Family Theater Productions
Overview
Hollywood TV, radio production company continues founder’s 57-year mission of entertaining, supporting families
Family Theater Productions, Hollywood, gave 1950s teen idol James Dean his first film acting credit in "Hill Number One."
It gave noted film producer/director George Lucas ("Star Wars") his first film credit - as an assistant cameraman - in the mid-1960s for a short, "The Soldier," starring William Shatner.
The late Princess Grace (Kelly) of Monaco made her last three film appearances in Family Theater programs in the early 1980s before her fatal car accident.
Family Theater’s more than 800 radio programs and 83 TV specials have featured hundreds of top stars such as Bing Crosby, Loretta Young, Frank Sinatra, Jimmy Stewart, Bob Hope, Irene Dunne, Gregory Peck, Lucille Ball, Henry Fonda, Rosalind Russell, Jack Benny, James Cagney, Raymond Burr, Barbara Stanwyck, Margaret O’Brien, Helen Hayes, Natalie Wood, and Maureen O’Hara, Jane Wyatt, Ronald Reagan and Shirley Temple.
The Family Theater radio series, which featured hundreds of famous actors, was broadcast on the Mutual Broadcasting System from 1947 to 1969, making it one of the longest running weekly dramatic radio programs in history.
What Hollywood media mogul founded Family Theater Productions? Would you believe it was a Catholic priest? Father Patrick Peyton, CSC, a poor Irish immigrant of 1928 who was ordained in South Bend, Ind., in 1941 as a priest of the Congregation of Holy Cross. A priest without any show biz experience, he became a media pioneer by his vision and by recruiting the best writers and actors in Hollywood to entertain, inspire and inform families in alternative yet mainstream programming.
Father Peyton through Family Theater produced more than 700 radio and TV programs that had some 10,000 broadcasts. He died on June 3, 1992, and his cause for sainthood was announced on June 1, 2001.
Historic radio series
In 1945, Father Peyton persuaded the Mutual Broadcasting System to give him a free half-hour program to support family prayer. It was scheduled for Mother’s Day, May 13. He picked up the phone in Albany, N.Y., and told the operator he wanted to speak to Bing Crosby in Hollywood. Crosby got the message while he was filming the Bells of St. Mary’s. During a break in the filming, he called Father Peyton and agreed to give a talk on his show. He reached the Sullivan family, and the parents and sister of the famous five Sullivan brothers, who died on the same ship during World War II, agreed to lead families in praying a decade of the Rosary. Then the Germans surrendered; VE Day was declared May 8; and President Truman called for a day of thanksgiving on May 13. The program took on added significance. More than 300 stations picked up the show, which received excellent reviews.
With this success, he was able to get Mutual to offer him a weekly half-hour program, but the series had to be nonsectarian, featuring Hollywood stars and be well written and produced.
Father Peyton started Family Theater in 1947 to produce the series of the same name and to use mass media to promote prayer, moral values and unity among families everywhere. The first program, "Flight from Home," featuring famous actors Jimmy Stewart as host and Loretta Young and Don Ameche, premiered on February 13, 1947.
The series won 14 awards including the best radio program of the year in 1947-1951 by several trade magazines and daily newspapers. It aired for 22 years on the Mutual network.
A young ad executive and an accomplished copywriter, Al Scalpone, donated his services to Family Theater in 1947 and wrote the now famous slogan, "The Family That Prays Together Stays Together ™" as well as "A World at Prayer is a World at Peace ®" for the radio series. They became the mottos for Father Peyton and his organization. Scalpone, who eventually became a vice president for CBS-TV, volunteered with Family Theater Productions for 40 years.
Billboard campaign
In 1947, a Los Angeles outdoor advertising company representative was taken by the slogan, "The Family That Prays Together Stays Together ™." He heard in on the "Family Theater" radio series. The company offered to put the slogan on vacant billboards as a public service. The idea caught on with other advertising companies.
Over the years messages included "Troubled? Try Prayer!" "Don’t Give Up! Pray. It Works," "God Makes House Calls" and "God Listens," each one followed by "The Family That Prays Together Stays Together ™."
These messages have appeared on more 100,000 billboards throughout the country, courtesy of outdoor advertising associations and companies, and have been seen more than 400 million times, according to outdoor advertising associations’ estimates.
The campaign continues today with three new, contemporary posters designed in 2001, that have received a record number of orders from billboard companies.
Television
With his success with the radio series in 1947 and the emergence of television, it didn’t take Father Peyton long to seize that medium as well. After producing a show with Bing Crosby and Ann Blythe singing a duet of "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling," Father Peyton raised funds to produce three feature-length epics about the life of Christ as portrayed in the Mysteries of the Rosary. They were filmed in Spain in the early 1950s and featured a cast of thousands. One had a theatrical release and all three have had many broadcasts through the years and are still being used in religious educational classes.
Fr. Peyton went on to produce some 58 programs (drama, variety, documentary and interview) featuring such personalities as Princess Grace (Kelly), who hosted three programs, singing performances by Frank Sinatra and Placido Domingo, and an interview with Rose Kennedy after the assassinations of her two sons, President John F. Kennedy and presidential candidate Bobby Kennedy, Loretta Young, who hosted three programs reflecting on the Mysteries of the Rosary; and comedian/actor Bob Newhart in a performance at the University of Notre Dame.
The legacy continues
Family Theater Productions continues Father Peyton’s media mission as a member of Holy Cross Family Ministries, Easton, Mass., sponsored by the Congregation of Holy Cross.
Since his death, Family Theater has produced:
- nine dramas aimed at teens and their families that have had more than 3,000 broadcasts,
- eight programs (two dramas and six documentaries) that have had more than 1,000 broadcasts on public television (PBS-affiliated) stations nationwide,
- 286 Spanish-language radio programs broadcast worldwide, and
- released three new billboard designs that have been ordered in record numbers by the outdoor advertising associations, and has:
- founded the annual Angelus Awards Student Film Festival in 1996 to honor exceptional quality student films that respect the universal human family; it has received some 2,000 entries and has awarded over $100,000 in cash prizes.
- began Hollywood Prays (Praise): Prayer and Pasta, in 2002 to pray for Hollywood and offer spiritual support for newly arrived persons pursing a career in the entertainment industry.
Behind the Scenes
07/16/10 - Family Theater Productions' intern Hai-Tan Le edits a trailer with the assistance of Father David Guffey, CSC, the Catholic media ministry's Director of Film and Television. »