RIP GLORIA MCMILLAN

1933-2022

Gloria McMillan is probably best known to the world as Harriet Conklin on the radio and television sitcom “Our Miss Brooks” (starring Eve Arden).  She also played the role in a 1956 big screen version of the show from Warner Brothers.  

She began playing the role in 1948 on radio. The character was daughter to Osgood Conklin, the Principal of the High School where Miss Brooks worked as a teacher.  The series moved to television in 1952, just one year after “I Love Lucy”. It was produced by Desilu Studios. As a production of Desilu, McMillan worked with many actors who also appeared on “I Love Lucy”.  

Chief among them was Gale Gordon, who, as one of the busiest radio artists in history, did double duty as Osgood Conklin and Mr. Atterbury on Lucy’s radio show “My Favorite Husband,” which aired concurrently with “Our Miss Brooks”.  Despite being busy with other projects, Gordon found time to appear as Alvin Littlefield, owner of the Tropicana, in two episodes of “I Love Lucy”. 

McMillan considered Eve Arden a friend and mentor. In turn Arden considered McMillan her “TV daughter” (even though the characters were not related on the show). 

As an old friend of Lucille Ball’s from their RKO days, Arden did a cameo on “I Love Lucy” when the Ricardos and Mertzes first arrive in Hollywood.  

At around the same time, Desi Arnaz played himself in one 1955 episode of “Our Miss Brooks,” but McMillan’s character did not appear that week. 

McMillan did, however, work with Richard Crenna, who played Arthur Morton, a teenage boy who had a crush on Lucy Ricardo in “The Young Fans”. Crenna created the role of Walter Denton on “Eve” and, like McMillan, played the role on radio and television. The two characters (Denton / Morton) were deliberately similar. Crenna also appeared as a similar type on Lucy’s radio show “My Favorite Husband.” 

Also making the switch from radio to TV with her character was McMillan’s TV mom, Paula Winslowe as Mrs. Martha Conklin. On “I Love Lucy” Winslowe appeared on the deck of the SS Constitution in “Second Honeymoon”, one of the biggest and most expensive episodes of television to be produced at the time. 

Other “Lucy” actors who worked with McMillan on the “Brooks” set include Mary Jane Croft, Frank Nelson, Jerry Hausner, Elvia Allman, Hy Averback, Joe Kearns, Peter Leeds, Maurice Marsac, Nancy Kulp, Herb Vigran, Parley Baer, Gail Bonney, Sammy Ogg, Florence Bates, Arhtur Q. Bryan, as well as many of the Desilu technical and production personnel.

After “Our Miss Brooks”, McMillan appeared on a 1966 episode of NBC’s “Dr. Kildare”; as a judge in the beauty-pageant satire Smile (1975); in the miniseries “Centennial”; and on a 1990 installment of “Perfect Strangers”, her final credit. From 1974 to 2018, McMillan taught acting and tap dancing to kids.

She leaves behind a husband of 49 years, five children, nine grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.  Gloria McMillan was 88 years old.