Remembering Topper
I’m not exactly sure how I got to this photo:
I think the whole journey began here, at a blog I sometimes go to when I’m seeking some light fluffy reading and a good laugh. Some photos I found there led to some Googling, which somehow brought me to the photo above. It was captioned “Anne Jeffreys,” and the elegant lady was said to be around eighty-three at the time.
She looks pretty darn good, don’t you think?
The name “Anne Jeffreys” rang a faint and very distant bell for me. It took only a moment’s reflection to recognize the sound as emanating from the earliest days of my childhood and the infancy of television: Anne Jeffreys had been the female lead in “Topper,” the sitcom featuring Leo G. Carroll as the staid Britisher beset by ghosts Marion and George Kirby. Only he could see the twosome, who had occupied his house before he’d bought it, and had been killed in a ski accident along with their St. Bernard Neil, who liked the booze (you still with me?)
“Haunt” never seemed to be exactly the correct word for what the Kirbys did to Topper. It was far too gloomy for the effervescent couple, who were heavily into teasing Topper by appearing and disappearing and making it seem as though he was nuts for talking to the air.
To the tiny child I was at the time, “Topper” was the most magical thing on TV—which was itself already a magical thing. The special effects—mostly involving, as I recall (and believe me, this is a retrieval from the dimmest and earliest reaches of memory; the show aired from 1953 to 1955) disembodied cigarettes (Camel was the heavily-promoted show sponsor) that moved about in the air, and highballs that floated past the beleaguered Topper.
The humor lay in the fact that the staid banker was constantly having to make up stories to cover his propensity to talk to nothing at all. Since I have not seen a single episode since 1955, I have no idea whether the jokes hold up. But I know that, at the time, it was my favorite half-hour of television, immensely looked forward to.
I still got a reminiscent shiver of anticipation when I heard, for the first time in fifty-four years, courtesy of You Tube, the theme from the show. Those of you old enough to remember may share the pleasure (note, please, the always-elegant Ms. Jeffreys’ long gloves—first disembodied and then occupied by her gracious self—and the focus on the cigarettes):
The couple was a delight, and I’m delighted to learn for the first time, after all these years, that they were married in real life, and that their marriage lasted till the death of Mr. Sterling at the age of eighty-eight in 2006.
Hmmm nowadays Topper could just say he’s talking on his blue tooth and nobody would think twice. Except those like me who take offense to the non invited sharing of intimate conversations I have just been included in.
Until you brought it up I had completely forgotten that amusing show, ain’t nostalgia grand!
I loved the intro music and the upbeat nature of the show. Each of them was just great. When Henrietta addressed Leo G. Carroll by saying : Oh, Cosmo”–brings back some good, simple times.
Anne Jeffreys was an elegant woman–I imagine she still is!
Thanks so much.
she does look pretty good..
my wife and i just missed topper when it was on a few months ago… i remember it from my childhood (tv of course).
though if ya want to be shocked, go take a look at what is happening to chastity bono… i mean chaz bono..
She is a knockout
neo, that is great! I am about your age and also remember “Topper” from my early childhood. I don’t recall seeing Jeffreys and Sterling anywhere else, but Leo G. Carroll was in quite a few movies, notably as the spy chief in the Hitchcock thriller “North By Northwest”.
Wow! I feel like I grew up in another world. The contrast with today is incredible, but there was a time when adulthood was different from prolonged adolescence and class was more important than edginess. Even a comedy like Topper must have left an imprint on our subconscious standards, on the way we kids thought grown-ups should be.
See today’s WSJ piece on little princesses for an illustration.
I *loved* “Topper,” it was one of the greatest sitcoms of all time, as are most originals. Thanks for the memories, and the back story (which I didn’t know!)
Thanks for the memories. I was very fond of “Topper.” What a pleasure it was to find it and most of Thorne Smith’s other novels on my grandfather’s shelves. I wonder why the TV people felt it would be better for the George, Marion, and Neil to have perished in a skiing accident, rather than a car crash, as in the book (and in the movie with Cary Grant and Constance Bennett as the Kerbys and Roland Young as Cosmo Topper). Had to change something so they could feel they had made a contribution, I suppose.
Hector Owen: I think the ski accident allowed for the dog, a St. Bernard who liked the booze. The dog was a big draw for me when I was a child, and I don’t think the dog was in the movies.
Oh, right you are! I’m getting the novel, movie, and TV show mixed. There was a ghostly dog named Oscar who made a brief appearance in the novel, doing the partial-apparition tricks that Neil did on TV, but he wasn’t the Kerbys’ dog. No dog in the movie, that I recall. If it weren’t so late, I’d watch it again, just to make sure.And what about Topper’s cat, Scollops? I seem to recall seeing Leo G. Carroll holding a cat, but that might have been from another film or TV show.
BTW, I linked “Captain Obama: full speed ahead” here.