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The Duke aired from July until September 1954 on NBC.
The " Duke" in this comedy was Duke London ( played by Paul Gilbert), a streetwise professional boxer who had, in his spare time, become an accomplished painter. Through that hobby he met Harvard graduate Rudy Cromwell ( Claude Stroud), who offered to help him expand his intellectual and culteral horizons. Rudy was admirably suited to the purpose and enjoyed introducing Duke to " highbrow" forms of entertainment and diversion. The figting side of the Duke's life kept intruding, however, in the persons of his trainer Johnny ( Allen Jenkins), and fight promoter Sam Marco( Sheldon Leonard), both of whom wanted him to give up his pursuit of the finer things in life and return to what he knew best, boxing. Society blonde Gloria ( Phyllis Coates formerly Lois Lane on The Adv. Of Superman), the Duke's girlfriend, also played a prominent part.
Here's an article about The Duke printed by Time Magazine back in July 1954.
The common denominator of most summer TV shows is that they are usually tired imitators of winter TV shows. But occasionally there is an agreeable surprise.
Some recent imitators, good and bad: The Duke (Fri. 8 p.m., NBC) has echoes both of Damon Runyon and all the situation comedies from I Love Lucy to The Life of Riley. Starring Newcomer Paul Gilbert as a middleweight boxing champion who has been lured into culture through a business connection with a Harvard man (Claude Stroud), the opening script (written by Hollywood's Charles Isaacs and Jack Elinson) took a fresh and inventive look at a great many stock situations. Culture-bound Gilbert turns out to be a better than adequate painter with an inclination to color bananas blue; he suffers amusingly through a stint at the opera (someone told him it was "Tristan -versus Isolde"), and brilliantly handles a pugnacious drunk at a nightclub. Allen Jenkins agonizes familiarly as the champ's trainer, and Phyllis Coates is eye-filling as a Park Avenue blonde.
Actor Gilbert, 29, was born into a vaudevillian's family in upstate New York, was early farmed out to a troupe of South American aerialists. and turned to comedy when he plunged through the safety net in a 65-ft. circus fall. An ex-fighter pilot, Gilbert sings well enough for light opera, can play five musical instruments, juggle, dance and do acrobatics. He will probably be around TV for quite a while.
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