TV Personalities Biographical Sketch Book - Volume 3

St. Louis: TV Personalities. (c.1957). (Volume 3). Plastic comb binding. Near Fine. [nice clean copy, no signfiicant wear, plastic comb backstrip completely intact]. (B&W photographs) "Interesting Biographical Information about ... well known Television Stars," averaging a bit less than a page in length for each (about 185 people are covered in 158 pages), with each entry accompanied by a head shot. Many of the names we recognize today as iconic stars of early television were covered in Volumes 1 and 2, and while there are still quite a few recognizable big names in Volume 3 (Frank Sinatra, Dick Powell, Gene Kelly and Orson Welles, for example), the preponderance is of mid-range talent, supporting players and the like, with an occasional movie star whose career was on the wane (Betty Grable, Mickey Rooney, Buster Crabbe), along with a smattering of up-and-comers (Julie Andrews, Robert Shaw). Even one dead guy made the cut: James Dean! (A rather curious entry, given that Dean appeared in only one filmed teleplay; most of the entry discusses his film career and his still-nascent posthumous celebrity.) There are number of familiar TV news names, as well: Mike Wallace, David Brinkley, and Ralph Story. One particularly charming element is that the name index (essential because the entries are not in alpha order) includes numerous character names, e.g. there are index entries for William Frawley and Hugh O'Brian, but also for "Mertz, Fred" and "Earp, Wyatt." (The non-alphabetical arrangement also results in some hilarious juxtapositions, such as Orson Welles and Gumby appearing on facing pages.) There was no duplication from one volume to the next, i.e. each one contains a unique set of entries -- and yet this Volume 3 (from 1957) chronicles an awful lot of people who were around and quite prominent at the time Volume 1 (1954) was published, but for whatever reason hadn't "made the cut" for the first two books. In the back of this book are ads for the two previous editions, each with a complete list of the personalities contained therein; good luck in assembling a complete set, though -- all volumes are pretty scarce. .