Sep 27, 2022
Today on part one of the Rarified Heir Podcast, we are talking to Peter Ackerman, son of actress Elinor Donohue and TV executive Harry Ackerman. We talk to Peter about growing up in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles and how his parents worked on iconic television shows from the 1950s through to the 1990s. For Harry, that meant being directly responsible for shows like “I Love Lucy”, “Bewitched”, “Gidget”, “Gunsmoke”, “Dennis The Menace”, “The Monkees” and dozens more. For Elinor that was iconic roles as Betty Anderson on “Father Knows Best as well as “The Andy Griffith Show”, “The Odd Couple”, “Newhart”, “Get A Life” and many more. Talking to Peter was a real pleasure and a walk down memory lane as we hear behind the scenes tales of family friends William Asher and Elizabeth Montgomery, a first kiss from the daughter of a famous comedian, visiting the set of “Batman”, not visiting the set of “The Monkees” due to Tork’s curse and the twisted realization that your school friend actor Johnny is actually playing your mother’s son in a TV show.
We talk about long gone LA restaurants, restaurants still present, what it was like to be the son of an actress and then meet the child playing your mother’s son on her TV show, your first kiss ever with a comedian’s daughter, Sabrina vs. Serena, the end of Bewitched, the amazingly cross Paul Lynde, the lone time Peter asked for a twinkle of Elizabeth Montgomery’s nose and much more. It’s all here on the next episode, of the Rarified Heir Podcast. Take a listen.