The Full Nelson

Oswald George Nelson has been described by a CBS official as "one of the few guys who didn't get eaten up by radio. He ate it up."

Ozzie has always had an appetite for action. He was the youngest Eagle Scout in New Jersey (and won a trip to Europe with the qualifying merit badge). At Rutgers, he was varsity quarterback, lacrosse letterman, diver on the swimming team, middleweight boxing champion, a fair musician, and a near miss at Phi Beta Kappa. When Rudy Vallee was king of the crooners, Ozzie was a topflight bandleader. Last week, at 41, he was still riding high. His husband-&-wife program (CBS, Fri. 9:30 p.m., E.S.T.) was the best in its category, with a 10.5 Hooperating.

In his last year at New Jersey Law College, Ozzie organized a band to help pay his way. By the time he got his diploma (1930), he had decided that his eight-piece hand looked a lot bigger than a lawyer's shingle. In a year he was making more money than a Supreme Court justice.

Although handy with a megaphone, Ozzie was never a great singer. So he hired Harriet Hilliard to share the bandstand spotlight. Harriet couldn't sing much better than Ozzie, but she was considerably prettier. Together they improvised a "talky-type song--a "back & forth, boy & girl" exchange that the customers loved. They were married in 1935.

For a decade the Nelsons played second fiddle to various radio stars (Robert Ripley, Joe Penner, Feg Murray). Briefly, Harriet was a successful cinemactress (Follow the Fleet, New Faces). They joined Red Skelton in 1941, and when Red went into the Army, they finally got a program of their own.

The show--a situation comedy--gave the Nelsons a brand-new career. Most of the show's charm can be credited to Ozzie's sweating thoroughness, and doing what comes naturally. Ozzie & Harriet are Mr. & Mrs. Average Family--on & off the air. The show's children, Ricky, 7, and David, 11, are named and characterized in the image of the Nelsons' own two sons. For accuracy, Ozzie checks all lines with the originals. Emmy Lou, the show's bobbysoxer, was discovered in a Hollywood swimming pool. Harriet's radio mother is a direct steal from her real mother.

Ozzie lords it over his four writers and hammers the program together himself, down to the musical bridges, which he whistles over the telephone to his bandleader. He dramatizes the final script in a last-minute soliloquy at home, supplying chuckles and belly laughs which are supposed to come from the audience. Says Harriet: "It's quite a sight to hear."

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