September 21, 1957: "Perry Mason" Premieres

September 21, 1957: Perry Mason premieres on CBS, based on the novels of Erle Stanley Gardner. The series lasts 9 seasons.

Gardner had introduced Los Angeles-based defense attorney Mason in 1933, with The Case of the Velvet Claws. In 1934, with the 3rd novel, Gardner made the title alliterative: The Case of the Lucky Legs. Ultimately, there would be 82 Perry Mason novels, 53 of them having alliterative titles.

And Mason won his case in every book, except once: In 1956, in The Case of the Terrified Typist, the real killer had the same name as Mason's client, who did end up cleared in the end.

Erle Stanley Gardner had already allowed a series of 6 films, between 1933 and 1937, starring Warren William in 4, and Ricardo Cortez and Donald Woods in 1 each. There had also been a radio series, which Gardner hated, and so he had to be talked into allowing a TV version.

Raymond Burr was cast as Mason, which was odd on 2 levels: In 1951, he had played the prosecutor in the film A Place in the Sun; and in 1954, he had played the murderer in Rear Window. Nevertheless, he became the most famous defense counsel -- the most famous lawyer, period -- in television history.

He was assisted by his secretary, Della Street (played by Barbara Hale); and a private detective, Paul Drake (William Hopper, son of actor DeWolf Hopper and gossip columnist Hedda Hopper). Inevitably, the Mason team finds the evidence that not only exonerates Perry's client, but exposes the actual murderer, whom Perry calls to the stand, and deftly exposes, leaving his opponent, District Attorney Hamilton Burger (William Talman) to ask the judge (a rotating series of actors and characters) to dismiss the case.

The TV version of Burger did win 3 cases against Mason, but only 3 in the 9 seasons. In 1958, a journalist asked Talman how he felt about Burger losing to Mason week after week. Talman said, "Burger doesn't lose. How can a District Attorney lose when he fails to convict an innocent person? Unlike a fist or gun fight, in court, you can have a winner without having a loser. As a matter of fact, Burger in a good many instances has joined Mason in action against unethical attorneys, lying witnesses, or any one else obstructing justice. Like any real-life district attorney, justice is Burger's main interest."

The dramatic exposure of the real murderer gave TV viewers an unrealistic impression of murder cases. In real life, a trial wouldn't have happened so quickly, and any exonerating evidence would likely have been found before the case went to trial.

Nevertheless, Gardner closely supervised the scripts, and gave final approval. On May 22, 1966, the final episode aired, "The Case of the Final Fade-Out," with Gardner himself playing the Judge. Gardner died in 1973.

From 1967 to 1975, Burr played Robert Ironside, a wheelchair-bound chief of detectives in San Francisco, in the NBC drama Ironside. In 1985, Burr returned to play Mason in a successful series of TV-movies on NBC. A total of 30 films were made, and Burr starred in 26 of them before his death in 1993.

The first, Perry Mason Returns, featured Perry leaving his post as an appellate court judge to defend Della. Hopper had died in 1970, so Hale's real-life son, William Katt, was cast as Paul Drake Jr., who took up his father's job as Perry's private eye.

Talman had died of lung cancer in 1968, and was the 1st actor to film an anti-smoking ad to be aired after his death, as a warning. So a new character was created to be Mason's opponent: District Attorney Michael Reston, played by former M*A*S*H star David Ogden Stiers. Hale lived until 2017.

In 2020, HBO premiered a reboot series, giving Perry Mason an origin story. In 1932, Mason (Matthew Rhys) is a private investigator struggling with PTSD from World War I. Divorced with a young son -- this was new, as it was never mentioned in either the books or the original TV show -- he often works for E.B. Jonathan (John Lithgow), a defense attorney -- an original character, and, essentially, the Mason role, while young Mason takes the Paul Drake role. Drake (Chris Chalk) is a uniformed policeman with detective ambitions.

Della (Juliet Rylance) is Jonathan's secretary, and Burger (Justin Kirk) is the Assistant D.A. Both characters are revealed to be gay but in the closet. This was also not in previous canon, but it was a tip to Burr, who was closeted.

By the end of the 1st season, Jonathan and Burger have set Mason up to go to law school, and to become the great defense attorney known to legend. The show was an interesting twist on the legend, but never caught on, and lasted just 2 seasons.

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September 21, 1957 was a Saturday. Basketball star Sidney Moncrief, film director Ethan Coen, right-wing talk-show host Mark Levin, and former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd were born. And these baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Boston Red Sox, 8-3 at Yankee Stadium.  Ted Williams went 1-for-1. The 1 hit was a grand slam home run. He also drew 3 walks. Mickey Mantle also went 1-for-1, but it was a single, he only drew 1 walk, and had to leave the game with an injury. Four days later, the Yankees beat Baltimore to clinch the American League Pennant.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers lost to the Philadelphia Phillies, 3-2 at Ebbets Field.

* The New York Giants split a doubleheader with the Pittsburgh Pirates at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. The Bucs won the opener, 5-4. The Jints won the nightcap, 9-5. Gail Harris hit 2 home runs for them. Over the 2 games, Willie Mays went 3-for-10G with an RBI, and Roberto Clemente went 3-for-7 with a walk and an RBI.

Three days later, the Dodgers beat the Pirates in the last game at Ebbets Field. Five days after that, the Pirates beat the Giants in the last Giants' home game at the Polo Grounds, while the Dodgers lost their last game as a Brooklyn team to the Phillies in Philadelphia.

* The Washington Senators beat the Baltimore Orioles, 8-1 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Roy Sievers hit 2 home runs. Harmon Killebrew went 2-for-4 with a walk and an RBI. Brooks Robinson went 2-for-4.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Cleveland Indians, 7-6 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

* The Cincinnati Redlegs (as the Reds were known from 1953 to 1959) beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 9-8 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Roy McMillan won the game with a home run in the bottom of the 10th inning. Frank Robinson went 3-for-4 with a home run, a walk and an RBI. Stan Musial went 3-for-3 with 2 walks.

* The Milwaukee Braves beat the Chicago Cubs, 6-2 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Joe Adcock hit 2 home runs. Hank Aaron went 2-for-4 with an RBI. Ernie Banks went 0-for-2 with 2 walks. Two nights later, Aaron hit an 11th-inning home run to beat the Cardinals, and clinch the Braves' 1st Pennant in Milwaukee. They beat the Yankees in the World Series, in 7 games.

* And the Kansas City Athletics beat the Detroit Tigers, 6-3 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium. Al Kaline went 0-for-4.

This was the 1st full week of the college football season, and these were among the games played:

* Number 1 Oklahoma beat Number 8 University of Pittsburgh, 26-0 at Pitt Stadium in Pittsburgh.

* Number 2 Texas A&M beat Maryland, 21-13 at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas (not at their usual home, Kyle Field in College Station).

* Number 7 Baylor beat Villanova, 7-0 at Baylor Stadium (later Floyd Casey Stadium) in Waco, Texas.

* Number 10 Duke beat South Carolina, 26-14 at Carolina Stadium (now Williams-Brice Stadium) in Columbia, South Carolina.

* Number 11 Georgia Tech beat Number 20 Kentucky, 13-0 at Grant Field in Atlanta.

* Number 12 Navy beat Boston College, 46-0 at Alumni Stadium outside Boston in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. (Army opened their season the next week.)

* Number 13 Oregon State 20, Number 19 Southern California (USC) 0 at Multnomah Stadium (now Providence Park) in Portland, Oregon.

* Number 14 Miami were upset by the University of Houston, 7-0 at Rice Stadium in Houston.

* Rivalry: North Carolina State beat North Carolina, 7-0 at Kenan Stadium in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

* Texas beat Georgia, 26-7 at Sanford Stadium in Athens, Georgia.

Notre Dame opened its season the next week. So would Rutgers and Princeton, against each other, a 7-0 Princeton win at Palmer Stadium.

March 13, 1964: The Murder of Kitty Genovese

March 13, 1964: A murder is committed, symbolizing the rising crime wave in New York City, and American cities in general. What's worse wasn't the number of people who cared, but the number of people who seemed not to care.

Catherine Susan Genovese was born on July 7, 1935 in Brooklyn, and grew up in the neighborhood of Prospect Heights. As far as has been determined, she was not related to New York's Genovese organized crime family. In 1954, her mother witnessed a murder, and her parents left, moving to New Canaan, Connecticut. But Catherine, known as Kitty, decided to stay in Brooklyn, as she was about to get married. But the marriage was quickly annulled.

She took clerical jobs, but found bartending more to her liking. In 1961, she was arrested for bookmaking, for taking horse racing bets from bar patrons. She pleaded guilty, paid a $50 fine, and was fired from her job.

She soon got another bartending job, at Ev's Eleventh Hour Bar, on Jamaica Avenue and 193rd Street in Hollis, Queens. Soon, she began managing the bar on behalf of its absentee owner. This enabled her to make enough money to get an apartment in the Kew Gardens section of Queens, at 82-70 Austin Street. She shared it with Mary Ann Zielonko. As comedian Bill Maher once said of this period, "Lesbians were called 'roommates.'"

She went to work on March 12, 1964, and left at 2:30 AM on March 13 -- a Friday the 13th. At 3:15, she parked her red Fiat in the Kew Gardens station of the Long Island Rail Road, about 100 feet from her apartment's door, in an alleyway at the back of the building.

She and her Fiat had been seen by Winston Moseley, who was driving a Chevrolet Corvair. He followed, parked his car in a bus stop on Austin Street, and got out, taking a hunting knife with him. He ran after her, caught her, and stabbed her twice in the back.

She yelled out, "Oh my God, he stabbed me! Help me!" Some neighbors heard the sound, but only a few of them recognized it as a cry for help. One, Robert Mozer, shouted out, "Let that girl alone!" but did nothing else. Moseley ran away, and Kitty got to the entrance of her apartment.

But she only got as far as a hallway at the back of the building before falling, barely conscious. Moseley went back, found her, stabbed her again, raped her, and stole $49 from her (about $448 in 2022 money), before finally leaving.

Sophia Farrar, a neighbor and friend, found her, called an ambulance, and held her until the ambulance arrived. One witness said his father had called the police after the initial stabbing, saying, a woman was "beat up, but got up and was staggering around." Another witness called friends for advice on what to do, before finally calling the cops. At 4:15 AM, the ambulance got to the scene, but it was no use: Kitty died on route to the hospital, just 28 years old.

The first suspect the police questioned was Zielonko, thinking the gay relationship might have soured and turned violent. She denied knowing anything about it. The neighbors also denied that Zielonko had anything to do with it.

Six days later, on March 19, Moseley was arrested in Ozone Park, Queens, after a stolen television set was found in the trunk of his Corvair. During questioning, Moseley admitted that he killed Kitty. He also confessed to killing Annie Mae Johnson, shot in her apartment in South Ozone Park a few weeks earlier; and Barbara Kralik, only 15, and killed in her family's house in Springfield Gardens in July 1963. He said he preyed on women because "they were easier, and didn't fight back." On June 11, he was convicted, and remained in prison until his death in 2016, at age 82.

The murder of Kitty Genovese would have been a footnote in the history of crime in New York City, if not for Police Commissioner Michael J. Murphy meeting A.M. "Abe" Rosenthal, then the metropolitan editor of The New York Times, for lunch and telling him, "That Queens story is one for the books." Rosenthal launched an investigation, and on March 27, 2 weeks after the murder, the Times published a story titled "37 Who Saw Murder Didn't Call the Police."

The text of the article raised the number to 38, and subsequent editions printed the number 38 in the headline, but it entered the public consciousness as "37 people saw a murder and did nothing about it." The article quoted one witness as saying, "I didn't want to get involved."

Crime had been on the rise in New York since the end of World War II, and with the Baby Boomers, the largest generation America has ever produced, now beginning to reach adulthood, and illegal drugs becoming more available and more widespread than ever, it was starting to get out of control. The Genovese murder didn't start the crime wave that continued to plague New York until the mid-1990s, but it was a convenient symbol. And the reaction to it was a convenient symbol for the callousness of New Yorkers, making the City look very bad to the rest of the country.

In the years to come, the facts of the case began to emerge. In 2014, on the 50th Anniversary of the murder, a book was published suggesting that the number of 38 witnesses who "did nothing" was misinterpreted. Some witnesses thought they saw, or heard, a minor argument, and had no idea a that murder was taking place until the next morning. She was attacked 3 separate times, and in each of the 1st 2, only 1 witness saw her get stabbed. And the 1st stabbing punctured a lung, rendering her incapable of screaming.

What's more, there was no real way to get in touch with emergency services: The best that could be done at the time was to dial zero for a telephone operator, say, "Get me the police," and go through the NYPD's calling system of the time, and hope that it led to an ambulance getting there in time. This was considered unacceptable, and in 1968, 4 years later, the 911 emergency-call system was put into effect.

Episodes of the CBS legal drama Perry Mason, like the novels that inspired it, were usually titled "The Case of the... " followed by an alliteration. On November 21, 1965, the show aired "The Case of the Silent Six," with 6 residents of a small apartment building failing to help a murder victim. The 1975 ABC film Death Scream was also based on the murder. So were 2 episodes in the NBC Law & Order franchise, one of them titled "41 Witnesses."

In the 1986 comic book miniseries Watchmen, the character of Walter Kovacs recalled reading about the Genovese murder, saying that it inspired him to become the vigilante Rorschach. This was also mentioned in the 2009 film version. What the film version did not include, but the original graphic novel did, was that his mask was made from a dress that Kitty had worn.

Michael J. Murphy, NYPD Commissioner from 1961 to 1965, died in 1997. A.M. Rosenthal died in 2006. As of March 13, 2022, Mary Ann Zielonko is still alive. (UPDATE: She died in 2024, at age 85.)

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March 13, 1964 was a Friday -- a Friday the 13th. Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. And no games were scheduled in the NHL. But two games were played in the NBA:

* The Detroit Pistons beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 133-122, at the Catholic Youth Center in Scranton, Pennsylvania, a home-away-from-home game for the 76ers. No attendance figure was given for this game. The building still stands, and is now the Student Union Gymnasium at Lackawanna University.

* And the Los Angeles Lakers beat the San Francisco Warriors, 112-109 at the Cow Palace, outside San Francisco in Daly City, California. For the Lakers, Jerry West scored 38 points, and Elgin Baylor scored 35. For the Warriors, Wilt Chamberlain scored 35, and had 24 rebounds.