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21 Beacon Street

American detective television series

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 10, 2026
Entity authorityQ4630982
Source-derived summary

21 Beacon Street is an American detective television series that originally aired on NBC from July 2 to September 10, 1959.

Produced by Filmways, the summer replacement series for The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show consisted of 11 black-and-white 30-minute episodes. The show starred Dennis Morgan as private investigator Dennis Chase. Other cast members included Joanna Barnes, Brian Kelly, and James Maloney.

The series pilot was broadcast as an episode of Panic!.

The show aired on Thursdays at 9:30 p.m. Eastern Time. Reruns were broadcast on ABC-TV on Sundays at 10:30 p.m. from December 1959 to March 1960.

Leonard Heideman was the show's creator.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “21 Beacon Street” as american detective television series. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Beacon, Street and American.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1959, 1960—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Beacon, Street and American providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “21 Beacon Street”, the useful work is to connect “american detective television series” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4630982. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1959 and 1960.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “21 Beacon Street”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow 21 Beacon Street primary sources, 21 Beacon Street archive and Beacon research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “21 Beacon Street”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from 21 Beacon Street” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.