The Ghost Of Sorworth Place

Filmed December 1971

I have resisted doing a post on THE GHOST OF SORWORTH PLACE, an episode of NIGHT GALLERY, just as I resisted doing a post on STAR TREK’s RETURN TO TOMORROW. As before I was disappointed with the final film, but unlike my experience with that earlier STAR TREK episode, there has been no impassioned outcry about THE GHOST’s nonappearance on this website.

I was recently impressed by what Bret Stephens wrote in an op-ed piece in the New York Times:

Most of us go through life revising our opinions. At 16 I thought “The Fountainhead” was a great book. At 18 I realized it was rubbish.

…and he continued:

To have our convictions knocked sideways by stronger arguments, fresh experiences, contrary evidence, maturing judgment, or simply the honesty of a second-guessing mind, is how we become educated.

 Is that what has happened to me? In December, 1971 at age 48 I thought THE GHOST OF SORWORTH PLACE was a failure. Now in March, 2020 at age 96 I’m not as sure. So come with me as I take another look. Let’s travel back to a wooded area in England and seek out that ghost!

Of course we didn’t take our American actor Richard Kiley to England for our one day of location filming. We just took him to nearby Pasadena.

An evening viewing of NIGHT GALLERY consisted of short films of various lengths, with as many films as it took to fill the hour, each film as long as it took to tell its story. It was an unusual evening when all of the films were directed by the same director. THE GHOST OF SORWORTH PLACE aired the same evening as THE MIRACLE AT CAMAFEO, the other NIGHT GALLERY I directed. I directed them back to back – THE MIRACLE first, followed immediately by two days of preparation and four days of filming for THE GHOST.

I have written constantly of my admiration for the caliber of the supporting acting pool in Hollywood. This is a good chance to elaborate. The actor portraying Mr. MacLeod in the previous scene was Patrick O’Moore. He was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1909. He appeared in his first film in the United States at MGM in 1941. With that background he was a total stranger to me until we met on the King’s Arms set. The 4 minute 36 second scene filmed at the Universal studio took less than a half a day to film. There were 11 set-ups in the scene. Mr. O’Moore was on camera for 6 of them, off camera for the 4 on Richard Kiley, and Mr. O’Moore had most of the dialogue — exposition dialogue describing the back-up story of Ann Loring and Sorworth place, in my opinion the most difficult kind of dialogue to act. I will let Patrick O’Moore’s stunning performance speak for itself.

I didn’t meet Richard Kiley until our first day filming on the Pasadena location of the Loring estate, but a decade earlier when I was the Assistant to Producer Herbert Hirschman on DR. KILDARE, Richard Kiley guest-starred in HIT AND RUN, one of the episodes. Daily whenever I visited the set, I observed him working before the camera. Later at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles I saw him repeat his brilliant Broadway performance in MAN OF LA MANCHA when he toured in the national company. Richard Kiley had an impressive resume. He had won 2 Tony awards (REDHEAD and MAN OF LA MANCHA), 3 Emmies, 2 Golden Globes and 1 Grammy in his 50-year acting career.

I usually had trouble casting at Universal, but not this time. I don’t remember the casting director’s name, but he was very receptive when I told him I wanted to cast my friend Mavis Palmer as Mrs. Ducker. (Professionally she was still using her maiden name, Mavis Neal). He knew Mavis and agreed casting her would be fun. It was so against type. Here’s the real Mavis as she appeared 9 years later when I cast her in the pilot of DYNASTY.

Mavis, who was from England, told me she was going to use a Liverpool accent for Mrs. Ducker. Soon after this production Mavis and Tom, her husband, bought a home in North Hollywood, where Mavis created a gorgeous formal English garden. For a housewarming gift I gave them a 2-foot tall statue for the garden. I dubbed it Mother Ducker!

I had directed Jill Ireland 5 years earlier when she guest-starred in THIS SIDE OF PARADISE, a classic episode of STAR TREK. In it she played Leila, a past love of Leonard Nimoy’s Spock, who reenters his life. Monthly I am provided website statistics telling me the number of visits to my posts. And monthly the THIS SIDE OF PARADISE post is the most visited. Usually it has twice the number of visits of the post in second position. I believe Jill’s lovely performance is a major contributing factor. When it came to casting the role of Ann Loring, there was no hesitation on my part. I wanted Jill Ireland.

Very early in the filming a concerned Jill came to me. The script for the last scene with Ann Loring in bed described her as nude. I assured her that was not the way I was planning to film it. I knew television was still not ready for that. I described what I planned — she would be holding the sheet in front of her, the shot across her back would reveal the nudity.

So now to return to Bret Stephens’ 5 reasons for having our convictions knocked sideways, I guess mine have been. I just don’t know which of his 5 reasons apply to me.

The journey continues