Widower Lucas Tanner taught English, coached the baseball team, counselled students, was a former big-league pitcher and an ex-sportswriter and played the saxophone. Oh, and he was a jogger. And these were merely the talents revealed in the pilot episode for the series.
Tanner used freewheeling methods that stimulated his pupils but sometimes upset his colleagues at Harry S Truman Memorial High School in Webster Groves, Missouri – a suburb of St Louis.
His principal (Rosemary Murphy) liked his style, and so did the little boy next door (Robbie Rist) who Lucas had taken under his wing.
The NBC series debuted on Wednesday 11 September 1974 and was produced by David Victor, who had already given the world a doctor named Marcus Welby and a lawyer named Owen Marshall.
Lucas Tanner
David Hartman Margaret Blumenthal
Rosemary Murphy Lloyd Ackerman
Tom Middleton Mr Krebbs
Eddie Quillan Glendon
Robbie Rist Joyce Howell
Kathleen Quinlan Craig Willeman
Ramon Bieri Mrs Howell
Nancy Malone Tim Howell
Michael Baseleon Terry Klitsner
Kimberly Beck
Tanner used freewheeling methods that stimulated his pupils but sometimes upset his colleagues at Harry S Truman Memorial High School in Webster Groves, Missouri – a suburb of St Louis.
Lucas Tanner
