Jean Holloway

Jean Holloway, born Gratia Jean Casey in San Francisco, became interested in writing for radio after winning a poetry contest upon graduating from San Jose State College. From the late 1930s, she worked on a number of quality syndicated programs, including "The Kate Smith Show" and "The Hallmark Radio Hall of Fame". She was eventually signed as a screenwriter by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the mid-'40s, her collaborations including the popular musical biopic Till the Clouds Roll By (1946). Holloway left MGM after what she described as "three miserable years" and went on to fulfill her ambition to write drama for the new medium of television. While working on the first continuous daytime soap The First Hundred Years (1950), she met her future husband, the actor Dan Tobin.

Halfway through the decade, Holloway developed a TV version of the popular radio show Mayor of the Town (1954), starring Thomas Mitchell and Kathleen Freeman. This sitcom ran to 39 episodes, lasting just one season before being cancelled. She then scripted a variety of episodes in diverse genres (including more than a few of Wagon Train (1957)) before creating The Ghost & Mrs. Muir (1968), based on the novel by R.A. Dick and starring Hope Lange and Edward Mulhare. Holloway wrote the pilot, eventually scripting some 50 episodes of the series. 'Ghost' was not filmed in Maine (as the story suggested), but in Santa Barbara, California (the cottage featured in the show, Gull House, was actually nowhere near a beach!). While developing a cult following in subsequent years, the series only ran for two seasons due to stiff competition from other channels in the same time slot. Holloway remained steadily productive as a TV writer until her retirement in 1983. She died six years later in Santa Monica following a stroke.