Episode of November 11, 1956, "What's My Line?" moderated by the erudite John Daly, with panelists Arlene Francis, Dorothy Kilgallen, and Random House publisher (and Columbia grad) Bennett A. Cerf. And who's the mystery fourth panelists? One half of the reigning supreme comedy duo of Martin and Lewis that is about to dissolve after ten glorious years: Joey Lovich, I mean Jerry Lewis, in character. One guest with an odd occupation on that evening shortly afterr Election Day, a fellow named Nixon, albeit a Brit,, was "either a mindreader or pickpocket," as Kilgallen correctly guessed. Host Daly pointed out that Dorothy had scored a "double shot," since "the great Nixon's" son, a chap named Vic Perry, had appeared on the program a season earlier as a pickpocket — "and took the watch off my wrist," Daly said..Notice the tiny amount of prize money. The blindfolded panel identified Walt Disney — who gave his yes and no answers in French, Spanish, and German — with no trouble.
Note the intelligence of panelists and host, their vocabulary, their syntax, their pronunciation of the language. As a high-school student I watched "What's My Line?" most Sunday nights. It went on, I believe, at 10:30 and lasted half an hour, so it was with a certain melancholy mixed with pleasure that i watched each week. I remember when Brooklyn-born Barbra Streisand, a big hit on Broadway, was the mystery guest whom the panelists, blindfolded, had to identify on the basis of ten yes-or-no questions. Possibly the best guest panelist ever was Groucho Marx. on a Sunday evening in 1959 when Claudette Colbert, then on Broadway, was the mystery guest. Groucho cracked up everyone, even the usually poker-faced Daly. The folks with peculiar occupations that evening included a prison warden with an amazing resemblance to Nikita Khrushchev and a stunning blonde from Florida who made her living as a professional wrestler.
I also love "What's My Line?" because of the colloquial meaning of "line" at the time. – DL