Loretta's Beauty Shop .......... (for M.B.)

Loretta's Beauty Shop is open again today - it is of course located at Cabot Cove somewhere in New England - Maine, perhaps? - where that amazing sleuth and thriller writer Jessica Fletcher resides - when she is not globe-trotting around the world solving murders where-ever she goes .... Jessica of course is the tireless Angela Lansbury (still working in her late 80s - she was back on the London stage earlier this year) - while her MURDER SHE WROTE TV series are replayed endlessly - there is at least one a day on here. 

I never bothered with the series back when first shown - being younger and out a lot and it was not my sort of TV, but hey 30 or so years later, its amusing to check them out now and then, if only for the great guest stars - we have seen Jean Simmons, Janet Leigh, Carroll Baker, Rod Taylor, David Hemmings and lots more including Angela's old pals from her MGM days. Some episodes are set in a make-believe Ireland (where Angela lived for some years) and its fun seeing their recreations of Paris, Hong Kong, Cairo and others.

A particular favourite of mine, Ruth Roman, wound down her career here, doing three episodes set in Cabot Cove where she plays Loretta who runs the local beauty parlour (where everything is pink), its where Angela and her gossipy neighbours hang out: Julia Adams still looking terrific, a rather portly Kathryn Grayson, and Gloria De Haven, This particular episode I saw the other day "The Sins of Castle Cove" (Season 5, episode 17, 1989) concerns a PEYTON PLACE type novel written by a local girl, using all the local scandals, which becomes a best seller and, yes, inevitably leads to murder. But fear not, Jessica will soon unravel it, meanwhile relax with the girls at the parlour presided over by the good-natured, jovial Loretta, a vision in pink - go Ruth, a good final role for her.