The Life of Riley: Story, Cast and Series Facts

Story and premise

1313 Blue View Terrace, Los Angeles, California, the residence of the Riley Family: Chester, a riveter with Stevenson Aircraft and Associates; his wife Peggy; and their children, Babs and Junior. Riley worked in an aircraft plant in California, but viewers usually saw him at home, cheerfully disrupting life with his malapropisms and ill timed intervention into minor problem.

Series details

• Title: The Life of Riley
• Format: Scripted
• Language: English
• Genres: Comedy
• Premiere date: 1953-01-02
• Final broadcast date listed: 1958-05-23
• Status in TVmaze: Ended
• Network listed by TVmaze: NBC
• Network country: United States
• Typical episode runtime: 30 minutes
• TVMaze ID: 24263
• IMDb ID: tt0045406
• TVDB ID: 73115

Cast and credited roles

• William Bendix — Chester A. Riley
• Marjorie Reynolds — Peg Riley
• Lugene Sanders — Babs Riley Marshall
• Tom D'Andrea — Jim Gillis
• Wesley Morgan — Junior
• Gloria Blondell — Honeybee Gillis
• Henry Kulky — Otto Schmidlap
• Emory Parnell — Hank Hawkins
• Sterling Holloway — Waldo Binney
• Douglass Dumbrille — Cunningham
• Bob Sweeney — Dangle
• George O'Hanlon — Calvin Dudley

Seasons in the TVmaze catalogue

• Season 1: premiered 1952-12-01; final listed air date 1953-06-26; episode order: 26.
• Season 2: premiered 1953-09-18; final listed air date 1954-06-18; episode order: 39.
• Season 3: premiered 1954-09-17; final listed air date 1955-06-24; episode order: 39.
• Season 4: premiered 1955-09-16; final listed air date 1956-06-18; episode order: 39.
• Season 5: premiered 1956-09-14; final listed air date 1957-06-07; episode order: 39.
• Season 6: premiered 1957-09-13; final listed air date 1958-05-23; episode order: 35.

Source and licence

Adapted from The Life of Riley on TVmaze. The synopsis is reproduced as plain text; catalogue facts, cast and season records are selected and reformatted. This adapted text is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, following the TVmaze API licence. Network and web-channel credits identify the service listed in this source; they do not establish current streaming availability.