Mary Jane Ross from Binghamton, NY: “I’ve
brought more than 5,000 babies into the world. (She’s Doctor Mary
Jane Ross)”
Dr. Ross was named American Medical
Woman of the Year for 1955 by the American Medical Women’s Association. The show’s producers figured out that Dr.
Ross has been responsible for the births of 6% of the population of
Binghamton. The producers surprise Dr.
Ross by stacking the audience with several dozen of the people she delivered
over the years, and give her, among other gifts, an incubator to be donated to
the Binghamton City Hospital in her name.
Garry and the panel chip in to furnish a room at the hospital. This Secret would be revisited on the sixth anniversary show in 1958 (
E290
).
Mr. X: “I was the very first ‘Fuller Brush
Man’”
Alfred C Fuller founded his eponymous
company in 1906. Fuller brushes and
other products were sold exclusively door-to-door by salesmen known as ‘Fuller
Brush Men’ (and the occasional Fuller Brush Girl) until the mid-1980s, when
they introduced a mail order business and even some physical stores. There are still Fuller Brush Men, though
today much of the company’s business is done online. In its heyday, the Fuller
Brush Man became an iconic part of popular culture, showing up in comic strips,
at least two movies, and even the Disney cartoon The Three Little Pigs (1933).
Special Guest Jackie Cooper
With the panel sequestered offstage, Cooper
has a court stenographer take down the conversations that the panelists have
while waiting. That’s his Secret, and
after the greatly abbreviated game, portions of their conversations are read
aloud. Cooper, a former child actor, is
starring in The People’s Choice on
NBC. A later generation would know him as newspaper editor Perry White in the Christopher Reeve Superman movies of the 70s and 80s.
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