I was taken aback this morning by a news story - "'My Three Sons' actress Beverly Garland dies at 82".

The article says that Beverly Garland played the mom on 1960s sitcom My Three Sons. Needless to say I was confused, what with the whole premise of the show being Fred MacMurray raising three sons all by himself - i.e. with no wife.

Wha?

See, when my brother and I were young we watched a tremendous amount of Nick at Nite - old old sitcoms rebroadcast every night on Nickelodeon. You know, The Donna Reed Show, My Three Sons, Mister Ed, The Patty Duke Show and The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. I had such a crush on Patty Duke (but only as Patty, not Cathy). You know, I was probably the only ten year old ever with the hots for someone who was born two years before my own mother was.

Anyway, you know what they play now on Nick at Nite?

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The George Lopez Show, Family Matters, Home Improvement and Roseanne. Wow, they're all so new ... and so terrible.

Anyway, back to Beverly Garland. Apparently she played the mom on the last three seasons, you know, after the show had jumped the shark (but oddly years before Fonzie actually jumped the shark in the first place).

This was after oldest son Mike moved out, after they replaced grandfather Bub with Charlie (played by Preston Sturges' regular William Demarest), and after cute orphan Ernie joined the cast.

Sidenote - I always thought Raven Symone's Olivia on The Cosby Show was quite a bit like Ernie. In the long-running sitcom when the cute kid (either Rudy or Chip) gets too old and not cute enough, enter Lisa Bonet's stepdaughter, or in the 1960s pre-PC world, an orphan. It's been done dozens of times, and will be done dozens more. Shoot, I'm surprised they didn't add a couple of orphans to Friends once they all started getting doughy.

Anyway, My Three Sons. Nick at Nite. Either they didn't show the last few seasons of the show, or they did and I didn't watch them (I always preferred the Bub years to the Charlie years), but apparently on the show Fred MacMurray remarried and we're back to Beverly Garland.

Even though I didn't know her television work, when I read the article the name still stood out to me. But why? Then I saw why in the second-to-last paragraph.

See, Ms. Garland owned a hotel in North Hollywood - Beverly Garland's Holiday Inn. It's on Vineland, right where you get off the 101 freeway. And see, one of my former friends lived over there for eight or nine months, and I drove by that hotel hundreds of times.

And that, amazingly enough, is all I have to write about Beverly Garland. Join me tomorrow as I postulate on even more entertainment industry minutia that you probably couldn't care a fig about.