Dear Phoebe

Not every father-in-law can give a wedding present to the husband of his daughter like a television series. But when Patricia Kennedy married Peter Lawford it seemed appropriate to insure an income so for an actor you get him a television series.

Thus Dear Phoebe was born which had Peter Lawford going incognito as a female advice column editor. Great care had to be taken to make sure his gender never became public. Lawford's love interest was Marcia Henderson who now with female sports reporters all over the dial wouldn't get a second notice. But eyebrows were raised in the Fifties when she wrote a sports column. She was out and he was still in the closet so to speak.

Dear Phoebe could have been a groundbreaker, but it was a rather pedestrian effort with some amusement value. When this failed Joe Kennedy took care of his son-in-law with a different series, The Thin Man.