Tabloid

It was a public affairs show with a variety feel. Tabloid's jovial first host Dick MacDougal and weatherman Percy Saltzman cracked so many jokes that some viewers complained they weren't serious enough. Debuting in 1953 as "a program with an interest in anything that happens anywhere," technology in TV's early days meant "everywhere" was Toronto. Powerhouse Ross McLean produced the show and hosts Elaine Grand and Joyce Davidson broke ground for female broadcasters. It was renamed 701 in 1960. CBC Archives presents nine of the very best episodes.

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Jayne Mansfield: blonde ambition on overdrive

Broadcast Date: Aug. 2, 1957

The naked ambition that catapulted Jayne Mansfield from Texas housewife to Hollywood starlet shines through in this 1957 interview with CBC Tabloid's Joyce Davidson. The blonde bombshell rarely looks at Davidson, preferring to purr straight into the camera instead. Mansfield talks about juggling her film career with single motherhood before rhyming off the names of her pets - all 30 of them. The episode kicks off with Percy Saltzman's trademark weather report, a visit from host Gil Christie's wife and a short cartoon offering viewers a cheeky, behind-the-scenes look at Tabloid.

Jayne Mansfield: blonde ambition on overdrive

• Pierre Berton was originally scheduled to interview Jayne Mansfield, but when producer Ross McLean learned Joyce Davidson was returning from her holiday early, he asked her to do it. A newspaper article billed the tête-à-tête "The Battle of the Blondes," asking "Which has better sex appeal - sex symbol or Canadian girl-next-door?"

• Wholesome Davidson would see her fair share of controversy too. She was forced to resign after she told Pierre Berton in an interview that women who were virgins at the age of thirty were "unlucky." She moved to the U.S. and worked in TV, but was vilified when it came out that she was having an affair with a married producer David Susskind.

• Mansfield adored publicity. Long before singer Janet Jackson's "Nipplegate" at the 2004 Superbowl, Mansfield became known for "accidentally" baring her nipple in a photograph taken while she was dining with a visibly disturbed Sophia Loren.

• A few years after winning a 1957 Golden Globe for New Star of the Year, Mansfield's Hollywood career fizzled out, forcing her to play nightclubs. She died in a 1967 car accident on the way to her next performance.

• Davidson and Susskind later married and moved to Canada where she hosted her own CTV talk show in the 70s.

• Despite Mansfield's wishes, her daughter, Jayne Marie, followed in her footsteps, becoming the first daughter of a Playboy model to pose for the magazine in July 1976.

Jayne Mansfield: blonde ambition on overdrive

Medium: Television

Program: Tabloid

Broadcast Date: Aug. 2, 1957

Guest(s): Jayne Mansfield, Betty Milne

Announcer: Gil Christy
Host: Percy Saltzman, Joyce Davidson

Duration: 25:22

Last updated:
Nov. 12, 2008

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Media	Title and date	Description
Television 26:29	Aug. 11, 1960 Savage or chieftain? Six Nations reclaims its history	The Six Nations' annual Indian Pageant challenges contemporary history and a 1000-year-old Iroquois settlement is unearthed in Ontario.
Television 7:25	July 4, 1960 American tourists in Toronto	What do Americans visiting Toronto in 1960 think of Canada?
Television 26:46	March 24, 1960 The children nobody wants	Interracial adoption is taboo in 1960, and Canada's non-white orphans are being left behind.
Television 27:05	March 3, 1958 Five years of Tabloid	Canada's first public affairs show turns five!
Television 25:22	Aug. 2, 1957 Jayne Mansfield: blonde ambition on overdrive	Jayne Mansfield blows into Toronto at the top of her career.
Television 9:30	July 9, 1957 The Golden Age of comic strips	A curator from the Royal Ontario Museum reviews the institution's impressive collection of comic art – including an original Jimmy Frise Birdseye Center.
Television 27:01	July 3, 1957 Homemaker & Hollywood: Kate Aitken & Barbara Nichols	Broadcaster Kate Aitken and Hollywood film star Barbara Nichols discuss being "career women."
Television 8:43	June 3, 1957 There's no place like dome	Buckminster Fuller explains his geodesic dome.
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Television 13:06	Jan. 14, 1957 Telephones go transatlantic	Canadians can now call England and Scotland with a new underwater cable.
Television 27:04	Oct. 23, 1956 From foe to friend: Japanese culture in Canada	A collage of Japanese culture: food, clothing, dance and sport are on show.
Television 6:50	June 22, 1956 Scoops, angles, ethics and actions	Matthew Halton discusses the challenges and rewards of working as a foreign correspondent.
Television 26:09	April 13, 1956 Moose River memories, 20 years later	Journalist J. Frank Willis, disaster survivor Alfred Scatting, and several others present at the 1936 Moose River mine disaster recall the ordeal in 1956.
Television 28:22	Dec. 26, 1955 Percy Saltzman hosts 'Tabloid' alone	It's Boxing Day in 1955 and Percy Saltzman is left to run Tabloid alone.
Television 6:26	Nov. 2, 1954 Canada breaks UN deadlock on disarmament	An interview with Paul Martin Sr., Canada's voice at the United Nations.

15 results available