Starring Dora Hall!

Any Dora Hall fans here?  Anyone who knows who Dora Hall even was?  Dora Hall was a sweet little woman who, in her seventies, starred in a flurry of syndicated TV specials in the early seventies, surrounded by guest stars.  Since I'd never heard of her, I assumed she was a British star whose fame had not previously reached this continent and that these specials were being made for, primarily, overseas consumption.  And it turned out I was wrong.  Ms. Hall was not a star in England or anywhere.  She'd had a very minor performing career in this country and had devoted most of her life to being a good wife to a man named Leo Hulseman.  Now, Mr. Hulseman, as it turned out was the President of the Solo Cup Company, maker of plastic and paper cups, and he had so much money that he figured he could buy his spouse a couple of variety shows.

And he did.  At a reported cost of $400,000 per show, Mr. Hulseman made his dear wife a TV star.  He had previously made her a recording artist.  Hundreds of thousands of Dora Hall albums and singles were recorded and given away when one purchased Solo Cups.  Now, he surrounded her with mid-range guest stars (Rich Little, Roosevelt Grier, etc.) and allowed her to be a TV star.

I remember seeing the shows and being somewhat baffled by them.  Dora was about as talented as a decent piano teacher, but not without a certain twinkle.  The guest stars who surrounded and sang with her did a pretty fair job of looking like they were thrilled to appear with her.  But I never knew all that much about her past until I came upon a website called Dora Hall TV Heaven.  If any of this intrigues you or you recall those bizarre TV outings, you might want to pop by and read up on what they call "The Queen of Vanity Television."