Thanks to Mark Evanier and his video link, I now know about an unsold Dick Tracy pilot that was made in 1967. It starred Ray MacDonnell, and as Mark correctly pointed out, MacDonnell went on to have a 40 year career on the soap opera “All My Children”.

I had never seen that Dick Tracy pilot, and I’ve only watched a few minutes of it now, but with his square-jawed good looks, I think Ray was perfectly cast in that role.

But that wasn’t the only thing he did in 1967.

In fact, I saw him on Broadway that year.

He was the replacement in the non-singing role of Lindsay Woolsey in the Jerry Herman mega-hit “Mame”, Herman’s followup to his mega-hit “Hello, Dolly!” and the show that made Angela Lansbury a Broadway legend.

I saw it on Friday May 12, 1967, along with a couple of high school classmates and a former high school classmate and the step-sister-in-law of Robin (aka Burt Ward [I think I have that relationship correct]).

I remember being surprised when Ray MacDonnell walked onto the stage as even from our Loge seats, you couldn’t fail to recognize him.

Of course, I knew who he was from his multi-year stint as Philip Capice on The Edge of Night from the early 60s.

The character Philip Capice had married Louise, the daughter of Monticello’s leading citizen, Winston Grimsley. Somehow Philip got himself involved with what he thought was a legitimate business of Casey Reno, but unbeknownst to him, Casey was a drug dealer, and the statues that he was importing all contained heroin. 

The story got even more involved when we learned that Casey Reno was really the puppet front man of an even bigger drug dealer, who had Reno murdered and framed Philip Capice for the crime. All through this the Caprices were trying to have a child and when they succeeded Louise thought their nanny, Beth Moon, was trying to steal their baby, so Louise ran away with the baby to New Orleans.

That got straightened out, and Mike Karr got Philip off for the murder, but then the super drug dealer wasn’t through with Philip and found a thug who looked sufficiently like him that with a bit of plastic surgery he became the spittin’ image of Philip. This was still live TV and Ray MacDonnell played both roles, of course, but I think they must have resorted to video tape for some of the scenes where he had to play both parts in the same episode in very different makeup.

The faux Philip impersonated the real Philip for several months while the real Philip was kept sedated in the crooks’ hideaway, and poor neurotic Louise never suspected a thing. Until faux Philip called her “honey” one day.

I probably have some of that mixed up after 60 years. I certainly hope so.

Anyway, here’s the unsold Dick Tracy pilot.