"I'm a housekeeper, not a mechanic!!"
LINKS
Show Info: Internet Movie Database
Clifton Webb:
The Irritable Bachelor
AOL site with lots of cool stuff about Webb.
Do you want "Sitting Pretty" on VHS? Buy it from AMAZON.COM!
Sitting Pretty
SITTING PRETTY
click above
MR. BELVEDERE
 THROUGH THE YEARS


Clifton Webb
the original Mr. Belvedere
 
Mr. Belvedere was created by Gwen Davenport in her  novel " Belvedere".  Mr. Belvedere reached the silver screen in the 1948 film "Sitting Pretty" directed by Walter Lang for  Fox. Lynn Belvedere was played by talented actor Clifton Webb, who earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for that movie.  "Sitting Pretty" told the story of an extremely intelligent albeit snotty genius who answers an ad placed by Harry and Tacey King for a baby sitter for their three bratty kids. His reason for accepting such employment? He is secretly writing a novel about the community filled with gossips and busy bodies which becomes a best seller after being published.

Clifton Webb reprised his role as Mr. Belvedere in two more movies, "Mr. Belvedere Goes to College", 1949, and "Mr. Belvedere Rings the Bell" ,1951.

As early as the 1950's, effort was placed to translate Mr. Belvedere into the small screen with 3 pilots made during the 50's and 60's. All efforts were however, unsuccessful, until 1985 when ABC was finally able to get the show up and running with British actor Christopher Hewett playing Lynn Belvedere, this time accepting employment as a housekeeper for the Owens Family in Beaver Falls, PA.

Premise for the contemporary television series finds a typical American working couple with three children desperately in need of a housekeeper, who are overwhelemed when the urbane, talented, world-wise "Belvedere" shows up at their door.

The show features the unique problems in the lives of each family member, and Mr. Belvedere always managing to come to the rescue with the charm and biting wit characteristic of the suave, sophisticated English housekeeper.

In the first 5 years it played in ABC Television,  Mr. Belvedere has garnered kudos from many national organizations including the PTA and the NEA, praising it for its courageous stands on serious subjects that are much more far-reaching than those found on the typical family-oriented sitcom.

In the second season, an episode in the series was devoted to the subject of a classmate of Brice Beckham (Wesley) contracting AIDS and the resultant total banishment by his classmates--all but Wesley. Photo on the left shows a scene from that episode where Ian Fried (first from left) played the AIDS stricken Danny. In the center is Mr Belvedere (Christopher Hewett) and on the right is Wesley (Brice Beckham).

The show ended in 1990 in a two parter episode (co directed by Rob Stone) where Mr. Belvedere finally gets married and moves to Africa with his wife.

Christopher Hewett played Mr. Belvedere once again in an episode of Ned and Stacey in the episode "Saved by Belvedere".  Rumors abound about a reunion episode but nothing concrete has been announced so far.

 


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