Why we do this

As will happen when you’re an author, I’ve been asked what my next book will be about. “Oh, about 300 pages, give or take” is a tempting response, but that’s not a terribly social thing to say. Instead I reply with a certain degree of pride, “It’s about Dave Garroway.” That gets me one of two responses. One – typically from people past a certain age – will be a gleam of recognition, followed by memories of how that person loved to watch Dave back in the day.¹ The other typical response is a polite version of “…who?” And that prompts my short answer, that he was the first host of Today, and that usually satisfies the person asking the question even if it reduces Dave to one role.²

Then there are the other types of responses. Sometimes they’re fun responses. There are the inevitable wags who will make jokes about J. Fred Muggs, as if Dave’s life can be reduced to those three or so years. Then there are the people who focus on Dave’s bad habits, on the tantrums he was reputed to have thrown off-camera, on the tales of drug use (and the type and amount of drugs will vary, depending on which rumors are being repeated).³ And, of course, there are those who will focus on the way he died and suggest there were bats in his belfry all along.⁴

It all gets wearying after a while. I’ve been digging into Dave Garroway’s life for more than four years now. I’ve read everything I can get my hands on. I’ve had lengthy conversations with his children, talked to people who worked with him and to people whose parents worked with him. I’ve read through his FBI file. I’ve traveled hundreds of miles to dig through box after box of archival material. I’ve scoured a half-century of newspaper archives and read through thousands of articles. Whatever I’ve been able to find, I’ve read. And something in the back of my mind, somehow, keeps waiting to find that big dark secret that’s going to ruin him forever. I keep thinking of the story that David McCullough told of wanting to write a book about Picasso, only to get a hundred pages in and realizing that even though Picasso was of monumental importance as an artist, he couldn’t stand Picasso as a person, so he decided to write about someone he found likable, and that’s how his Pulitzer-winning biography of Harry Truman came to be.

I’ve often wondered when my Picasso moment was coming with Dave Garroway. So far, it hasn’t. Instead, the more I read about him, the more I process what I’ve learned about him, the more I like him. The more I understand him. Yes, there are times he did things I wish he hadn’t. I wish I could go back in time and tell him to ignore the advice of that dentist at that card game, that Dexedrine was going to do horrible things to his mind and lasting damage to his body. I wish we knew then what we know now about how to treat chronic depression. I wish I could tell him to not sign away five years of his career when he left NBC in 1961. And, of course, I wish I could have kept him from doing what he did that day in July 1982.

But I can’t. All I can do is tell the story of his 69 years the best and most honest way I can. Which, for me, is not going to be that hard to do. I haven’t uncovered any deep or dark secrets. Eccentricities? A lot of those, but harmless. But I haven’t uncovered a life of dirty deeds, of sociopathy, of crime or vice. I haven’t unveiled anything that’s really uncommon for anyone of his times.⁵ Instead, I’ve discovered the life of a man who was little different from the rest of us, only he led his life in the public eye, and from that came benefits and disadvantages that were magnified because of his fame. But, viewed in scale, how different was he from the rest of us who live in privacy?

Carol Ford is someone I have become blessed to know.⁶ Years ago she took on a most formidable task: writing a biography of Bob Crane. That word “formidable” is because Bob Crane is known as much for certain aspects of his private life, and the circumstances of his murder, as he is remembered for Hogan’s Heroes. It wasn’t helped by a rather scurrilous major motion picture that took great liberties with the historical record. It was a task I wouldn’t dare to take on. Where would I begin, and how far up the wall would the inevitable jokes and comebacks and unkind comments drive me?

But Carol and her co-authors, made of stronger stuff than I, set out to correct that record. They talked with everyone they could locate, including people who knew Bob Crane really well. They did the hard work and research. And out of it came a truly massive volume⁷ that will tell you everything you want to know about the real Bob Crane. Not the Bob Crane that you think you know, not the Bob Crane from the sick jokes, not the Bob Crane from that hit-job of a movie, but the real and complicated and human Bob Crane who actually existed. Not just the Hogan’s Heroes Bob Crane, but the up-and-coming DJ, the white-hot star of KNX Radio, the sensation of a top-rated television comedy, and then Crane’s efforts after Hogan’s Heroes ended. It doesn’t shy away from the difficult topics about his life, but it discusses them in a context that’s missing from other accounts, and debunks a lot of tall tales that have spread about Crane’s life.⁸ It treats Crane’s life in scale, and you learn a lot about him that you didn’t know before, because no one before had cared to tell those stories because they wanted to talk too much about sex, videotapes and murder. You never knew so much about Bob Crane being a terrific drummer or a world-class disk jockey with a quick wit and an uncanny sense of timing, or a man who was genuinely loved and is still fondly remembered by his friends and colleagues.⁹

Carol continues to be Bob Crane’s foremost advocate, and makes appearances in the media and at conventions and in other forums to promote the book and speak on Bob’s behalf.¹⁰ It hasn’t been the easiest task, and I know for a fact she’s tired of hearing questions about that movie, that she’d be happy if no one ever brought up Crane’s murder or those videotapes or any of that ever again. But I know why she does this. It’s because she feels a duty to tell the story of Bob Crane with honesty and dignity, to rescue him from the jokes and the caricatures and to help people remember that Bob Crane was a human being with a full and complicated life much like the rest of us. And in this, she has succeeded.¹¹ Her incredibly detailed book restores Crane’s humanity, shows his flaws in scale and restores focus to the many good things about him. After reading it, you don’t look at his famous squinting smile as the leer of a wolf, but as the grin of a man who couldn’t conceal a quick wit. Bob Crane is fortunate to have Carol Ford and her associates as his biographers; they have told his story in a thorough manner, and they are tireless champions of his legacy, a story that is so often not told because one aspect of his life drowns out everything else.

And in a wider sense, that’s why what we do matters. Bob Crane can’t be reduced to punchlines about videotaped sex and a gruesome murder. Nor can Dave Garroway be reduced to a caricature about drug addiction and co-starring with a chimpanzee and committing suicide. Were all of those aspects of his story? Yes, they were. But that’s not all, and the real story, in scale, tells us a lot more. Here is a man who lived and breathed and loved and lost, just as all of us have. And with the help of a lot of good people, I’m going to tell you his story, and I think you’ll learn some things and appreciate what he did.

That’s why it matters. It’s because if there aren’t people doing this kind of work, a lot of history is going to get lost. And yes, there are times when it seems it’s a lonely, thankless job. I’m under no illusions that Dave Garroway is very much a niche subject. I don’t foresee long lines stretching around corners on the day this book is released. I don’t see getting interviewed on the morning shows about him. Any audiobook version will probably be you hiring me to come to your house and read it out loud in your living room.¹² But I am committed to telling you the Garroway story because I want to cut through a lot of the old tales and urban legends, because I’ve found the real story to be a lot more fascinating than anything you’ve read before. Because the more I go into his story, the more I find it’s worth telling. And even if I only sell ten copies of the book (and even if those copies are sold to kin folks who purchase them out of pity), this whole exercise will have been worth it. I’ll know that I helped keep the Garroway story from vanishing down the memory hole.

That’s why we do this. We do this because we care. We do this because, somehow, these stories have meaning to us. The more we come to know the people we write about, they start to matter to us the way friends or family might. Not in the sense that we defend their every action or excuse their misdeeds – that’s fandom gone awry. But, rather, in the sense that we care about making sure they are represented with truth and accuracy, but also with dignity and fairness, just the same as we hope our own stories will be told when we’re gone.

If I can do that much for Dave Garroway, it really won’t matter how many copies of the book I sell, or if it only gathers dust on library shelves. The man’s story is worth the telling, and worth the remembering. And that’s why I’m happy to do it.

1. Frequently with a mention of how much they loved watching J. Fred Muggs.
2. It’s like having to reduce Sir Alec Guinness to his role in the Star Wars movies. An iconic role, yes, but atypical, and it doesn’t capture the man’s range. It’s similar to the frustration I have when, as a big fan of Warren Zevon, I have to tell people “you know, that song about the werewolves wasn’t his typical kind of work.”
3. As if Dave was the only celebrity who grew addicted to Dexedrine. He wasn’t. Furthermore, no one really knew back then how devastating the stuff was. In the period after World War II, Dexedrine was viewed much the way we now view those fancy energy drinks.
4. It especially gets tiresome on social media, where rumors fly and everyone’s an expert, but social media is tiresome enough in itself.
5. If anything, I’ve found some ways in which Garroway was ahead of his times, notably in his advocacy for civil rights.
6. Carol is a very special person. Not only is she a delightful and warm human being, but we both love animals very much. One of the ways in which Carol is amazing is that she’s produced three wonderful little books about pets, tales about pets by their people, that benefit animal charities. In the interest of full disclosure, I submitted three stories about our three cats – our two current cats, Smokey and Gilda, and our departed but still beloved Junior – for the second volume. I will also add that Carol has provided me a ton of very useful and practical advice for how to manage this project, and for that, as much as anything, I am in her debt.
7. I’m serious. I bought a copy when I met Carol at the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention in 2017, and the thing seriously complicated my efforts to pack for the flight home. It’s a big book. But well worth it. Buy one.
8. Among others, it provides firsthand testimony that dispels the myth about his appearance on a celebrity cooking show.
9. And a fun coincidence? Dave Garroway and Bob Crane both celebrated birthdays on July 13. I don’t know if they ever met, though.
10. She also posts regular updates on a blog, Bob Crane: Life & Legacy. Check it out.
11. I’ll admit that before I met Carol, I viewed Bob Crane with some skepticism, but her advocacy and her book made a convert of me.
12. Which, for the right price, I’ll be glad to do. For a little extra I can also cut your lawn or touch the paint up on the house trim.