This sitcom aired on CBS from September 1952 until June 1953. It originally aired after I Love Lucy on CBS's Monday night lineup.
Irish-American actor J. Carrol Naish became typecast as an Italian after playing the role of Luigi Basco for several years, first on CBS Radio starting in 1948, and for a short period on a live tv series in 1952.
Set in Chicago, Luigi was a newly arrived Italian immigrant who was learning to love his new homeland. He did not always understand what everything meant, and often took things too literally, but his sweet, gentle nature won everyone over. The setting alternated between Luigi's antique shop and his friend Pasquale's restaurant " The Spaghetti Palace." Pasquale ( Alan Reed), a fellow immigrant who had been in this country for several years , had paid Luigi's boat fare to America in hopes that he might marry off his fat daughter Rosa ( Jody Gilbert) to his impressionable countryman.
Others in the cast included Mary Shipp as Miss Spauding, Luigi's nightschool teacher; Ken Peters as Olson, one of Luigi's classmates; Joe Forte as Horowitz, another classmate; and Sig Ruman as Schultz , another classmate. Except for Sig Ruman, all the cast members had played the roles on Radio.
When Life With Luigi returned for a brief second run in the spring of 1953 ( the show had been taken off the air in December 1952), all 3 principal parts were being played by different actors. Vitto Scotti took over the role of Luigi; Thomas Gomez played Pasquale; and Muriel Landers was now playing Rosa.
Despite it's popularity on Radio, Life With Luigi had only a short career on tv. It's extreme ethnic stereo-typing was found offensive by some, and sponsor troubles provided the coup de grace.
Here's an article from Time Magazine about The Radio Version of Life With Luigi from April 24, 1950.
Simply Amazing
"Everybody said there wasn't enough dramatic appeal in it," says Producer-Director-Writer Cy Howard of his Life with Luigi (Tues. 9 p.m., CBS). "Everybody told me no sponsor would buy it. And now look! It has knocked over Bob Hope,* and cut into the rating of Fibber McGee & Molly. It has made Tuesday night. It's got a wonderful sponsor [Win. Wrigley Jr. Co.]. It's got everybody amazed, it's got me amazed."
Five years ago, radio had still to hear of Cy Howard. After modest success as an actor in New York and a $70-a-week selling job in Chicago, Howard decided to drop his inhibitions and change his personality. The result? "Last year I made more than $300,000. I'll go over $500,000 this year."
In Hollywood, where he produces his My Friend Irma (Mon. 10 p.m., CBS) as well as Luigi, the new, extraverted Howard wears tasseled shoes, owns a pedigreed Airedale and lives in a penthouse. He drives a Cadillac convertible with the top down, even though it's bad for his sinus, smokes a pipe though he prefers cigarettes, goes to Palm Springs for his sun tan though he would rather go to San Francisco, stay indoors and read. During rehearsals he regularly throws calculated tantrums, thumps the table, bites his necktie and otherwise acts as an uninhibited genius is expected to act. His actors view these antics with mixed emotions, but one of them has conceded: "Everything he touches is so successful you have to respect him."
Last week the calendar of triumphs for jumpy, hot-eyed, 33-year-old Cy Howard was climaxed in his home town of Milwaukee, Wis. In celebration of "Nationality Night," Life with Luigi was broadcast before a packed audience of 12,500 in Milwaukee's Arena, which included Cy's proud parents, Mr. & Mrs. Sam Horwitz. Said Cy: "This thing's in my heart. I'm a guy who was born and lived on the wrong side of the tracks in Milwaukee. So look what I am now and what I've got. Nobody ever told me I couldn't do it. Nobody ever oppressed me. And look at the story itself—an Italian immigrant, created by a Jew and played by an Irisher [J. Carrol Naish]. It's wonderful—amazing!"
* Though Luigi led Hope for the previous three months, the latest Nielsen ratings show: Bob Hope, 15.9; Life With Luigi, 13.2.
Another Article From Time Magazine, this from the early days of television.
The Troubled Air
Monday, Jan. 12, 1953 Article
On the air four days before Christmas, Playwright George S. Kaufman said: "Let's make this one program on which nobody sings Silent Night." Most of the estimated 18 million viewers of This Is Show Business (Sun. 7:30 p.m., CBS-TV) were used to Panelist Kaufman's curmudgeon voice and comments. Many even agreed with him. But some disagreed violently. The CBS switchboard lit up with more than 200 phone calls protesting Kaufman's "irreligious remark." Next morning several hundred more complaints hit CBS and Sponsor American Tobacco Co. Even though Show Business had but three weeks to run before the sponsor replaced it with a comedy show, Kaufman was publicly fired.
Stunned, Kaufman tried to explain that he had not been "wittingly antireligious. I was merely speaking out against the use and overuse of this Christmas carol in connection with the sale of commercial products." He soon got impressive religious support: the Rev. Dr. Truman B. Douglass, chairman of the broadcasting and film department of the National Council of Churches, declared that Kaufman's remark was "more expressive of religious sensitiveness than of any spirit of derision." Furthermore, said Dr. Douglass, "the real sacrilege is the merciless repetition of Silent Night and similar Christmas hymns by crooners, hillbillies, dance bands and other musical barbarians." The New York Herald Tribune editorialized: "If a vocal few hundred from an audience that may reach into the millions can bar a performer, no one on the air will venture an opinion ... In such an atmosphere there can be neither philosophy nor wit, and truth itself soon becomes a victim."
CBS, searching for a substitute to take Kaufman's place, was turned down by Newsman John Daly ("I think Kaufman's dismissal was both unnecessary and absurd"), Comic Garry Moore ("Responsible people shouldn't give way to the small segment of the public who are all too anxious to hunt for things to condemn"), and Veteran Fred Allen, who snapped: "This thing is ridiculous. There are only two good wits on television, Groucho Marx and George S. Kaufman. With Kaufman gone, TV is half-witted." Finally, CBS found a substitute in Steve (Songs for Sale) Allen.
At week's end, after a series of top-level conferences, CBS executives, recovering from their panic, took a deep breath and announced a decision: George Kaufman will be banned from the panel only until the contract with American Tobacco Co. runs out this month. Then Show Business will return to the air at a new time (Sat. 9 p.m.), without a sponsor, but with George S. Kaufman back in his familiar place. Said Kaufman: "It constitutes some kind of vindication, I suppose."
In Los Angeles, another TV performer was charging a sponsor with excessive timidity. J. Carrol Naish, star of Life with Luigi, complained that Sponsor General Foods last week dropped the high-rated (39.7%) show largely because two scripts had offended 1) utility companies and 2) stockbrokers. One show had Luigi pitted against a power company that wanted to cut down a tree in his backyard; the other depicted Luigi as the troublesome owner of one share of stock in a big corporation. Snorted Naish, a Taft Republican: "The idea that I would countenance any subversive ideology on my show is ridiculous. I just don't understand it. After the stock-shares show, we got a letter of praise from the head of the stock exchange."
An Article about J Carrol Naish
In the pantheon of classic horror film actors, some have achieved true immortality because of their talent, such as Karloff and Zucco. But a few have, in a way, achieved a form of anonymity because of their talent, as well. Such is the case of the greatly talented and endlessly versatile character actor J. Carrol Naish, who achieved several truly memorable monster movie moments, but is largely forgotten today. Ironically, that is at least partly due to Naish's dedication to truly "becoming" his film roles, a trait which could be fairly called...
THE CRAFTY CRAFT OF J. CARROL NAISH
By Joe Winters
Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief. Doctor, lawman, Indian chief. All these and more have been portrayed on screen by character actor J. Carrol Naish during the course of a career that spanned around two-hundred films and dozens of television appearances.
Born Joseph Patrick Carrol Naish in New York City on January 21, 1897, and of Irish ancestry he was raised in the city’s Harlem area. He dropped out of school at 16 to join the Navy and during World War I was part of the Army Signal Corps. Having learned several languages in Europe he came back to the United States and jobs as a stuntman and extra in Hollywood.
With additional experience on the New York stage he returned in 1930 to Hollywood where his skill with dialects led to a steady flow of work in motion pictures. He had least eight small roles in 1931, about twice as many film appearances in 1932, and even more the following year, mostly in crime dramas, but branching into other genres.
His first brush with horror was in 1934’s Return Of The Terror, Warner Brothers’ remake of the first all-taking horror film, The Terror (1928). Naish played a former attendant of a sanitarium who testified against the superintendent and staff members at the hospital where strange experiments were going on.
By 1935 Joe was established in a variety of supporting roles in major motion pictures. He was the Grand Vizier in Lives Of A Bengal Lancer and landed roles in Captain Blood, Black Fury, and The Crusades. 1936 brought standout villainous roles in such murder thrillers as Moonlight Murder where Naish is mad musician Bejac escaped from the asylum and suspect in the murder of an opera singer (Leo Carillo). That same year Naish crossed paths with a certain Chinese detective played by Warner Oland in Charlie Chan At The Circus.
The following year he faced Peter Lorre (playing a certain Japanese detective) in Think Fast, Mr. Moto and took on yet another famed film sleuth (played by John Howard) in Bulldog Drummond Comes Back. As Mikhail Valdin, Naish was the co-instigator of an elaborate revenge plot. The next year Naish was back with Bulldog Drummond In Africa, this time as a sophisticated, yet sadistic spy chief who runs afoul of one of his own pet lions.
It was only a matter of time before someone as busy as J. Carrol Naish would enter the realm of monsters and mad scientists, starting with George Zucco in Dr. Renault's Secret (20th Century Fox, 1942). Naish was most sympathetic as Noel, the doctor’s strange assistant whose kindness and careful efforts to be civilized would be aggravated into a homicidal rage by the cruelty of the doctor and other inconsiderate humans. The "secret" involves a series of experiments that detail how Noel came to be.
Naish was back in the bad guy business as Japanese spy chief Daka in Columbia’s 1943 cliffhanger serial Batman. Over the course of fifteen chapters with such titles as "The Electrical Brain," "The Living Corpse," "Sign of the Sphinx," and "Doom of the Rising Sun," Daka takes delight in turning enemies into electronically controlled zombies while dispatching others to his alligator pit. A fitting fate awaited Daka in the final chapter.
A much kinder fate awaited Naish when he earned his first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his role as an Italian prisoner of war in Sahara (1943).
Also in 1943 Naish appeared in Calling Dr. Death, the first of Universal’s Inner Sanctum mysteries, all starring Lon Chaney, Jr. Naish is quietly methodical as Inspector Gregg trying to wear down his main suspect (Chaney), the husband of a cold-hearted woman (Ramsay Ames) found dead with her face obliterated by acid. Naish took what might have been a more typical cop role and gave it some depth and insight into the detective’s ongoing plight compared to that of the doctor. "My job starts with death" explains Gregg. "I look for life and have to destroy it."
He’s persistent like Columbo, but without the endearing goofiness, bordering instead on taunting and even suspect. Interestingly (or not), the three lead males Naish, Chaney and David Bruce (the latter seen that year in The Mad Ghoul, but here as another suspect) all sport similar mustaches. Fortunately Miss Ames and Patricia Morrison do not.
The Whistler (Columbia, 1944) was the first in a series of eight films based on the popular radio series and starring Richard Dix in all but one of the films playing a different character each time. In this initial entry, he takes out a murder contract…on himself. Naish plays the duty-bound hit man with an exaggerated fear of death.
Naish is less philosophical and less scrupulous as Dr. Igor Markoff in The Monster Maker (1944), yet another fun chiller produced by low-budget Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC). Markoff deliberately injects a concert pianist (Ralph Morgan) with disfiguring acromegaly germs in a wild scheme to marry the musician’s daughter. Markoff also takes time to release a lab gorilla in hopes of dispatching a troublesome and jealous lady assistant. The musician kills Markoff. The lady assistant cures the musician. And the gorilla, we hope, lives happily ever after.
J. Carrol was back in his right mind as Dr. Fletcher for Universal’s Jungle Woman (1944), the second (and weakest) of the studio’s Ape Woman trilogy. Fletcher explains to a court of inquiry the events leading to the death of Paula Dupree (Acquanetta). Flashbacks and flashbacks within flashbacks feature lots of footage from the previous Captive Wild Woman (1943).
This thwarts any attempt there may have been to make Jungle Woman into a Val Lewton type of thriller where we don’t really see the Ape Woman. We do see her in a flashback and at the end in the morgue where Paula’s body has reverted to that of the Ape Woman, thus clearing Fletcher of murder. For all his troubles, the good doctor was unceremoniously bumped off by part time Creeper Rondo Hatton in the trilogy’s conclusion Jungle Captive (1945). Naish wasn’t in the picture, and the murder took place off camera.
Naish is very much in view for Universal’s monster rally House Of Frankenstein (1944). In perhaps his best- remembered horror role as the murderous, yet sympathetic hunchback Daniel he assists mad doctor Niemann (Boris Karloff) while yearning for the gypsy Ilonka (Elena Verdugo). She in turn has eyes for Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney, Jr.) when he isn’t prowling the countryside as the Wolf Man.
Almost everybody comes to a bad end. Dracula (John Carradine) disintegrates in the sunlight. Ilonka is killed by the Wolf Man, but not before she fires a silver bullet into him, and Daniel himself is tossed out the tower lab window by the Frankenstein Monster (Glenn Strange), who then takes Boris for a walk in the quicksand.
Naish and Chaney were back in the Inner Sanctum for Strange Confession (1945), a remake of Universal’s The Man Who Reclaimed His Head (1934). Naish plays Roger Graham, the head of a pharmaceutical company who takes credit for chemist Jeff Carter’s (Chaney) discoveries. While Jeff and his assistant Dave (Lloyd Bridges) search for a rare mold in South America, Graham markets a new drug using one of Carter’s untested formulae and at the same time tries to woo Jeff’s wife Mary (Brenda Joyce).
When scores of people, including Jeff’s own son, die as a result of using the worthless drug, Dad loses his mind and Graham loses his head, literally.
Naish earned his second Academy Award nomination and a Golden Globe win for his supporting role in 1945’s A Medal For Benny.
The following year saw him co-starring again with Peter Lorre in Warners’ The Beast With Five Fingers. Naish plays the Commissario of police in a late Nineteenth Century Italian village where murder and the threat of a disembodied hand imperil the residents of a nearby mansion.
Amidst the trickery, madness and human drama, Naish maintains an inquisitive and good-natured attitude in light of the strange goings-on. The closing scene lets him wrap things up with a comic relief ending that doesn’t quite fit the overall eerie mood of the picture, nor does it ruin it.
By this time, horror films were temporarily on their way out again, but J. Carrol Naish was far from finished. Comedies, dramas, mysteries, westerns and more were on his well-filled plate for the next 25 years. The actor was no stranger to the new medium of television. His 1952 comedy series Life With Luigi was based on the popular radio show he had starred in since 1948. The CBS-TV version only lasted about three months, even with I Love Lucy as a lead-in.
Naish’s next series cast him as the lead in the short-lived syndicated New Adventures Of Charlie Chan (1957). Next he played Chief Hawkeye who ran the local supply store in the contemporary dude ranch comedy series Guestward Ho! That lasted about a year, but Naish continued to put in guest appearances on TV shows, including Get Smart, I Dream Of Jeannie, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. , Green Acres, and the all-star whodunit series Burke's Law. Naish was among the detectives-turned-suspect as Mr. Toto in the episode "Who Killed Supersleuth?"
Naish’s final role returned him to the horror fold in director Al Adamson’s low-rent monster rally Dracula Vs. Frankenstein (1971). Naish played wheelchair- bound Dr. Duryea, really Dr. Frankenstein, the last of his infamous, monster-making bloodline. His carnival chamber of horrors, complete with dwarf Grazbo (Angelo Rossitto) as the barker, is a front for a lab that even includes some Kenneth Strickfaden 1931 Frankenstein equipment.
Duryea provides injections that send hulking mute assistant Groton (Lon Chaney, Jr. in his final role as well) into a murderous axe-wielding frenzy against hippies, motorcycle gangs and others who might stray along the piers at night. Count Dracula (Zandor Vorkov) joins forces with the doctor to revive the Monster (John Bloom, who was one half of The Incredible Two- Headed Transplant around that time).
Even Forry Ackerman (in a cameo as revenge victim Dr. Beaumont) is thrown into the mix. Toward the end, Dr. Frankenstein bumps into a guillotine with the expected result, Groton is gunned down, Grazbo falls on an axe, and Dracula tears the Monster to pieces and is disintegrated by sunlight.
Yes...Naish "lost his head" in his final film role...
Dracula Vs. Frankenstein may not have been the fondest of farewells for Naish, but it remains a source of good goofy fun for fans.
J. Carrol Naish died in January of 1973 from emphysema just a few days after his 76th birthday. Yet because of his skill and attention to detail in playing nearly all manner of people, his gallery of characters can still reach out and touch, grab, or humor us to this day and beyond.
Thanks, Joe. It's true...because of his versatility as a character actor and his ability to truly submerge himself into each of the film roles he tackled, J. Carrol Naish just doesn't have the public recognition other memorable character actors enjoy today. But classic fright film fans will never forget his brooding and tortured portrayal of the hunchback in House Of Frankenstein and that alone will keep his memory live in that creepy corner of Tinsletown we like to call HORROR-WOOD.
Here is Vito Scotti's Obituary
Vito Scotti, 78; Acted in Television
REUTERS
Published: June 16, 1996
Vito Scotti, a character actor in films and television, died on June 5 at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital in Woodland Hills, Calif. He was 78.
Mr. Scotti first delighted television audiences in 1953 as Luigi Basco, an Italian immigrant who ran a Chicago antiques store in the hit series "Life With Luigi." Five years later, he took on the role of Rama the Indian in a recurring segment, "Gunga Ram," on the children's television show "Andy's Gang."
He made many guest appearances on television during the 1960's and 70's.
He also appeared in films, including "How Sweet It Is," "The Godfather," "Where the Boys Are," "Von Ryan's Express" and "Herbie Rides Again."
He is survived by his wife, Beverly, a daughter and a son.
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