Blithe Spirit 1956 Live TV Theatre (Lauren Bacall, Claudette Colbert, Noel Coward, Mildred Natwick)

Blithe Spirit is a play by Noël Coward about novelist Charles Condomine who invites medium / clairvoyant, Madame Arcati, to his home to conduct a séance which brings to ’life’ the ghost of his first wife, Elvira. In 1956, Coward directed a LIVE ON AIR American television adaptation for Ford Star Jubilee. Coward stars with Claudette Colbert as his second wife Ruth, Lauren Bacall as Elvira and Emmy nominee for Best Supporting Performance by an Actress, Mildred Natwick as Madame Arcati. The endlessly-rushing maid is played by Marion Ross who most viewers will remember as the mother on the television series Happy Days. Fred de Cordova, longtime producer of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, is listed as having staged the production for television. Based on the thumbnail image there seems to have been a tour and record associated with this production as well although a quick search garnered no other information. Originally broadcast in color, only black and white kinescopes survive.