Sitcoms Online Photo Galleries - Girls ( A.K.A. Young And Gay): Bethel Leslie

The Girls( aka Young And Gay) aired from January until March 1950 on CBS.

Based on the autobiography novel Our Hearts Were Young And Gay by Cornelia Otis Skinner and Emily Kimbrough, this early live comedy series followed the adventures of the 2 young Bryn Mawr graduates as they returned to New York in search of their careers, following a post-graduate fling in Europe. They moved to Greenwich Villiage at the height of the " Roaring 20's" and started looking for work. Miss Skinner ( Bethel Leslie), as an actress and Miss Kimbrough ( Mary Malone), as a writer.

Others in the cast were Kenneth Forbes as Todhunter Smith II . Also appearing were Harry Bannister, John Campbell, Audrie Christie, Alexander Ivo, and Agnes Young.

Bethel Leslie left the series in February to accept a role in a new play ( that was considered far better work than television), and was replaced by Gloria Stroock, the sister of actress Geraldine Brooks. The original title of this series was Young And Gay, changed to The Girls after the first 2 episodes had aired.

Carol Irwin was the producer, David Rich the director.

Here is Bethel Leslie's Obituary from The New York Times

Bethel Leslie, 70, an Actress In Theater, Television and Films

By JESSE MCKINLEY
Published: November 30, 1999

Bethel Leslie, a lifelong presence onstage and on television whose final Broadway performance earned her a Tony nomination, died on Sunday at her home in Manhattan. She was 70.

The cause was cancer, said Leslie McCullough Jeffries, her daughter.

The daughter of a lawyer and a socialite, Ms. Leslie was a 15-year-old student at the Brearley School on the Upper East Side when she was discovered by the producer George Abbott and cast as the girl next door in the 1944 Broadway production of ''Snafu,'' a comedy.

The role began Ms. Leslie's career, which included appearances in 10 Broadway plays before she was 25 and which had her acting alongside the likes of Fredric March (''Years Ago,'' in 1946), Sam Wanamaker (''Goodbye, My Fancy'' in 1948) and Helen Hayes (''The Wisteria Trees,'' in 1950).

Her breakthrough came in 1955, in ''Inherit the Wind,'' in which she played the conflicted daughter of a Bible-wielding reverend. The part earned Ms. Leslie strong reviews, and she soon headed to Hollywood. There she found steady work in television, parlaying her dark good looks into roles on shows like ''Gunsmoke,'' ''Perry Mason'' and ''The Fugitive.''

A 1965 press biography listed some of her character roles as ''a cheating wife, a husband-framing mistress'' and ''the wife of a confessed murderer.''

Ms. Leslie made her film debut in 1964 in ''Captain Newman, M.D.,'' as the wife of a traumatized Air Force pilot, played by Robert Duvall.

By 1965 she had returned to New York and to the theater, though appearances on soap operas helped support that passion. As a side pursuit Ms. Leslie began to write, eventually becoming a head writer for the daytime drama ''The Secret Storm.''

It was not until 1986, however, that she scored her biggest triumph, appearing as the morphine-addicted mother in Eugene O'Neill's ''Long Day's Journey into Night,'' a performance that Frank Rich of The New York Times called ''exceptionally beautiful.'' Her work earned her a Tony nomination.

In recent years she appeared Off Broadway in productions with the Signature Theater Company and most recently with the Women's Project, where she won praise this spring for her work in Joan Vail Thorne's play ''Exact Center of the Universe.''

In addition to her daughter, who lives in New York, Ms. Leslie is survived by a brother, Warren Leslie, also of New York, and two grandchildren.

For a biography of Bethel Leslie go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bethel_Leslie

For a Biography of Cornelia Otis Skinner go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelia_Otis_Skinner

For a Review of the book Our Hearts Were Young and Gay go to http://www.sonic.net/barny/our.html