SUPER HOLLYWOOD: Mitzi McCall and Charlie Brill

Wednesday, 11 July 2012

Mitzi McCall and Charlie Brill

Mitzi McCall (born September 9, 1932) is an American actress married to actor Charlie Brill. She performed on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. Other credits include guest appearances on Life Goes On, The Twilight Zone, Silk Stalkings (where she appeared as the wife of Brill's character), and voice work on many cartoons. McCall was a panelist on the game show Match Game during its 1970s revival. In 1971, she was the voice of Penny on The Flintstones spin-off The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show.
Mitzi McCall and Charlie Brill met in 1959 and married the following year. They appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964, the show that featured the U.S. television debut of The Beatles. Their act can be seen on the DVD of the Beatles' appearances on the Sullivan show. She and Charlie have a daughter, L.A.-based yoga teacher Jenny Brill. They were interviewed in 2005 for the "Big Break" episode of PRI radio program This American Life, regarding their Beatles-Sullivan experience, including a dressing room encounter with John Lennon.
Brill and McCall were spotted in 1963 while working in Honolulu by the Australian television producer John Collins, who produced The Tonight Show for the Nine Network in Sydney. Collins was seeking a replacement for the then unknown Irish comedian Dave Allen, who had hosted the program for the previous two seasons and wanted to return to Ireland. Collins approached them and they agreed but could not start an Australian engagement until their Hawaiian engagement was complete. They recommended an American comedian, their friend Don Lane (Donald Mortimer Isaacsen), who was also working in Hawaii, to fill in in the meantime. Collins agreed to this.