Well, I figured the lack of response meant this had to be so easy it was a dumb question (yes, there are dumb questions) to ask. Thanks for the encouragement, Fanatic.
So, I stopped by the local pinball guru's place and showed him what I wanted to do. The reply (as Fanatic said)--piece of cake! He gave me a salvaged 44 socket with attached wires and told me to go to town. The only tricky part might be getting a hole in the back panel without cracking the plastic. A burn thru via a soldering iron was suggested. Just for grins, I thought maybe a spade bit might just be the ticket. I twisted in a 1/2" spade bit by carefully by hand--whattayaknow--perfect cut! Put in a frosted 47 WW led I had laying around and hot glued the socket onto the back of the TV. Wired the leads up to a GI bulb, and voila! Not Las Vegas brite, but it did what I wanted it to do and lit up the screen.
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