@someone
TIME OUT FOR GINGER (1954)...
"...a comedy about a middle-class suburban family turned upside down when its teenage daughter wants to try out for the high school football team. The play starred Melvyn Douglas as the father. For $175 a week, Steve agreed to replace Conrad Janis as one of the football players. Janis had originated the small but effective part on Broadway but did not want to tour. The rest of the New York cast remained intact, including Douglas. In the first real review of Steve's acting, one local critic named Samuel Wilson wrote that, "Mr McQueen lampoons the star athlete of the school in a couple of turns."

"However, things quickly turned sour for Steve because something about him, his cockiness, or perhaps his charisma, irritated Douglas, and the aging star insisted McQueen be fired. Steve was allowed to "retire" from the production and learned his first lesson about star temerament, ego and jealousy-fueled insecurity: that the star is always right. It was a lesson he would never forget." {Steve McQueen, Marc Eliot page 28}

 
“Souvenir Theatre Program from the 1954 Chicago production of "Time Out for Ginger," signed on their respective photograph/bios in black ink by Melvyn Douglas, Edith Atwater, and the very young Steve McQueen ("Steven McQueen").  15 pp.  9" x 12". In fine condition, a very rare signed program in advance of his 1955 Broadway debut in A Hatful of Rain.

 

"In 1954, several of the original cast members, including Melvyn Douglas, Nancy Malone and Philip Loeb, took the play to Chicago, where Steve McQueen replaced Broadway's Conrad Janis as Eddie Davis who was later replaced by Ralph E Compton."



The Broadway comedy Time Out For Ginger by Ronald Alexander ran for 248 performances at the Lyceum Theatre from November 26, 1952, to June 27, 1953, before becoming hugely popular in regional theatres throughout the 1950s and early 1960s. The Broadway production starred Melvyn Douglas as Howard Carol, a middle-class husband and father of three girls, one of whom, Ginger, wants to try out for her school's football team. The present program dates from 1954, when several of the original cast members, including Melvyn Douglas, took the play to Chicago, where the 24-year-old Steve McQueen replaced Broadway's Conrad Janis as Eddie Davis. 

 

 

 

 

Former Harris Theatre, 170 North Dearborn Street:
https://bit.ly/3nM8j5d

 


McQueen went on to become one of the most revered actors of his generation, remembered for his wild antics and lifestyle and for his roles in Papillon, Bullitt, The Thomas Crown Affair, The Sand Pebbles, The Cincinnati Kid, The Great Escape, and The Magnificent Seven. (18314)"

{1922}

 
 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
Failed TV Pilot: 'Time Out for Ginger' (Unknown Year):
https://archive.org/details/Time_Out_For_Ginger
 
 

 

don.whistance@icloud.com

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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