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Interviewers aren't supposed to be the bearers of bad news, but that was my lot in the spring of 1967 when Michael Callan phoned, as promised, to talk about his sitcom, "Occasional Wife," which seemed certain to be renewed by NBC for a second season. Unfortunately, between the day the interview was scheduled and the day it took place, NBC unexpectedly dropped the ax on the series.

Which is why I was surprised Callan kept our date. And I was even more surprised when it became obvious Callan was unaware his show had been canceled. So it was up to me to break the news. Callan had been around long enough to know how networks operate; he was surprised at the news, but not THAT surprised, if you know what I mean.

We wound up having a nice, albeit brief conversation about the program (which had been one of my favorites), the way networks treat actors, and about his career in general.

Online references to "Occasional Wife" blame low ratings for the program's demise, though it had done fairly well during most of the season. I think the reason NBC pulled the plug, rather than simply change its timeslot, was to pacify several ministers (and their flocks) who objected to the program's premise – a single man finds a woman who'll pose as his wife to help him get ahead at work for a baby food company run by a man who believes his executives should be married. Callan's character, Peter Christopher, agrees to set up his occasional wife, Greta Patterson (Patricia Harty, her story follows) in an upstairs apartment. She frequently had to make emergency visits to Christopher's apartment, and usually entered through a window off the fire escape. The program was more silly than scandalous, though a segment of the Midwest audience didn't agree.

A co-worker, Bernie, played by the always entertaining Stuart Margolin (Angel Martin on "The Rockford Files"), suspected Christopher's marriage was phony, which set the stage for some of the comic complications. Also appearing in a recurring role was Jack Riley, who played the hilariously caustic Elliot Carlin on "The Bob Newhart Show."

However, what made "Occasional Wife" work was Patricia Harty, who seemed headed for big things. But when the show was canceled she made a dreadful mistake – she agreed to play the title role in "Blondie," a sitcom version of the old comic strip. Will "Sugarfoot" Hutchins played Dagwood. The show was canceled after 13 episodes, which was 12 episodes too many. (In the fall of 1966 I interviewed Harty in Cleveland. I'm still trying to figure out how she missed superstardom. Everything I predicted for her came true for Mary Tyler Moore.)

Callan and Harty got married in real life after "Occasional Wife" left the air. The marriage eventually ended in divorce. Harty dropped out of the business for awhile, then returned as a brunet called Trisha Hart. She became the blonde Patricia Harty a few years after that, but her TV appearances have been few and far between.

Callan's career is the bigger mystery. He started in movies and before he turned to television he had had starring roles in such popular big screen productions as "Gidget Goes Hawaiian," "Because They're Young," "The Interns," "The Victors," "The New Interns" and the classic Western comedy, "Cat Ballou," which earned an Oscar for Lee Marvin.

Marvin and Jane Fonda went on to many more movies and bigger and bigger stardom. Callan went into "Occasional Wife" a year after "Cat Ballou" was released. He has made several TV guest appearances since then, including four episodes of "Murder, She Wrote." He also spent some time on the daytime soap opera, "One Life to Live" in the 1980s.

Callan's last film was "The Still Life" in 2006. He died in 2022. He was 86 years old.
 


In the fall of 1966 NBC introduced what promised to be a ridiculous situation comedy. It was called "Occasional Wife" and starred Michael Callan as Peter Christopher and a virtual unknown, Patricia Harty, as Greta Patterson.

Christopher was an up-and-coming junior executive at a baby food company run by a man who preferred married employees. Christopher, alas, was a bachelor, something he kept secret in the interest of job advancement. He was able to maintain this secret because he hired a beautiful young woman to pose as his wife. He set her up in a Manhattan apartment located two stories above his.

Whenever needed, Greta would drop into Peter's apartment, usually via the fire escape. She was often spotted by a character referred to as "The Man in the Middle" (Bryan O'Byrne), who lived in the apartment on the floor in between. An interesting feature of the series was the wry narration provided by Vin Scully, announcer for Los Angeles Dodgers baseball games and considered the best there was in his line of work. All in all, I found the program a pleasant surprise.

Ratings-wise, the series held its own for awhile; Harty got rave reviews for her performance as Greta. Years later I would notice a resemblance between Harty and Shelley Long, except that Harty was prettier and the character she played was less abrasive. Harty was so good that it seemed certain she had a bright future.

However, the ratings for "Occasional Wife" went down as the season rolled along, but it was expected to be renewed and shifted to a different timeslot. The show's premise, silly as it was, had a sleazy side that bothered folks in the Bible Belt. And Harty, even when she was being silly, was devilishly sexy.

I met her in Cleveland in December of '66. The interview, conducted over lunch, only strengthened my belief that Patricia Harty would become a very successful actress. Only it never happened. The show was canceled (see the Michael Callan interview) and Harty and her first husband, E. Thomas Kearney, divorced. Kearney had also been her agent and guided her career to that point, imposing a set of rules, including an interesting one about Elvis Presley that is mentioned in the story, below. (Oddly, Kearney's name was left out of the brief Wikipedia biography on Patricia Harty.)

Whether Kearney was involved in Harty's next career move, I don't know. But it was disastrous. She went immediately into another sitcom, playing the title role in "Blondie," based on the comic strip. Will Hutchins, known for the Western series "Sugarfoot," played Dagwood. Harty's career came to a standstill.

I've never read what happened afterward. Oh, I know she and her "Occasional Wife" co-star Michael Callan got married, and that his career also went south at the same time. The guy had started so well, even had a starring role in a movie classic, "Cat Ballou," before "Occasional Wife" came along.

Harty surfaced a few years later, as a brunette named Trisha Hart, but didn't work much, though she did have parts in two series, "The Bob Crane Show" and "Herbie, the Love Bug." After she and Callan divorced, she went blonde again and returned to being Patricia Harty. She also married Les Sheldon, who was an associate producer on "The Bob Crane Show."

She will be 82 in November, 2023; she made her last TV appearance in 2003.

Akron Beacon Journal, January 1, 1967

By JACK MAJOR

Patricia Harty is going to be a big, big star. Lots of people think so. Especially Harty.

"There never was a time I didn’t know exactly what I wanted,” she says.

And what she wants – exactly – is to be a big, big star.

Many people who have seen her perform or have met her seem convinced Patricia Harty will make it.

She holds some people under a weird kind of spell. I actually heard one woman refer to Patricia Harty as “Destiny’s child.” In 20 years, this woman claimed, Harty will be the most famous actress in the world.

The 24-year-old Harty may never become that big a star, but she is moving in the right direction.

This season she is starring in the NBC comedy series “Occasional Wife,” a contrived bit of nonsense that has absolutely nothing going for it – except the performances and the chemistry of its stars, Michael Callan and Patricia Harty.

It’s a tribute to their talent that the show is expected to return for a second season. If two other actors were doing the show, it might well have been canceled by now.

But one show does not a career make. Countless actresses – from Polly Bergen to Abby Dalton – have attracted great notices for work on television, then fallen far short of their goals elsewhere.

Harty is confident she can perform well in any role, in comedies, dramas and musicals. She also thinks she has an image that can take her a long way. She is tiny cute, not va-va-voom voluptuous, which she sees as an advantage.

“Old ladies look at me in a bikini and still think I’m a nice girl,” she said during a publicity stop in Cleveland. “To show how innocent and harmless I look in a bikini, the New York Times ran a picture of me in one. How many times have you seen a girl in a bikini on the pages of the New York Times?

“Sure, sometimes I envy girls who are, you know, built” – and she drew an outline with her hands that measured about 46-23-36 – “but then I look at the roles they play, and I’m glad I am the way I am.”

What Patricia Harty is is skinny, Well, almost. Let’s say slim. She’s five-foot-six and probably doesn’t weigh much over 100 pounds, soaking wet.

When she approaches you from a 25-foot distance, you figure her for a 12-year-old. Up close she seems older, but even face-to-face she seems no older than 18.

“A couple of years ago I played the ingénue in ‘Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Momma’s Hung You in the Closet and I’m Feeling So Sad.’ In the third act the girl seduces a young man.

“One night a woman left a complaint at the box office. She wanted the producer arrested because she thought it must be against the law for anyone as young as I appearing in a seduction scene.”

While Patricia Harty projects cuteness, it’s not the kind of itsy-poo, self-conscious cuteness you get from Marlo Thomas or Mary Tyler Moore. Harty is cute the way Audrey Hepburn is cute – stylishly and with sophistication ... and more than a little sarcasm.

It’s Miss Hepburn’s road to success that Harty hopes to follow.

The person in charge of steering her down that road is E. Thomas Kearney, her manager and her husband. Kearney is the careful watchdog who is determined to help his wife avoid pitfalls. Toward this end Kearney had established certain rules – no Playboy layouts, no beach party pictures, no Elvis Presley movies, no deodorant or undergarment commercials, and no prostitute roles unless their source is a literary classic.

These rules are just now being put to a test, and thus far Kearney has stuck to them. Recently, for example, Harty was offered $50,000 to do a movie, but it wasn’t the “right kind” of movie, so Kearney turned it down.

His determination is matched by his wife’s. She began planning her career at age 12 while growing up in North Miami, Florida. She took dancing and singing lessons, studied long and hard, and was graduated from high school at 16. Then, with $1,000 in the bank, she went to New York City.

She landed her first job in a matter of days, as a dancer on Perry Como’s television show. She claimed there was a bit of trickery involved. “At the audition I found myself among 600 dancers trying for just three jobs. I went home and later phoned the show’s dance director and told him I was unable to make the audition. ‘But I’m an awfully good dancer,’ I said. ‘Could I see you later in the day when you’re not so busy?’ ”

She says the trick worked. In the coming months she added several jobs to her resume, including “The Andy Williams Summer Show,” “The Pat Boone Show,” “The Garry Moore Show,” and about 100 commercials*.

“I used to do a commercial on Dick Clark’s ‘American Bandstand’ every Saturday. For this I had to take a train to Philadelphia every weekend because the commercials were done live. One Saturday I couldn’t make it and so they agreed to tape the commercial. Well, after that I was ‘busy’ every Saturday and they began taping all of them. It had been a bit much riding to Philadelphia and back to New York just do do one commercial.”

One of Harty’s commercials is still shown occasionally. She’s a stewardess who drops a tray when she sees one of the passengers brushing his teeth after his meal. “Hardly anyone recognizes me,” she said. “I had dark hair then.”

She said commercials were valuable in many ways. “For one thing, the money was great. I made $50,000 from that toothpaste commercial. I also learned a lot about acting and about make-up. You don’t realize how important make-up is until you’ve been around awhile. You can change your appearance completely when you know how to handle your make-up.”

It was in those commercials that Harty made her acting debut. She also performed in a few comedy skits on “The Garry Moore Show.”

“I had never acted before,” she said, “not even in high school.”

She deliberately left acting to last in preparing her career. “I wasn’t worried when I got to New York because there are always jobs available to girls who can sing and dance. I figured I’d be able to act later. Too many girls try to work in reverse. They go to New York or Hollywood hoping to act, then discover the best opportunities go to girls who can do musicals.”

Harty was making $275-a-week as a dancer and part-time comedienne for Garry Moore when Kearney advised her to quit and take a $95-a-week job as dancer and understudy in the Broadway musical, “Fiorello!” She took his advice and eight months later was playing a principal role in the show. Noel Coward saw her in it and signed her for his musical, “Sail Away.”

It was during the Philadelphia tryout of this show that Harty accidentally demonstrated the quick wit that is the trademark of Greta Patterson, the woman the plays in “Occasional Wife.”

“Sail Away” had her wearing a bikini in a dance routine. The bra strap snapped during one performance. She smiled, told the audience, “Excuse me,” and without missing a beat danced into the wings and returned wearing a man’s sport coat.

Unhappy with our waitress during our luncheon interview, Harty solved her problem with a silly joke and a funny face. The waitress responded with a smile and the meal went smoothly from then on.

Smooth sailing. That’s what Patricia Harty has gotten used to. Her real tests lie ahead. Stardom is predicted far more than it is realized. It’ll be interesting to see just where she stands 20 years from now.

* In those days, commercials sometimes were done live during a program, something that helps account for the large number of such jobs that Patricia Harty and other young actors had during the relatively early days of television.
 
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