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TV's Vampire Rides At Dawn

The Detroit Free Press (MI)
By Charlie Hanna
Saturday, March 20, 1971

On Wednesdays, Sir Graves Ghastly slips into Detroit just before dawn. On a Greyhound bus from Cleveland. Through the cold gray streets of the city he makes his way to WJBK-TV. Without even a perfunctory feint at the watchman's throat, Detroit television's master monster movie maestro glides into a silent, lonely office. There, while most men sleep, he pores aver his fan mail and thinks about the show to be recorded in a few hours.

Until January of 1970, the brow-arching, r-rolling Graves flew to Detroit weekly by airline from his Cleveland home. That was when the plane he just missed catching crashed through the ice of Lake Erie, killing all aboard. "My wife and I decided it would be better to take the bus after that," said Lawson Deming. the veteran radio-TV actor who created Sir Graves as a horror movie host four years ago (1 p.m. Saturday Ch. 2).

A year ago, be started a Friday night Graves show in Washington, D.C. flies there to tape that program, but still prefers the pre-dawn bus to Detroit. By about 6:30 a.m. on those Detroit Wednesdays. Deming and director Clyde Salsbury are going over the outline (there is no script) for the 9 a.m. taping of some nine segments to be fitted among two movies and a flood of commercials come Saturday. The taping is scheduled to end by 11 a.m. including recording of some of the Ghastly cast members who may pop up in shows several weeks later. After the taping comes discussion of ideas for future shows. By 4 p.m., Sir Graves Ghastly is climbing aboard that bus for the three-hour trip back to Cleveland. It's a grinding schedule, one would think, for even a 400-year-old vampire. (Sir Graves was hanged by order of Queen Elizabeth 400 years ago, "but, like a bad vaccination, it didn't take.")

While Graves is shadowy-eyed, bearded, Barrymorean in approach and prone to hippyisms in his language on-camera, Deming off-camera is beardless, quiet, Mickey Rooneyish of stature, and the object of fond ribbing from the camera crew. How old is he? "My wife says not to say. But I've been in broadcasting since 1932. The youngest of my four sons just got married and he's graduating from Ohio University next fall with a major in communications.'' Deming was associated with Cleveland's WTAM for more than 20 years. From 1949 to 1956 he was an afternoon TV movie host, rather like Ch. 50's Bill Kennedy, once a Cleveland co-worker of Deming's.

The goateed Ghastly most Saturdays begins his show by opening his casket (the ultimate in the unsinister is watching Ghastly climb on a stool to get in his casket) located on a graveyard set, the most effective set I've seen on Detroit TV. For the next couple of hours, the red-gloved, black-caped Graves flits among the B-grade horror flicks and commercials with lip-synching characters, birthday greetings and "Ghoul Gallery" colorful drawings sent in by adoring kiddy fans.

Deming portrays all the characters on the Graves show, thanks to modern electronics. The cast includes such divergent personalities as that wildly off-key blond singer, Tlllie Trollhouse; the Glob, a weird singing mouth (Graves' mouth upside down, in close- up); Cool Ghoul, an aging motorcycle freak; and Walter, Sir Graves' prissy alter ego who keeps advising Ghastly, "You're sick, sick."

Salsbury, the director, says the show is meant as a genial put-on and not designed to scare anyone. Deming agrees. Deming tells of the time, when the show was new, a little girl wrote that her mother wouldn't allow her to watch. She asked Graves to tell her mother on the air to lift the ban. "On the next show I stepped out of character and I told the little girl that if her mother didn't want her to watch, not to do it," Deming said. "My director at the time rushed up to me and said, 'My god, your whole image will be ruined."

That was four years ago.

Article respectfully shared under the Fair Use Doctrine of International Copyright Law as educational material without benefit of financial gain.

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		TV's Vampire Rides At Dawn The Detroit Free Press (MI) By Charlie Hanna Saturday, March 20, 1971 On Wednesdays, Sir Graves Ghastly slips into Detroit just before dawn. On a Greyhound bus from Cleveland. Through the cold gray streets of the city he makes his way to WJBK-TV. Without even a perfunctory feint at the watchman's throat, Detroit television's master monster movie maestro glides into a silent, lonely office. There, while most men sleep, he pores aver his fan mail and thinks about the show to be recorded in a few hours. Until January of 1970, the brow-arching, r-rolling Graves flew to Detroit weekly by airline from his Cleveland home. That was when the plane he just missed catching crashed through the ice of Lake Erie, killing all aboard. "My wife and I decided it would be better to take the bus after that," said Lawson Deming. the veteran radio-TV actor who created Sir Graves as a horror movie host four years ago (1 p.m. Saturday Ch. 2). A year ago, be started a Friday night Graves show in Washington, D.C. flies there to tape that program, but still prefers the pre-dawn bus to Detroit. By about 6:30 a.m. on those Detroit Wednesdays. Deming and director Clyde Salsbury are going over the outline (there is no script) for the 9 a.m. taping of some nine segments to be fitted among two movies and a flood of commercials come Saturday. The taping is scheduled to end by 11 a.m. including recording of some of the Ghastly cast members who may pop up in shows several weeks later. After the taping comes discussion of ideas for future shows. By 4 p.m., Sir Graves Ghastly is climbing aboard that bus for the three-hour trip back to Cleveland. It's a grinding schedule, one would think, for even a 400-year-old vampire. (Sir Graves was hanged by order of Queen Elizabeth 400 years ago, "but, like a bad vaccination, it didn't take.") While Graves is shadowy-eyed, bearded, Barrymorean in approach and prone to hippyisms in his language on-camera, Deming off-camera is beardless, quiet, Mickey Rooneyish of stature, and the object of fond ribbing from the camera crew. How old is he? "My wife says not to say. But I've been in broadcasting since 1932. The youngest of my four sons just got married and he's graduating from Ohio University next fall with a major in communications.'' Deming was associated with Cleveland's WTAM for more than 20 years. From 1949 to 1956 he was an afternoon TV movie host, rather like Ch. 50's Bill Kennedy, once a Cleveland co-worker of Deming's. The goateed Ghastly most Saturdays begins his show by opening his casket (the ultimate in the unsinister is watching Ghastly climb on a stool to get in his casket) located on a graveyard set, the most effective set I've seen on Detroit TV. For the next couple of hours, the red-gloved, black-caped Graves flits among the B-grade horror flicks and commercials with lip-synching characters, birthday greetings and "Ghoul Gallery" colorful drawings sent in by adoring kiddy fans. Deming portrays all the characters on the Graves show, thanks to modern electronics. The cast includes such divergent personalities as that wildly off-key blond singer, Tlllie Trollhouse; the Glob, a weird singing mouth (Graves' mouth upside down, in close- up); Cool Ghoul, an aging motorcycle freak; and Walter, Sir Graves' prissy alter ego who keeps advising Ghastly, "You're sick, sick." Salsbury, the director, says the show is meant as a genial put-on and not designed to scare anyone. Deming agrees. Deming tells of the time, when the show was new, a little girl wrote that her mother wouldn't allow her to watch. She asked Graves to tell her mother on the air to lift the ban. "On the next show I stepped out of character and I told the little girl that if her mother didn't want her to watch, not to do it," Deming said. "My director at the time rushed up to me and said, 'My god, your whole image will be ruined." That was four years ago. Copyright ©1971 Detroit Free Press Inc. All rights reserved. Article respectfully shared under the Fair Use Doctrine of International Copyright Law as educational material without benefit of financial gain. <Back Website ©2002-2005 Keith Milford. All Rights Reserved.