about as funny as anyone could be playing Joey Bishop's wife. I've met quite a few folks who worked on that series, including Joe Besser and Corbett Monica and not heard one extol the joys of working with Joey Bishop.
Abby Dalton worked on an awful lot of other shows — comedy, drama and game — and yes, I have a story about meeting her. It was at one of those Hollywood Show events where actors meet their fans and sell autographs and autographed photos. I went with my friend Jewel Shepard, who has herself sometimes been behind the tables there, signing still from her movies.
Jewel knows everyone I don't know and she introduced me to a stunning lady named Kathleen Kinmont, whose work I'd seen on screens large and small and we had a nice conversation. At one point, she asked me who among the celebs signing there, I most wanted to meet. I said, "Your mother." Kathleen Kinmont is the daughter of Abby Dalton, who was selling 'n' signing photos at the next table. I told her I'd had a teenage crush on her mother so she took me over and said, "Mom, here's another guy who had a crush on you." The word "another" stood out.
They're saying Abby Dalton was 88 when she died last week and I don't know how that can be. This particular Hollywood Show was in 2011 and given the way she looked then, she couldn't have been much over 65 at the time.
We talked for a while and she asked me a lot about myself. When I mentioned I did comic books, she said, "Oh, maybe you can help me." From under a stack of photos she was selling, she pulled out copies of the two issues of the Hennesey comic books that Dell published when the show was on.
She said, "Is there any chance you know who drew these? I've always wondered." By every chance, I could. I told her they were drawn by Gil Kane and she wrote the name down. (I did that from memory. If we'd opened them so I could check the art style, I would have told her that Kane did the first one and he might have contributed to the second but I didn't think so. It was a gang bang of several artists including Bob Fujitani and Mike Sekowsky.)
That's almost the end of this story except that, given what I'd heard about The Joey Bishop Show, I wanted to ask her if its star was as difficult as others had said. Before I could figure out how to tactfully phrase the question, I heard someone else ask her, "Hey, was Bishop as hard to get along with as people say?" To which she gave one of those proper, "I don't like to speak ill of the people I work with" replies…so I didn't ask her.
But a few minutes later, I was picking out one of the photos she was selling to purchase and have her sign. She had quite a selection there which reminded you how many films and TV shows she was in and what a career she had. I pointed to the ones from The Joey Bishop Show and asked her, "Are these cheaper because he's in them?" She laughed…and the way she laughed gave me my answer.
Gosh, I enjoyed meeting that woman. So lovely and smart…it's nice when they don't disappoint you in any way.