Tacey King, a frustrated housewife and college-trained sculptor with two young boys and a baby girl, lives with her husband Harry in a lightly fictionalized stand-in for the wealthy Mockingbird Valley community (here called "Hummingbird Hill").
Tacey takes out an advertisement in the Saturday Review of Literature for a "struggling young novelist who would welcome pleasant room, board, in exchange sitting with children evenings," hoping to secure free domestic assistance during the wartime labor shortage, as well as liven up the house with an artistic presence.
At the end of the book, when Tacey questions Belvedere about his past and plans for the future, he reveals only that he was left by a woman who didn't believe his work as a writer could support her.
[4] In fact, 20th Century Fox head Darryl Zanuck joked later that the studio had purchased the rights to the novel with Woolley in mind for the lead role.
[5] Physically, Belvedere is described as "immensely tall, with a narrow, emaciated body," and with "deep-set, burning eyes in a pallid face...high, slanted cheekbones and black hair that sprang back from a bulbous forehead," as variously "stern" or "brooding" with an "aloof" and "inscrutable" manner.
They are surprised that Lynn is a dapper older gentleman who has many skills and achievements; aside from being a proficient cook and handyman, at various points, he claims to have been a beekeeper, obstetrician, dog trainer, locksmith, boxer, and film director, as well as dance instructor to Arthur Murray and a field surgeon under General John J. Pershing.
Being a cultured man with many skills and achievements (having even once worked for Winston Churchill), he also comes to serve as some sort of a "counselor" to the Owens clan, helping them solve their dilemmas and stay out of mischief.
Each episode ends with Mr. Belvedere writing in his journal, recounting the events of the day (which is heard by the audience via his narration) with the Owens family and what he got out of it in terms of a lesson.
A United Press International profile from 1985 described Hewett's Belvedere as a "stouter, somewhat more genial incarnation" of Webb's "austerely elegant" take on the character.