Hollywood Connection

I remember feeling very privileged when I was young that my father worked for Hallmark. It meant that we could go into Hollywood and attend the Hallmark Radio Show. I remember going to see a rendition of Song of the South with Luanne Patton and Bobby Driscoll. We stood outside afterward and got to meet them and get their autograph.

Photo of Unknown Man, Marie Willson, Patty Burg, and Betty Burg at Margaret Corley's House in Hollywood, 1950.

Hallmark was moving toward television, especially color television, and we were invited to view a production of Macbeth. It wasn't a live stage play. It was better than that, so to speak. It was a production of Hallmark Hall of Fame done for TV in color. We saw it at a Studio because of course very few people even had color television. I think this is how my dad became involved with movie studios, particularly the Hal Roach Studio, located at the corner of Washington and National in Culver City. There was some connection to Hallmark.
We got to visit the studio, occasionally, where they were filming some of the early sitcoms. I remember meeting Gale Storm on one of those visits and stopping to talk to her. Josephine Owaissa Cottle (April 5, 1922 - June 27, 2009), better known as Gale Storm, was an American actress and singer, who starred in two popular television programs of the 1950s, My Little Margie and The Gale Storm Show. I also spent the afternoon with Marie Wilson (Katherine Elisabeth Wilson, August 19, 1916–November 23, 1972, an American radio, film, and television actress.) from My Friend Irma who was filming at the Hal Roach Studio lot. That came about when she was invited to swim in my Aunt Margaret Corley's (not really an aunt just a good friend of my parents) swimming pool. Margaret was dating a fellow who was a bit-part actor and he brought Marie Wilson along to swim. We got to come and meet them. - Pat Hughes



The Hallmark /Hollywood connection just opened a door to material my father would later use in some of his paintings. He was able to freely peruse the back lots of the studio sets were he found the old buildings that he would later lovingly incorporate.


#206 Early Study, 16X20, Oil on Masonite, Unframed Unsigned by Dick Burg Courtesy of Peter Burg.









Study, Back Lot, 20x24, Pallet Knife and Brush,Oil on Canvas, Unsigned By Dick Burg, Coutesy of Peter Burg.jpg














Untitled, Western Town with Hay Wagon, Oil on Canvas Panel, Framed, Signed Burg, Coutesy of Peter Burg.