Series Description

The Four Star Playhouse TV show was a 30 minute anthology series on CBS featuring action, comedy, and drama shows. The cast of those shows was lead by four huge stars of the day who took turns appearing on a rotating basis (see cast list).

Cast List (Alternating Stars):

Dick Powell
Charles Boyer
Ida Lupino
David Niven

Trivia:

Originally, Joel McCrea and Rosalind Russell were supposed to be two of the stars on Four Star Playhouse. They both pulled out of the project very early on so Ida Lupino and David Niven took their spots.

You might notice by the episodes' air dates below that the Four Star Playhouse only aired every other week during the first season. That's because it shared its time slot with the "Amos 'n' Andy Show". Amos 'n' Andy was not renewed for the next season and the Four Star Playhouse began airing each week.

While most of the episode had original characters, Dick Powell did portray a nightclub owner named Willie Dante in several episodes of the Four Star Playhouse. Those episodes were so popular that, in 1960, NBC aired a series based on that character titled, "Dante" but it only lasted one season. The series may have done better if NBC could have gotten Dick Powell to play the lead but the starring role went instead to actor Howard Duff.

The Four Star Playhouse didn't have any major competition in its time slot until the 1954/55 season when ABC aired the Kraft Television Theatre and NBC broadcast the "Ford Theatre" in its slot.

Powell, Boyer, Lupino, and Niven were the predominant stars of the Four Star Playhouse episodes but they weren't the only ones. Some of the episodes starred Ronald Colman, Joan Fontaine, Frank Lovejoy, Merle Oberon, and Teresa Wright.