AccuRadio Song Of The Day-Peter Palmer

Artist:Peter Palmer f/Stubby Kaye

Song:The Country's In the Very Best of Hands

Album:Li'l Abner: The Original Sound-track Score from the Paramount Picture

Actor Peter Palmer starred in the 1956 Broadway musical adaptation of Al Capp's popular comic strip Li'l Abner and he also starred in the 1959 film version. He's a tall handsome guy so it was assumed at the time that this would launch him to a long successful career. But Li'l Abner was his only significant role. Li'l Abner typecast Palmer as a hillbilly and those are the kind of roles he was offered. He was born Sept. 20, 1931 in Milwaukee. He attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He won a singing contest while in the US Army. And the prize was an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. He sang the song Granada. Producers Melvin Frank and Norman Panama were developing Li'l Abner as a musical and they saw Palmer on Sullivan. The songs for Li'l Abner were written by Johnny Mercer and Gene DePaul. They wrote the songs for Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Film star Van Johnson wanted to star. He even offered to die his hair black. But Frank and Panama wanted a younger actor. After 400 auditions, Dick Shawn was reported as the likely choice. But they saw Palmer on TV and he was a trained singer and he had a music degree. Plus he was a big handsome guy who played football in college. Edie Adams was cast as Daisy Mae. She was in the 1953 show Wonderful Town. And of course character actor Stubby Kaye appears in the video clip. After the success on Broadway, Paramount wanted to turn it into a film. Frank and Panama produced so with the exception of Leslie Parrish as Daisy Mae, the cast of the film was the same as Broadway. The soundtrack is available on CD. Palmer's problem was Li'l Abner typecast him as a hillbilly. He tried to combat that by performing in nightclubs. He released a 1958 album called Presenting Peter Palmer on RCA. It was mostly showtunes so it didn't sell. He did mostly TV guest shots though he was a regular in the shortlived 1967 series Custer. He also appeared in the 1974 Broadway musical Lorelei starring Carol Channing. Palmer wouldn't appear in another film until the 1988 no budget film Deep Space. He did have a small role in the 1990 film Edward Scissorhands. He made his final TV appearance in 1994 and died on Sept. 21, 2021 at age 90. Over the years he was mainly a drama teacher. Here's Peter Palmer featuring Stubby Kaye performing The Country's in the Very Best of Hands from the 1959 film Li'l Abner.