Gates McFadden was reluctant to accept the role of Dr. Crusher because of her commitment to appear in the play The Matchmaker at the La Jolla Playhouse.
His 1835 one-act A Day Well Spent, after expansion, translation, and rewriting, formed the basis of Thornton Wilder's play The Matchmaker, which itself was the basis of the stage musical and movie Hello, Dolly!.
Smith's most memorable Broadway role came nearly three years later when he portrayed Horace Vandergelder in Thornton Wilder's The Matchmaker, with Ruth Gordon as Dolly, Arthur Hill as Cornelius and Robert Morse as Barnaby.
The 1958 film version, adapted by John Michael Hayes and directed by Joseph Anthony, starred Shirley Booth (Come Back, Little Sheba) as Dolly, Anthony Perkins (Psycho) as Cornelius, Shirley MacLaine (Terms of Endearment) as Irene, Paul Ford (The Music Man) as Vandergelder, and Robert Morse reprising his Broadway role as Barnaby.
The song's distinctive style and lyrics led to it being used in TV and films, including the theme song to the UK drama Cold Feet, the 1997 film The Matchmaker starring Janeane Garofalo, during the end credits of the popular movie Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (in the so-called 'Fembot Mix', available on the Original Soundtrack), and in the Daria episode "College Bored".
It was first adapted as Thornton Wilder's The Matchmaker (which later became the musical Hello, Dolly!) and later achieved success as the comic masterpiece On the Razzle, which was translated by Stephen Plaice and adapted by Tom Stoppard.
Her first television appearance was in an episode of I Dream of Jeannie ("Jeannie the Matchmaker") as a dating service clerk named Laverne Sadelko who sets herself up with Roger Healy.
Herbie, the Love Bug, also known as Herbie the Matchmaker, is a short-lived situation comedy that aired on CBS in the spring of 1982.
He also appeared on the West End stage in London, starring opposite Mary Martin in the original London production of Hello, Dolly! (itself based on Wilder's The Matchmaker), which opened at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on 2 December 1965.