The Topper TV Series
Topper Comes to Television
Thorne Smith's lively characters enjoyed an international audience through a trio of popular Topper movies, and gained new fame when CBS Television produced the episodic comedy series, Topper, in 1953. Veteran character actor Leo G. Carroll was cast as the haunted banker, Cosmo Topper, while the mischievous ghosts, George and Marion Kerby, were played with flair by Robert Sterling and Anne Jeffreys. Rounding out the cast were Lee Patrick as Cosmo's quivery-voiced wife, Henrietta, and dependab...

Topper Takes a Trip
Topper Takes a Trip (1938)
In the first of two sequels to the original film, wealthy banker Cosmo Topper's life is once again complicated by ghosts. Topper Takes a Trip opens in divorce court, where Clara Topper has accused her husband of infidelity. Topper attempts to explain to the court that 'the other woman' is actually the ghost of the recently departed Marion Kerby. The judge is not amused, and throws the case out of court. Meanwhile, Clara's meddling friend, Mrs. Parkhurst, convinces Clara to sail to France and ...

Topper
Topper (1937)
In 1937, film producer Hal Roach was in search of a screwball comedy, and chose to adapt Thorne Smith's racy novel Topper. The resulting film was a huge success with audiences worldwide. Cary Grant and Constance Bennett were cast as George and Marion Kerby, a wealthy, free-spirited couple who also happened to be major stockholders at a bank managed by the stuffy, hen-pecked Cosmo Topper. When the Kerby's die in a tragic automobile accident, their ghosts emerge from the wreckage and seek out t...

Topper Returns
Topper Returns (1941)
In the third of producer Hal Roach's Topper comedy films, most of the action takes place in an old, dark mansion, complete with trap doors and secret passageways. Roland Young returns as banker Cosmo Topper, and along with his chauffeur Eddie, offers support to pretty hitchhikers Gail Richards and Ann Carrington, played by Joan Blondell and Carole Landis. Naturally, Cosmo's good deed does not go unnoticed. Mrs. Topper and her maid catch a glimpse of the family car whisking past, with Gail sit...

Topper: In Development
A New Cosmo Topper?
Comedian Steve Martin is scheduled to reteam with Bringing Down the House director Adam Shankman for a remake of the supernatural comedy Topper, based on Thorne Smith's novel. The original 1937 film starred Roland Young as Cosmo Topper, a stuffy, henpecked bank executive haunted by two mischievous ghosts who reigned as the bank's largest stockholders before their untimely demise. Cary Grant and Constance Bennett played the fun-loving married couple, George and Marion Kerby. In the remake, the...