77 Sunset Strip

- Season 1

(1958)

PI Stu is hired to find a singer who witnessed a murder, before she's iced too by comb-crazy, cold-blooded hit-man Smiley. She and Stu fall in love.

Stu's Monday starts maddeningly. His op's blackmailing a philandering client, so Stu chucks him out onto the Strip, frightening off a voluptuous, potential client waiting in the lobby. Stu Bailey dashes after the steamy blonde, who refuses to divulge her name - despite their plunging into a whirlwind romance. The operative turns up dead in Stu's office, but Stu was trysting with the mystery woman at the time. When she goes missing, the heat hunt Stu for his op's murder, Stu tracks his alibi.

Bailey, Spencer, and Kookie protect a Latin playboy marked for murder.

A woman hires Jeff to find her dead husband, who she's just seen alive ! Kookie and Doll trail the fast-moving zombie, who continues changing names & addresses, and his glamorous new girlfriend. As Jeff makes significant progress with the help of an easily-charmed landlady, the company which insured the resurrected man hires Stu also. Somehow, a mysterious Mr. Dolan who looks half-dead, is involved too.

A Vegas casino falters, because their chips are being counterfeited. "The Meteor" hires Stu, who discovers the plastics company that's making the counterfeits, then goes undercover as a cardsharp from Miami, to find out if the scheme's mastermind is relocated Chicago gangster Frenchy LaTour. The menacing Frenchy is also suspected of fitting his former boss Big Ears Beecham with a concrete kimono.

Ex-con's wife hires Jeff to determine who is trying to kill her husband, who was recently released from San Quentin. Convicted robber Detterback chilled out in the cooler, but the police don't buy that he's doesn't know the assassin, so Detterback goes almost batty. His wife made it large as a fashion designer during the bad time he was hanging in the stately big house, but is his Alice the greatest, most loyal spouse ? Or does she deserve something better than Detterback, who might get it, pow, right in the kisser?

PI Stu lensing brand-new silent flicker while battling gaggle of greedy heirs? Ex-screen goddess tabs Stu to spend whatever's necessary for a silent masterpiece, including rounding up her elderly former crew & cast-mates. Her adult children fear amateur mogul Stu will blow their inheritance, so they cast their own crew of experts, to prove Lucinda Lane's lost her marbles. Carhop Kookie wants a role in the spectacular too - reasoning he's a jumble of jerky moves already.

Valerie Stacey believes her husband is trying to kill her. So convinced she approaches Bailey and Brynes to investigate and produce enough evidence to take her story to the police.

Stu Bailey is sent to East Germany to rescue an American reporter possessing important government information who was taken prisoner by the Communists.

Kooki reports in that he saw a kidnapping while cruising Beverly Hills. He becomes even more concerned he reports into the police, but they take no action because they have no missing person report.

Stranger on a plane proposes exchanging murders to crime-busting Fed whose wife won't grant him a divorce. A gossip column tips the stranger, a novelist, to the prosecutor's dilemma, so he trails the attorney onto a flight from D.C. to L.A. David the prosecutor isn't sure whether the charming "John Smith," the author, is seriously insane or just has a very cavalier sense of humor, so David hires Stu Bailey to protect his philandering wife from murder. Stu gets some unwanted aid from the Fed's future sister-in-law, who he fluffs off as an interfering ditz, but she ...

Johnny Murdo is accused of stealing $757 from other cadets at a military school. After his court martial and dismissal from the school, Johnny's mother hires Jeff Spencer to investigate and clear his name.

Kookie's just driven by a hit & run killing 2 people, when a mysterious blonde repeatedly tries to run him off Sunset Boulevard. The crash disfigures the woman, & a witness disappears from the scene with her purse. Hotrodder Kookie was on the way to a hot date, so he'd borrowed Stu's classier ride. The woman's a well-known thesp, her hubby's a well-connected tycoon, so the fuzz put the squeeze on hep-cat Kookie, not the jet setters. PI Stu tries to untangle the web that's ensnared him too.

Switchboard operator Suzanne's brother is missing. Jeff agrees to take the case for free. The brother works as a chauffeur for a woman whose husband died recently in an accident. There are many complications.

Stu goes international to fetch a black vase from duplicitous art dealer, while fending off tight-lipped tough guy Iron Man Brown. An Oklahoma oil tycoon left the seemingly worthless vessel to his English niece and nephew who hire Stu, but won't tell him why they'll pay anything to retrieve it.

A lady suffering from amnesia hires Spencer to help her discover who she is and why her purse contained a large sum of money.

The leader of a drug ring plots a counter-offensive against Bailey and Spencer after Stu seeks justice for his friend, a crusading TV journalist blinded in a murder attempt on him by the ring.

Co-ed is murdered on a college campus. Jeff goes undercover as student to protect the daughter of a client. He knows students and faculty have more information that they are holding back and gets pulled into solving the murder.

A boy with a telescope espies a murder being committed in a physician's office across from his family's apartment. Already known for having a fertile imagination, he is not believed when he describes the scene by what he thinks he saw: a man killing a bear.

Ed, a policeman friend of Stu's, gets suspended over bar incident. He asks Stu for help on an investigation of a murder. Ed's girlfriend is somehow involved with the suspect. Girlfriend Jill disappears. The Frankie Ortega Trio plays their version of the show's theme song.

Struggling book publisher learns that he's dead, from a newspaper ad. He hoped he'd be in clover, not a coffin, because he's about to publish a book blowing the whistle on a Latin American dictator. But with his ace editor about to divorce him for dallying with talentless, but shapely female authors, he needs Bailey and Spencer's services. Stu's soon in a spin too: he gets caught in a revolving brunette.

Forlorn hubby prefers to have his wife killed, rather than let her get away with adultery. Tony's tight alibi, & plan to make it look like a burglary gone too far seem perfect. Even when major complications boil up, slick Tony turns them to his advantage. PIs Bailey & Spencer get mired in Tony's La Brea tar-pit, causing their apprentice operative Kookie to go totally Bugs Bunny a la Blanc.

Bailey investigates when the discovery of a long lost son, dead in his submerged car puts a pair of little old ladies in line to claim a large double indemnity insurance payout.

When a client receives a letter from his now deceased serviceman son to complete some unfinished business, Spencer steps in to explore mysterious times the young man spent in Hong Kong with a woman called "Candy."

A California girl is kidnapped while studying in Europe, and Stu is engaged by her absent father. They fly over the pond, and Stu hatches a brilliant con to find the abductors, schmoozing with his suave and debonair French, fine art sensibilities and gendarme friend's help.

An eccentric (Frances Bavier) spends her days happily shoplifting from her own stores. A business manager has hired Spencer to monitor her, fearing her need for thrills might endanger her credibility to sign an upcoming big money deal.

An heirloom tapestry from Czarist Russia with no obvious value beyond the sentimental, seems to be triggering a series of murders.

Spencer works undercover with a group that uses false identities and dead bodies to scam life insurance companies. He's teamed with Audrey, a blonde beauty who's also a cold blooded killer.

Stu is hired to find a missing girl in Italy. He encounters his driver from when he was in the war. He also befriends a local boy that offers to help in the task. The locals are not very helpful. The full picture is not clear, but the missing girl is related to an ongoing crime. Eventually the crime is found out.

A widow breaks into Jeff's apartment to entice him to prove her husband was murdered, rather than committed suicide. Jeff runs into multiple suspects since the dead man was a philanderer. He also gets kidnapped and warned off of the case. Kookie assists in the tailing of suspects.

Although he is acquitted for lack of evidence of the crime of sedition, Bailey's private investigator's license is revoked and he goes on a drinking spree. He is then recruited by a former friend to conduct business with Communists.

A jewel robbery of rubies takes place in Amsterdam and Jeff is called upon to investigate if they are to be smuggled into the United States. It is found that they were smuggled in a poodle's collar and the agent of a famed actress is suspected.

Stuart is hired by husband and wife Vincent and Helen Blanton, in believing that their wealthy uncle, Cyrus Blanton, is being swindled by his neighbors, who are building a Utopian paradise community called Eden on their vast rural property, Uncle Cyrus joining their cause in adding his property for the community. Outwardly, the community, led by a man calling himself Mr. Paradise, has renounced any form of progress, instead espousing peace and harmony and a "do unto others" philosophy. It also operates as a legal non-profit, the community members who only donate a ...

A young woman witnesses a murder in a nightclub; Spencer tries to protect her.