Take My Wife

What can we say about wives that hasn’t already been stated more eloquently by these famous, wittier people…

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), British poet-essayist-moralist-critic-biographer-editor-lexicographer: “Bachelors have consciences, men have wives.”

Mark Twain (1835-1910), American author and humorist: “Both marriage and death ought to be welcome; the one promises happiness, doubtless the other assures it.”

John Barrymore (1882-1942), American theater and film actor: “I am thinking of taking a fifth wife…Solomon had a thousand wives and he is a synonym for wisdom.”

Groucho Marx (1890-1977), American vaudevillian-screen comedian-early television game show host: “Wives are people who feel they don’t dance enough.”

Henny Youngman (1906-1998), American comedian, violinist and master of the one-liner: “Why do Jewish men die before their wives? They want to.”

Dick Van Dyke (1925 - ) American actor-comedian-writer-singer-dancer: “Women will never be as successful as men because they have no wives to advise them.”

What we’re looking for in the moviehouse is a special kind of wife, the kind of wife, in particular, who either endures a film franchise or finds herself scripted out of the picture. What are we talking about? Well, when you watch the series of “Die Hard” movies, you’re guaranteed the presence of Bruce Willis as beleaguered cop John McClane. That’s a given.

In the original 1988 “Die Hard,” the reconciliation between McClane and estranged wife Holly gives the mayhem heart. Holly is memorably portrayed by Bonnie Bedelia (best known these days as Camille Braverman, the family matriarch in the TV series “Parenthood”).

Would-be terrorist Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) threatens
Holly (Bonnie Bedelia) in "Die Hard" (1988).

In the second film, 1990’s “Die Hard 2,” the couple has reunited, and again, it’s up to Everyman cop McClane to singlehandedly save his wife from mortal danger. The tears of joy streaming down McClane's face seemed heartbreakingly genuine when he exclaims, “Holly, there’s your f***ing landing light!”

Holly asks her husband, "Why does this keep happening to us?"
in "Die Hard 2" (1990).

The plot of the third movie, 1995’s “Die Hard with a Vengeance,” has the couple separated again, and Bonnie Bedelia as Holly is nowhere to be seen, although Willis’ McClane does have a phone conversation with her. In the fourth film, 2007’s “Live Free or Die Hard,” Holly is reduced to a photograph, and by the fifth and latest entry, 2013’s “A Good Day to Die Hard,” her character is given a passing mention in the screenplay.

There had been rumors about Bedelia reprising her role in “A Good Day to Die Hard.” Willis said, “I always think about Bonnie Bedelia and having her come back. Those things are unfortunately out of my hands. It has to do with the story.” Considering that Willis pretty much has control over every aspect of the “Die Hard” franchise, we wonder whose hands it’s out of.

Willis once said that he would like to make one more “Die Hard” movie before retiring the character of John McClane, but the critics were not kind to “A Good Day to Die Hard.” Peter Rainer of The Christian Science Monitor noted, “John’s appeal was always his ordinariness, but director John Moore has him surviving more explosions than Wile E. Coyote, and with hardly a scratch.” A.O. Scott of The New York Times wrote, “Everything that made the first ‘Die Hard’ memorable – the nuance of character, the political subtext, the cowboy wit – has been dumbed down or scrubbed away entirely.” Like the character of Holly McClane.

That’s the disappearing wife.

Beverly D'Angelo, Anthony Michael Hall, Dana Barron, and Chevy Chase
join in a road song in "National Lampoon's Vacation" (1983).

On the other hand, through almost 15 years of four National Lampoon “Vacation” films – the original “Vacation” (1983), “European Vacation” (1985), “Christmas Vacation” (1989), and “Vegas Vacation” (1997) – Beverly D’Angelo and Chevy Chase have remained a steadfast screen couple as Ellen and Clark “Sparky” Griswold, although the actors portraying the Griswold children Rusty and Audrey have changed in each picture. (Chase claimed it was his idea to repeatedly recast the children, saying, “I always wanted to make the joke, ‘Jeez, I hardly ever get the chance to see the kids anymore. I hardly know who they are. We should go on a vacation.’ That was funny to me – the idea that Clark was such a great family man but still didn’t even recognize his own children.”)

Beverly D’Angelo once told Entertainment Weekly, “Doing the ‘Vacation’ movies gave me freedom to do independent films I couldn’t otherwise afford to do.”

Juliette Lewis (Audrey #4) and Beverly D'Angelo appeared
in holiday ads for Old Navy in 2012.

In 2007, Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo did a voice-over cameo as the Griswolds for the “Star Wars” parody “Blue Harvest” on the Fox TV series “Family Guy.” The couple reunited in 2010 for “Hotel Hell Vacation,” an online comedy short for HomeAway, a website promoting vacation rentals. For the Christmas season of 2012, D’Angelo and Chase were featured as the Griswolds in a popular ad campaign for Old Navy clothing stores, which also included two of the screen’s Rustys (Anthony Michael Hall and Jason Lively), two Audreys (Dana Barron and Juliette Lewis), and a younger pair of “new” Rusty and “new” Audrey.

Gates McFadden was the screen's first Mrs. Jack Ryan
in "The Hunt for Red October (1990).

When the late insurance agent-espionage thriller novelist Tom Clancy created Jack Ryan, the former Marine-CIA operative hero of eight novels, he gave him a wife, ophthalmic surgeon Dr. Caroline Ryan. Alec Baldwin was featured as Jack Ryan in the 1990 film adaptation of Clancy’s The Hunt for Red October, directed by John McTiernan (who directed the original “Die Hard”). Caroline was played by Gates McFadden, best known as Dr. Beverly Crusher on TV’s  “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and in four “Next Generation” movies.

Harrison Ford (as Jack Ryan), Anne Archer as (Dr. Caroline Ryan)

By the time the 1992 follow-up to “The Hunt for Red October,” “Patriot Games,” came out, Baldwin was replaced by Harrison Ford (Baldwin had been performing in a Shakespeare play on Broadway, although he later said he turned down the role because of “sleazy Hollywood tools”), Caroline Ryan became Cathy Ryan, and McFadden was gone in favor of Anne Archer, best known as Michael Douglas’ wife in 1987’s “Fatal Attraction.”

Bridget Moynahan (as Dr. Catherine Muller), Ben Affleck (as Jack Ryan)
in "The Sum of All Fears" (2002)

Ford and Archer reprised their roles in 1994’s “Clear and Present Danger,” but when the franchise was rebooted again in 2002’s “The Sum of All Fears” (chronologically, a prequel to the previous films), Ben Affleck was cast as Jack Ryan, and his fiancée, Dr. Catherine Muller was portrayed by Bridget Moynahan, who costarred opposite Colin Farrell in the 2003 CIA thriller “The Recruit.”

Nick and Nora Charles (William Powell, Myrna Loy)
enjoy a quiet evening at home.

One of the most loyal of Hollywood wives was Myrna Loy as Nora Charles, to William Powell’s Nick Charles, in the “Thin Man” series of lighthearted murder mysteries produced from the mid-1930s to the mid-1940s. The Thin Man, published in 1934, was the last novel published by Dashiell Hammett until his death in 1961. The author of several short stories, Hammett wrote only five novels, including The Maltese Falcon, which introduced the world to what the writer himself described as the “hard and shifty” private eye Sam Spade.

In the original The Thin Man novel, Nick Charles is an alcoholic former private investigator who retired when he married Nora, a wealthy heiress. (Nick was once a Pinkerton detective, as was Hammett in real life.) Hammett allegedly modeled Nora on his longtime partner, writer Lillian Hellman, and based the characters’ alcohol-fueled, flippant repartee on their relationship. (Hellman and Hammett were portrayed in the 1977 film “Julia” by Jane Fonda and, in an Oscar-winning performance, Jason Robards.)

The 1934 screen version of The Thin Man was produced just a year after the repeal of Prohibition and set the tone for the film series’ depiction of extensive and casual use of alcohol. William Powell and Myrna Loy were paired in five more “Thin Man” mysteries. Although the original “thin man” was an incidental character, the nickname became associated with Powell and was used in the titles of the sequels, “After the Thin Man” (1936), “Another Thin Man” (1939), “Shadow of the Thin Man” (1941), “The Thin Man Goes Home” (1945), and “Song of the Thin Man” (1947). Powell and Loy’s witty characters were so strongly etched into the public mind that many assumed the two were a married couple in real life.

Phyllis Kirk,and Peter Lawford and his cigarette
costarred in the 1950s TV series "The Thin Man."

An attempt to recapture the chemistry with Peter Lawford and Phyllis Kirk (who was almost turned into a museum exhibit by Vincent Price in the 1953 3D horror flick “House of Wax”) in the TV series “The Thin Man” lasted only two seasons from 1957 to 1959. An obscure 1975 made-for-television movie “Nick and Nora” teamed Craig Stevens (TV’s “Peter Gunn”) and Jo Ann Pflug (nurse Lt. “Dish” in the 1970 motion picture “MASH”).

Throughout five motion pictures spanning fourteen years, Talia Shire remained a steadfast pillar of support and adoration for Sylvester Stallone’s screen alter ego, Rocky Balboa, introduced in the original 1976 film “Rocky” as a pathetic wallflower named Adrian Pennino, who, in 1979’s “Rocky II,” became Mrs. Balboa. Sixteen years after “Rocky V,” when the 60-year-old Stallone resurrected the aging pugilist in “Rocky Balboa” (2006), he opted to bury Adrian, explaining her absence as death from cancer and thus exiling her as another disappearing wife.

At the time, Sylvester Stallone said that in the original script for “Rocky Bslboa,” Adrian “was alive. But it just didn’t have the same dramatic punch. I thought, ‘What if she’s gone?’ That would cut Rocky’s heart out and drop him down to ground zero.”

Costar Burt Young, who has portrayed Adrian’s brother and Rocky’s best friend Paulie Pennino since the get-go, said, “ I was sort of part of that decision…Adrian’s probably more prevalent by not being in this movie than if she was.”

As for Shire, who said she was “doing much less acting then,” she admitted she “was aware of the possibility of Adrian being in it and dying, but my being in the movie or not was not as interesting as how Sylvester was going to achieve this. Ultimately, I was wondering how in the world he was going to justify getting Rocky back into the ring.”

Waxing perhaps too eloquently, Shire reflected, “The film has great regard for the process of mourning. Sly utilizes mourning to empower Rocky, and Adrian is made very mythical.”

Remarking on Shire’s initial response to the demise of Adrian Balboa, Stallone noted, “She handled it with such dignity.” Backpedaling with remarkable tact, he went on to declare, “I told her, ‘Talia, you’re the heart and soul of this movie, but you’re just here in spirit, and that’s what’s going to drive the film. Your heart drove the first film.’ It’s what I call ‘The Adrian Factor.’” (Too bad Shire’s agent didn’t pursue a percentage of the box office receipts for his client’s “spirit.”)

Box-office gold was mined twice in 1932 when Johnny Weissmuller, a record-breaking Austro-Hungarian Empire-born swimmer who won five Olympic gold medals, was cast as Hollywood’s sixth Tarzan, and Maureen O’Sullivan, a beautiful Irish immigrant under contract to MGM, landed the role of Jane Parker, the British-bred jungle ingénue, in “Tarzan the Ape Man.” (In Edgar Rice Burroughs’ original Tarzan books, her name is Jane Porter, and she hails from Baltimore, Maryland.)

Pre-Code Hollywood allowed three versions of an innocent dip in a jungle pond by Jane to be filmed for the 1934 sequel. “Tarzan and His Mate”: one in her loincloth outfit, another topless, and the third nude. Likewise, in pre-censored Hollywood, jungle togs for both Jane and Tarzan were scandalously scanty. At one point, O’Sullivan’s brief costume popped open to reveal her uncovered crotch. The actress later recalled her lack of wardrobe “started such a fervor that the letters just came in…thousands of women that were objecting to my costume… I was offered all kinds of places where I could go in my shame, to hide from the cruel public who were ready to throw stones at me.”

By the time Weissmuller and O’Sullivan were paired in their third movie, 1936’s “Tarzan Escapes,” Tarzan’s loincloth had been transformed into virtually a pair of leather shorts and Jane’s peekaboo two-piece became a modest animal-skin miniskirt.

Maureen O’Sullivan costarred in three more “Tarzan” pictures, culminating with 1942’s “Tarzan’s New York Adventure,” before the franchise moved from MGM to RKO Pictures, losing O’Sullivan as Jane since she was still under contract to MGM. In Johnny Weissmuller’s first two “Tarzan” films for RKO, “Tarzan Triumphs” and “Tarzan’s Desert Mystery” (both 1943), Jane’s absence was explained as her return to England to help the war effort, while surrogate “Janes” were portrayed by Frances Gifford, as the princess of a lost city in “Tarzan Triumphs,” and Nancy Kelly, as a magician in “Tarzan’s Desert Mystery.”

In 1945, Brenda Joyce (above), a blonde wartime pinup who was also an athletic swimmer, joined Weissmuller as the screen’s newest Jane in “Tarzan and the Amazons,” repeating the role in “Tarzan and the Leopard Women” (1946), “Tarzan and the Huntress” (1947), and “Tarzan and the Mermaids” (1948). She disliked the part of Jane but in particular detested Weissmuller’s incorrigible sexual harassment. Joyce once told a confidante, “How Johnny holds all that manhood under his loincloth defies the laws of nature.”

When Lex Barker took over the role of Tarzan from Weissmuller in 1949’s “Tarzan’s Magic Fountain” (above), Joyce portrayed Jane one last time before personal problems, including a painful divorce, led her to retire from acting. Four different actresses played Jane in Barker’s four subsequent outings as Tarzan.

Adventurer Rick O'Connell (Brendan Fraser) meets
his future wife, Egyptologist Evelyn Carnahan
(Rachel Weisz) in "The Mummy" (1999)...

In 1999’s “The Mummy,” an action-packed, high-energy reboot of the musty Universal Studios’ horror franchise, Brendan Fraser, as wisecracking, pistol-packing Foreign Legionnaire and adventurer Rick O’Connell, is teamed with Rachel Weisz, as accident-prone Egyptologist Evelyn Carnahan. Their cheeky banter and blossoming romance is reminiscent of smart and sassy ‘40s comedies. The 2001 sequel, “The Mummy Returns” (an overblown exercise in excessive special effects and idiotic plotting in which creatures from the first film are inexplicably resurrected), finds Weisz along for the ride as Rick’s wife, with a smartass son in tow.

...Just two movies later, Mrs. O'Connell
becomes actress Maria Bello.

By the time the producers decided to milk the series for a third and final time in 2006 with “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor,” Rachel Weisz had won an Oscar, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors’ Guild Award for her performance as an ill-fated Amnesty International activist in 2005’s “The Constant Gardener” and she bade farewell to mummies, and actress Maria Bello played Evie Carnahan O’Connell.

Reba McEntire and Michael Gross as the ultimate doomsday
preppers Heather and Burt Gummer in "Tremors" (1990)

When the tongue-in-cheek monster movie “Tremors” was first released in 1990, it was only modestly successful, and costar Kevin Bacon was convinced his career hit a new low. In a recent interview, he said, “I broke down and fell to the sidewalk, screaming to my pregnant wife, ‘I can’t believe I’m doing a movie about underground worms!’” It eventually became a blockbuster hit on TV, home video and the internet. No doubt a huge part of the film’s popularity was the scene-stealing presence of a married couple of heavily armed, diehard survivalists, Burt and Heather Gummer, played delightfully over-the-top by Michael Gross (previously best known as Michael J. Fox’s former-hippie dad on “Family Ties”) and Reba McEntire (who also sang the movie’s closing song).

While Michael Gross went on to reprise his role in two direct-to-video sequels, one video prequel, and a shortlived TV series, Reba McEntire became one of cinema’s quickest disappearing wives by choosing not to return. As explained in the script to the 1996 sequel, “Tremors II: Aftershock,” Heather Gummer left Burt when he became too paranoid even for her, and she moved away after divorcing him. Burt continued to use the name “Heather” as part of the code to access his bunker’s security system.

Pert Kelton played the original Alice Kramden
opposite a comparatively svelte Jack Gleason.

Because “The Honeymooners” started as a recurring sketch in the early 1950s on “The Jackie Gleason” before becoming a shortlived series which was later revived as hour-long TV specials and made-for-television movies off and on until the late 1970s, keeping track of the actresses who played the long-suffering spouses of bus driver Ralph Kramden (Jackie Gleason) and sewer worker Ed Norton (Art Carney) is not easy. Actress Pert Kelton, a reliable presence in several comedies of the 1930s and 1940s as the leading lady’s wisecracking pal, played Alice Kramden in a handful of sketches.

When Gleason moved his show to CBS, Audrey Meadows (above) took over the role and remained in the public’s mind as the quintessential Alice, always willing to respond to Ralph’s repeated threats of “Pow! Right in the kisser!” with an unfazed, “Aww, shut up!” She went on to play Alice in the so-called “Classic 39” episodes of the half-hour sitcom from 1955 to 1956.

Jane Kean (as Trixie Norton), Sheila MacRae (as Alice Kramden)
in the late 1960s reboot of "The Honeymooners"

Sheila MacRae portrayed Alice Kramden from 1966 into the early 1970s, during which time Pert Kelton returned to play Alice’s mother. In a series of made-for-television movies in the late 1970s, Audrey Meadows returned as Alice.

The "Classic 39" cast: Jackie Gleason, Art Carney, Audrey Meadows, Joyce Randolph

Ed Norton’s wife, Trixie (alleged in some scripts to be a former burlesque dancer), was played by Elaine Stritch in the first sketch before being replaced by Joyce Randolph, who became the actress most closely associated with the role. From 1966 on, Trixie was portrayed by Jane Kean.

Dagwood (Arthur Lake) and Blondie (Penny Singleton) keep an eye on Baby Dumpling.

Hands down, the most reliable screen wife has to be Penny Singleton, in her starring role in 28 “Blondie” movies, based on the phenomenally popular comic strip, created by cartoonist Chic Young in 1930. (Chic Young allegedly had a hand in the screenplay for the original 1938 film “Blondie.”)

Important milestones in the 15,000 comic strips included the buxom Blondie’s marriage to the sandwich-loving Dagwood Bumstead in 1933 and the birth of “Baby Dumpling” Alexander in 1934. Chic Young died in 1973 at the age of 72, but the legacy was seamlessly carried on by his son, Dean Young, who continues to write the comic strip, illustrated by John Marshall with his assistant, Frank Cummings.

Penny Singleton, who had a small role as a brunette nightclub singer in 1936’s “After the Thin Man” (above), portrayed Blondie, the fearless bedrock of the Bumstead home, from 1938 to 1950 (each of the 28 pictures was exactly 70 minutes long), inseparably alongside Arthur Lake as the hopelessly addled Dagwood. Coincidentally, both Singleton and Lake were simultaneously featured in a successful “Blondie” radio serial that amazingly matched the longevity of the movie series.

Pamela Britton and Arthur Lake in the 1957 series "Blondie"

Penny Singleton, who passed away in 2003 at the age of 95, went on to provide the voice of Jane Jetson in the hit animated series “The Jetsons,” while Arthur Lake, unlike a number of actors who typically shun the lot of being typecast, unabashedly embraced the role of Dagwood. Years after the “Blondie” franchise wrapped up, Lake reprised his role as Dagwood in the 1957 TV series “Blondie,” in which Blondie was played by Pamela Britton, an actress who later portrayed landlady Lorelei Brown on the mid-1960s sitcom “My Favorite Martian.” The series lasted 26 episodes for a single season.

From the omnipresent to the nonexistent, undoubtedly the least visible of wives on screens big and small is Vera, the much-spoken-of but perpetually unseen spouse of between-jobs accountant Norm Peterson (George Wendt), who was a bar fixture from day one through all 275 episodes of “Cheers,” from 1982 to 1993. At times, only Vera’s legs were glimpsed through a window, or a hand was shown waving from a passing car.

Bernadette Birkett as Vera Peterson (left) and as George Wendt's real-life wife

The only time Vera actually appeared on-camera was with a pie-covered face in a fifth season episode, and the actress remained uncredited (although, in the moviehouse, we’re convinced that she was Wendt’s real-life wife, improvisational comedian Bernadette Birkett).

Christopher Reeve, as Clark Kent, admires Margot Kidder's legwork
as intrepid Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane.

Speaking of nonexistent spouses, the (sad) fact is that superheroes, as a rule, cannot afford the luxury of a devout companion. Their complex and complicated lifestyles preclude the capacity for a spouse, much less a significant partner. In the movies, one of the closest encounters a superhero had with a permanent relationship was between Christopher Reeve’s Superman and Margot Kidder’s Lois Lane in 1980’s “Superman II.” In 1978’s “Superman,” directed by Richard Donner (best known for the “Lethal Weapon” series of films), brassy, whip-smart Kidder and nerdish Reeve, in his guise as “mild-mannered reporter” Clark Kent, engaged in snappy banter which, not unlike the aforementioned “The Mummy,” called to mind flippant dialogue from films of the 1940s.

The sexual tension between Lois Lane and Clark Kent finally boiled over in “Superman II” when she figured out Clark was Superman, and he was allowed to bed her, in the cozy ambience of Superman’s Arctic Fortress of Solitude, albeit only after surrendering his superpowers. And then, in order to regain his superpowers, the Man of Steel had to make Lois forget the whole roll-in-the-ice. At least he remembered getting his Krypton rocks off.

Behind the scenes of “Superman II,” director Richard Donner had disagreements with the producers, who wanted a campier, more comic book-like approach to the action, and the director was sent packing in favor of Richard Lester (a director famous for the classic Beatles movies “A Hard Day’s Night” and “Help!”). Margot Kidder was especially vocal about her dissatisfaction with the producers’ decision to replace Donner. As a result, in “Superman III,” also directed by Richard Lester, Kidder ended up with about five minutes of screen-time, while Reeve’s Clark dallied with Smallville high school flame Lana Lang, played by Annette O’Toole. (Interestingly, O’Toole portrayed Clark’s mother, Martha Kent, on the TV series “Smallville,” while Kidder guest-starred in two episodes of the series as Dr. Bridgette Crosby, an emissary to Dr. Virgil Swann, played by Christopher Reeve.)

Former screen rivals for Clark Kent, Margot Kidder
(Lois Lane) and Annette O'Toole (Lana Lang),
pose on the set of TV's "Smallville."

In a 1986 interview, Margot Kidder said she had nearly given up acting the previous year because “in this insane business I’m not with my daughter (then ten-year-old Maggie) very much, and she’s far more important to me than movies.” Her plan then was to switch to something “sensible,” but she came to the conclusion that she didn’t “know how to do anything else – and I’m not very good at being inactive.”

Margot Kidder ‘s Lois Lane had a more substantial presence in “Superman IV: The Quest for Peace,” directed by Sidney J. Furie (“The Ipcress File,” “Lady Sings the Blues,” “Iron Eagle”) but by1987, not only was the sexual tension long gone, but so was the movie audience’s interest in the whole “Superman” franchise.

Perhaps the most in need of female companionship in the moviehouse is the hapless lot of the screen’s loneliest (and seemingly indestructible) serial killers.

Michael Myers (above) was apparently fixated on his sister, Laurie (played by Jamie Lee Curtis in four “Halloween” films).

A face only a mother could love...Pamela Voorhees embraces beloved son Jason.

Jason Voorhees, the hockey-masked, machete-slashing juggernaut of the “Friday the 13^th” pictures, had an extreme Oedipal complex ever since a Camp Crystal Lake counselor beheaded his mother.

Betsy Palmer poses with "I've Got a Secret" host Garry Moore
and guest panelists the sons of Bing Crosby.

(Incidentally, headless mom Pamela Voorhees was portrayed by Betsy Palmer, a Hollywood veteran and longtime panelist on the TV quiz show “I’ve Got a Secret” who played the main female role of nurse Lt. Girard in director John Ford’s “Mister Roberts.”)

Freddy Kreuger was an unrepentant child-killer who murdered his wife Loretta (Lindsey Fielder in 1991’s “Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare”) when she found out about his basement hobby.

The bride's groom is only moments away from ending the honeymoon
by declaring "We belong dead!" in "The Bride of Frankenstein" (1935).

Going back to the roots, in 1935’s madcap masterpiece of horror and humor, “The Bride of Frankenstein,” the Monster’s betrothed didn’t even survive the final reel, although the widower was resurrected for six more appearances by Universal Studio.

“Bride of Chucky” (1998) introduced Jennifer Tilly (above), the delightful screwball actress and champion poker player, as the ill-fated former girlfriend of serial murderer Charles Lee Ray (Brad Dourif) whose soul is transferred into a bridal doll for the killer doll Chucky, who made his debut three movies earlier in 1988’s “Child’s Play.”

Tilly reprised her role as Tiffany the doll in 2004’s “Seed of Chucky,” in which the hellish couple welcomed a son into the family fold. In 2013’s “Curse of Chucky,” Tiffany was ultimately transformed back into the voluptuous human form of Jennifer Tilly.

When the shoe is on the other foot, the quickest case of the disappearing husband occurred when the 1960s TV sitcom “Bewitched,” starring Elizabeth Montgomery, switched Darrin Stevens on the audience without batting an eye or twitching a nose. Dick York, who originated the role of Darrin in 1964, had suffered from a severely painful back condition as the result of an accident while filming “They Came to Cordura,” a 1959 adventure drama starring Gary Cooper and Rita Hayworth. His disability eventually caused production delays and required script rewrites. After collapsing on the set and being rushed to the hospital, he left the series in 1969, and Dick Sargent was promptly cast as Darrin, playing the role until 1972.

“”The Egg and I” was a 1947 rural romantic comedy starring Fred MacMurray and Claudette Colbert as a city couple who pull up stakes to become chicken farmers. The sophisticated stars had the picture stolen underfoot by Marjorie Main and Percy Kilbride as Ma and Pa Kettle, a bucolic couple with 15 children. Ma was a robust, boisterious, buxom (to say the least) matriarch who had trouble remembering the names of her prodigious brood, while Pa was a slight, drawling, laidback epitome of laziness, whose only talent was avoiding work.

Universal Studios cranked out nine Kettle films from 1949 to 1957. Richard Long (best remembered as attorney Jarrod Barkely in the Barbara Stanwyck western series “The Big Valley”) portrayed the Kettles’ eldest son, Tom, the most citified of the clan who goes to college to study animal husbandry, in the first four films. The backlot productions were shot on shoestring budgets, and the series overall grossed an estimated $35 million, virtually saving Universal from bankruptcy

Percy Kilbride became ill while filming 1953’s “Ma and Pa Kettle in Waikiki,” and a double was used so Kilbride could conserve his energy for closeups and dialogue. It would be his last screen appearance. (In September of 1964, Percy Kilbride was injured in an automobile accident. He underwent brain surgery two months later and died the following month.)

Arthur Hunnicutt in his most familiar screen role as an ornery frontier cuss

In “The Kettles of Ozark” (1956), veteran character actor Arthur Hunnicutt played Pa Kettle’s brother, Sedgewick.

In the final film of the series, 1957’s “The Kettlles on Old McDonald’s Farm,” Pa Kettle was portrayed by Parker Fennelly (best known as the folksy “Pepperidge Farm Remembers” character in TV commercials from 1956 to 1977.)

Predictably, the performances of Arthur Hunnicutt and Parker Fennellly only made audiences miss the inimitable Percy Kilbride.

Marjorie Main: "Pa, I always seem to be scoldin' you."
Percy Kilbride: "I know, Ma, you do all the barkin',
but it's me that that's always in the doghouse!"