Muriel Landers

Muriel Landers was nicknamed “the fastest ton in the West.” People weren’t too subtle back then. (Though considering the rudeness and crudeness on social media, things may actually be worse today).

“Plump” seems to have been the preferred word in the media to describe her, as she found her way into supporting roles on television. Her nickname in the San Francisco papers in the early ‘50s was “Lannie.”

Landers was a graduate of Northwestern University who moved to the Bay Area by 1949. There she opened a TV training school and soon married Bill Sweeney of KFRC, then got a job on the air at KYA in 1951. Sniffed Herb Caen in his column of April 12, 1951: “One Muriel Landers, who starts a midnight disc jockey show from the Papagayo Room Sunday, is ballyhooing herself as "Your Glamour Gal With a Brain." Such conceit. All other "glamour gals" (ich) are glamorons?” She was also part of an experimental colour TV broadcast in San Francisco in January 1950 by a company hoping to sell its technology.

The big-time came unexpectedly. Walter Winchell wrote in his column of November 16, 1951: “JACK BENNY laughed so much watching Muriel Landers when he appeared on Sinatra's program that he invited her to join him in his next Palladium (London) show. What a break.” Benny used Landers on radio and TV.

The big time meant “big” jokes. Perhaps Landers didn’t mind. Here’s a United Press story of March 11, 1952.

Plumpness Pays Off for This Gal in Hollywood
By ALINE MOSBY
HOLLYWOOD, Mar. 11. —(UP)— Beautiful girls are signed for pictures because of their slender shapes but Muriel Landers, a well-fed tourist from New York, was rushed into pictures today — because she's a perfect 42.
Twentieth Century-Fox studio's been scouring the cinema city for a caloried cutie to play 287-pound Thomas Gomez' Indian wife in "Pony Soldier." But the Hollywood dolls are too busy dieting. So when Miss Landers happened to visit the town and lunch with a friend in the Fox commissary, bedlam busted loose.
Whirled Through Routine
She was, to be exact, discovered over a piece of banana cream pie. The casting director leaped to her table and begged her to take a movie test.
The pretty brunette was whirled through the wardrobe department . . . tested in technicolor . . . and signed for the leading, role before her hefty lunch had a chance to settle.
"The studio claims I'm 225 but I'm only 201. Don't make it any worse," she chuckled, all over.
She's only 5 foot, 1 inch tall, too, just like two Marilyn Monroes.
Directors Happy

"When the casting director saw me he grinned as though a light had gone on," she said, "He called the director of the picture and they all were smiling broadly.
"After the test everybody around the studio looked at me and grinned and I thought maybe my slip was showing.
"Finally this big gentleman comes along and shouts 'How!' I said, 'Why?' He was Thomas Gomez, very big, and I knew why they were laughing. He says wait until I see the eight chubby papooses we have in the picture."
TV Character Roles
Miss Five-by-Five started out to be an opera singer in Chicago but ate her way out of that career. So she crashed into New York television to play character roles with Frank Sinatra, Ed Wynn and Jack Benny.
"I kept putting on weight, in layers," she smiled.
"My name isn't too well known, but anybody with a TV set can't forget my figure."
Always a Job
"I've never had to look for jobs," she shrugged. "In New York every time I eat in a restaurant some TV producer offers me a part. They welcomed me with open arms. Not being a glamour girl hasn't hindered me.
"I find audiences like me, too. After all, half the women in the audience are more like me than Lana Turner."

Earl Wilson wrote about Landers in his syndicated column of May 17, 1957. By then she had made a bunch of TV guest appearances, played Rosa in the TV version of Life With Luigi and was cast in that Duke Mitchell/Sammy Petrillo classic, Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (1952).

Television's fat girl, Muriel Landers —height 5 feet, weight 200 plus—feels sorry for you skinny women.
And especially for bony fashion models.
"They have such a pained expression!" says Muriel, shaking with plumpish laughter. "They're miserable from hunger."
MURIEL, WHOM YOU'VE seen with Ray Bolger, Jack Benny, Jimmy Durante, Jackie Gleason, Jack Carter and others, is a comic herself.
"I get paid by the pound," she'll be glad to tell you. "When I was on Frank Sinatra's show, I lifted him. Yeah, that's when I started picking up men."
Muriel, a Chicagoan who started as a concert singer, was told when she arrived in New York hunting acting jobs. "They'll take one look and throw you out of the office."
"Now I'm afraid to diet too much because I'm doing so well," she says. "I took off 40 pounds, though."
"So what is your actual weight now?" I asked her.
"Two hundred is sexier than 250 isn't it?" she flung back.
"A LOT OF MEN like us heavy women," she rippled on. "I've never had any problem getting one."
Her wardrobe's full of expensive size 20's dresses, and at 28 she goes laughing through life.
LONDON AUDIENCES howled when she did pratfalls in Jack Benny's act at the Palladium.
"Most women in the audiences everywhere are more like me than they are like Marilyn Monroe," she says. "They say, 'She's got a glamour kind of a job, maybe there's a chance for me.'"
"Do you have any plans for marriage?" I asked her.
"Yes, I do have some plans for marriage," she retorted, "and hope it has some plans for me!"

One of the people on Laugh-In early in the first season was Muriel Landers. I thought she was supposed to be part of the regular cast but it looks like she only appeared on two shows.

A stroke claimed Landers at age 55. She died in the Motion Picture Country Home on February 19, 1977.