Sitcoms Online Photo Galleries - Dick And The Duchess

Dick And The Duchess aired from September 1957 until May 1958 on CBS.

Dick Starrett ( Patrick O'Neal), was an American living in London and married to Jane ( Hazel court), his " Duchess." He often found himself in perplexing situations with members of Jane's upper-crust English family, who were less than enchanted with her marriage to a commoner-and an American at that. Dick was employed as a insurance/investigator/adjuster by a large multinational company, and to complicate matters, Jane frequently managed to get herself involved in his claims investigations, trying to help but only causing problems. Peter Jamison ( Richard Wattis) was Dick's friend and associate at the office, and Inspector Stark (Michael Sheply), was a Scotland Yard Investigator with whom he often worked.

Here's Patrick O'Neal's Obituary from The New York Times.

Patrick O'Neal, 66, an Actor And Manhattan Restaurateur

By ERIC PACE
Published: September 14, 1994

Patrick O'Neal, an actor who appeared on stage, on television and in more than a dozen films, died on Friday at St. Vincent's Hospital in Manhattan. He was 66 and lived in Greenwich Village.

The immediate cause was respiratory failure, and he had tuberculosis and cancer, said his wife, Cynthia.

At his death, Mr. O'Neal was a co-owner, with his wife and his brother, Michael, of O'Neal's, a restaurant at 49 West 64th Street in Manhattan, which was named the Ginger Man until 1993. He and his brother were also co-owners of the Landmark Tavern on 11th Avenue at 46th Street.

In 1963 Mr. O'Neal played the lead role, Sebastian Balfe Dangerfield, in "The Ginger Man," a play by J. P. Donleavy based on his novel of the same title, at the Orpheum Theater Off Broadway.

One critic praised his acting in that production as likely to entrance theatergoers who had met Dangerfield in the novel and found him "enchanting and amusing for all his waywardness, his cruelty and his insincerity."

Mr. O'Neal went on to use the name when he co-founded the Ginger Man in 1964. It prospered, drawing patrons from the Lincoln Center area and farther afield. It was the first of a half-dozen restaurants, mostly in Manhattan, that he came to co-own over the years. They included another place in the Lincoln Center area, O'Neal's Baloon at 63d Street and Columbus Avenue. Defrocked in a Williams Play

Mr. O'Neal's other stage roles included the defrocked cleric in Tennessee Williams's "Night of the Iguana," a role he first played in a short form of the drama in Spoleto, Italy, in 1959 and went on to play in other productions on Broadway and elsewhere.

Among his films were "In Harm's Way" (1965), "A Fine Madness" (1966), "The Kremlin Letter" (1970), "King Rat" (1965), "The Way We Were" (1973) and "The Stepford Wives" (1975). He also acted in many television shows and series, from the 1950's through the 1980's.

Mr. O'Neal was born and grew up in Ocala, Fla. He received a bachelor's degree from the University of Florida and went on to study acting in New York, with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse, and with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio.

In addition to his wife of 38 years, the former Cynthia Baxter, and his brother, of Manhattan, he is survived by two sons, Maximilian, of Manhattan and Fitzjohn, of Redondo Beach, Calif.

Here is Hazel Court's Obituary

"Scream Queen" Hazel Court Dies At 82
April 17, 2008 07:15 AM EST |

LOS ANGELES — Hazel Court, an English actress who co-starred with the likes of Boris Karloff and Vincent Price in popular horror movies of the 1950s and '60s, has died. She was 82.

Court died early Tuesday of a heart attack at her home near Lake Tahoe, daughter Sally Walsh said Wednesday.

While she had a substantial acting career both in England and on American TV, Court was perhaps best known for her work in such films as 1963's "The Raven." She co-starred with Price, Karloff and Peter Lorre in director Roger Corman's take on the classic Edgar Allan Poe poem.

Corman directed her in five movies. Like other "scream queens" of the era, Court often relied on her cleavage and her ability to shriek in fear and die horrible deaths for her roles.

"The Premature Burial," "The Masque of the Red Death," "The Curse of Frankenstein" and "Devil Girl from Mars" helped propel her to cult status and brought her fan mail even in her later years.

"She'd probably get over 100 pieces of fan mail a month and she would reply to every single one," her daughter said.

Court had finished an autobiography, "Hazel Court _ Horror Queen," which will be published in Britain, Walsh said.

The daughter of a professional cricket player, Court was born Feb. 10, 1926, in the English town of Sutton Coldfield. As a teenager, she was appearing in stage productions when she was spotted and signed by the J. Arthur Rank Organisation, which owned movie studios and theaters.

She got her first movie bit part by the time she was 18 and went on to become a popular actress and pinup girl, her daughter said.

"She was one of the great beauties of all time," Walsh said. "She was a redhead with really green eyes and almost ... the perfect face. She was on the cover of almost every magazine."

Court co-starred with Patrick O'Neal in the 1957 British TV comedy series "Dick and the Duchess." In the late 1950s, she came to the United States to work on the TV show "Alfred Hitchcock Presents."

Besides acting, Court was a commissioned sculptor and painter whose works appeared in public galleries.

Court is survived by daughters Walsh and Courtney Taylor, son Jonathan Taylor and stepdaughters Anne Taylor Fleming and Avery Taylor.

For a page on Patrick O'Neal go to www.nndb.com/people/563/000089296/

For a biography on Patrick O'Neal go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_O'Neal

For a biography of Hazel Court go to www.cultsirens.com/court/court.htm

For a website devoted to Hazel Court go to www.yodaslair.com/dumboozle/hazel/hazeldex.html