Television's Anti-Parking Meter Crusader

J. Edward McKinley popped up everywhere on 1960s comedy shows as kind of an impatient businessman. It seems that’s how he began his acting career.

McKinley had a knack of finding interesting ways to get publicity. Witness this wire service story from 1951:

Radio Station Sells 30 Seconds of Silence
HOLLYWOOD, Calif., Jan. 26 (INS)—A Southern California radio station—KMPC—boasted today that it had sold thirty seconds of silence.
The unusual sale was chalked up by Ross Mulholland, doing a daily campaign for the March of Dimes on his show Thursday.
J. Edward McKinley, co-owner of the Chef Saw Manufacturing Co., dropped in to add $10 to Mulholland’s March of Dimes. But instead of asking for ten dollars worth of music, he asked—and got—$10 worth of complete silence.

The not-yet-actor’s next PR effort involved parking meters. Well, some parking meters. It’s one of those things that just about anyone can identify with. A wire service picked up McKinley’s populist crusade and put it out on May 10, 1958.

Parkers’ ‘Good Shepherd’
HOLLYWOOD (AP)—J. Edward McKinley hates parking meters that run too fast.
So much so that he is conducting a one-man campaign against them along Sunset Boulevard.
His crusade began a year ago when police tagged his car for overtime parking. He checked the curb parking meter and found that the meter was a cheater.
McKinley, a salesman, took the ticket to court. A judge, impressed by his defense, dismissed the case on the technicality that the ticketed car was registered not to McKinley but to his wife.
McKinley then declared an all-out war on parking meters. He ranged up and down the boulevard and found most of the meters ticked faster than his trusty wrist watch.
Flush with success, McKinley said yesterday that he is expanding his crusade to include parking zones whose colors have faded.
“I spotted a while passenger-loading zone on Whitley Avenue,” McKinley said. “The paint was more than 50 per cent rubbed out, making the zone invalid.” The average motorist hasn’t the time to go to court over minor traffic violations, McKinley contends.
“People are just paying their fines like sheep,” he said.

The publicity got McKinley on television. On October 6, 1958, he starred in an episode of Police Station, a 30-minute drama produced by KTLA in Los Angeles. McKinley explained the circumstances in a wire story on June 5, 1960.

McKinley Slated For Films and TV
HOLLYWOOD (AP)—J. Edward McKinley built a $2 parking ticket into a $25,000-a-year acting job.
"It's crazy," McKinley says. "One day I grabbed a parking ticket off my windshield and a few weeks later I was an actor."
He fought and beat the rap on the parking ticket. Appearances on television news and interview shows followed because of the uproar over the case.
"Next thing I knew," he says, "the movie producers were calling up making me offers to act in straight dramatic shows."
McKinley appeared in 51 television shows and motion pictures. Among the TV shows have been "Alcoa Presents," "77 Sunset Strip," "Mr. Lucky," and "Colt 45." He has played lawyers, judges, crime bosses and scientists.
He still is hanging on to his sales promotion business and owns part of an oil company in Colorado.
He's still interested in traffic tickets, promoting a plan for night traffic courts so that the working man can fight tickets.
McKinley, who hasn't got a ticket since he went into acting, has taken nine citations to court and lost but one.

Besides cameras, courtrooms continued to beckon McKinley. This is from a southern California paper of December 20, 1960:

Former President’s Nephew Scores Ninth Time In Court
By DAVE HOLLAND
Valley Times TODAY Staff Writer
J. Edward McKinley has done it again. For the ninth time in 11 tries, the grand nephew of former President William McKinley has beaten a traffic ticket in court.
McKinley, 6909 Oporto Dr., Hollywood, was accused Monday in Burbank’s Municipal Court of making an illegal U-turn on Riverside drive near its intersection with Valley street, Burbank.
When the incident took place last Oct. 9, McKinley didn’t believe it was illegal.
He told Judge Edward C. Olson why he didn’t think so yesterday. The judge apparently agreed. The defendant deserves the benefit of the doubt, Olson said, then added, “Not guilty.”
“It was those same two words that started me on my new career three years ago,” McKinley said. “I’m an actor now and have appeared in 67 TV shows since then all because I appeared in court on my own behalf and won.
The 44-year-old, graying man told this story:
“It all started when I found a meter violation ticket on my car. I insisted that it was the meter’s fault, not mine. The meter was fast and I proved it with a stop watch.
“Sam Taylor, traffic department director for Los Angeles, said that was one meter in a 1,000. We picked out 15 in a row, timed them all, and found more than half of them to be fast. I won the case.”
From the notoriety he received during the trial, McKinley was asked to appear on different television shows, including the Groucho Marx and the Paul Coates programs. A quiz show followed, then others. Finally someone talked him into tackling a dramatic part rather than just guesting on TV.
His first part? A defendant on Night Court. His last? A U.S. Senator on Stagecoach West. His next?
“I think I’m ready to play a lawyer,” McKinley smiled.

Besides being an actor and a traffic meter challenger, McKinley turned to record production. The Hollywood Reporter informed readers on May 25, 1962:

J. Edward McKinley, appearing in Otto Preminger’s “Advise and Consent,” has been signed by Del-Fi Records, Hollywood, to produce three new singles featuring comedian Jackie Curtis. McKinley has had his own compositions published and recorded in the past and will be a record producer for the first time.

I keep thinking of McKinley as the perennial client on Bewitched. Apparently, he appeared on ten episodes.

McKinley died in 2004. Part of his obit is posted to the right. Evidently, playing opposite Dick Sargent brings wealth as McKinley not only lived in Beverly Hills, he had a collection of classic cars. We presume none of them ever got a parking ticket.