Wake Up and Read! :)

Hello!

Some vintage magazines and a book featuring Jack Kelly recently joined the Kellection.

In one of those magazines, I found this brilliant ad:

1959 ad promoting "National Library Week" (more here)

So, let's do just that: wake up and read about JK! :)

First up, here's a short but sweet write-up about Mr. K from a column in a 1960 newspaper TV magazine:

"STAR CALLING: Things are restless at the Warner [Bros.] corral again. Clint 'Cheyenne' Walker is threatening another walkout. Jim 'Maverick' Garner is still holding out even though 10 of the new season's shows are already completed. Ty ['Bronco'] Hardin has suddenly but so sincerely got religion he is giving Bible readings on the set between scenes.

Only Jack 'Bart Maverick' Kelly is content. He has a new contract. He's bought himself a stylish new house in the most expensive section of Sunset Boulevard, where he's pushing out walls, installing a swimming pool and right now living surrounded by packing boxes. Donna, his wife, who as a movie starlet called herself May Wynn, does all the cooking and housework since no maid would submit to the clutter everywhere and eating off a two-foot coffee table while seated on old camel cushions, which so far are the Kellys' only chairs.

'Clint Walker can really live in the wilds,' Jack told me. 'He likes it. The last time he walked out on the studio, he took his family with him and they were really free people, not dependent on the comforts like most of the rest of us are for happiness. Wayde Preston, if he really quits, could make a fine living flying. Ef Zimbalist is talented in a dozen ways, but me, I'm just an actor. It's all I've ever wanted to be--a good actor, preferably in light comedy.

'Oh, I know. I work those impossible TV hours, usually seven A.M. to seven P.M. I never can go away because even over the weekends I'm studying scripts. I spend whatever free time I have at home, when I'm not making like an amateur chef, or watching TV--studying performances. I'm the kind of goof who cried at Father Knows Best, and all the time behind everything else I'm thinking about how I can be a better light comedian.

'That's why I miss Jim Garner being out of the series. We work together like a right and left hand. The first time we ever met we had to make a [screen] test together. We weren't even introduced. I asked him why he was standing up so tall, trying to top me, and Jim took it from there.

'It's been like that with us ever since. I think the best Mavericks have been the ones in which we were together. All Jim and I have to do in a scene is turn and look at one another and we know just what to do to make it funnier. If I had anything to do with it, which unfortunately I don't, Jim would be back tomorrow.'"

Please stay tuned and read more about JK in TDS! :)