Author: Jodie Peeler

Late Night with Dave Garroway (Part 1)

After Dave Garroway left Today in June 1961, he took some time to deal with personal matters. So much had happened so quickly – the sudden death of his wife, most notably – on top of a demanding work schedule. Now, suddenly, everything was quiet. And after a few months, Garroway was ready to get back into a television gig.

There were some complications, however. The first was that while Garroway was away, television had gotten along without him. Suddenly, in the new, cool era of 1961 and 1962, Garroway seemed like something out of yesterday. The man who had been indispensable was now disposable, and the medium was getting along without him just fine.1 On a more personal level, the considerable clout Garroway had attained as host of Today was now gone.2

But one more thing was complicating Dave’s comeback. In his haste to get out of his obligations to Today (which lasted through 1961) and to NBC (which lasted through 1966), Dave hadn’t carefully considered the language of the agreement he signed. To his chagrin, he learned later that NBC retained a right of first refusal until 1966. If anyone offered Garroway a program, he was legally obligated to check with NBC to see if they had him in mind for a project. This meant Garroway wasn’t a sure thing for anyone who was proposing a program, and it gave NBC effective veto power over his doings. “I received nothing in return for it,” he lamented in 1965, “and managed to give up five years of a $100,000-a-year contract that would have paid me whether I worked or not.”3

Rumors of Garroway’s return to television began to circulate in late 1961. One item reported ABC was considering Garroway for a newscast to counter NBC’s Chet Huntley and David Brinkley. Instead, Garroway signed with the fledgling National Educational Television network to do a series of science programs called Exploring the Universe. Other odd jobs came up: filmed sporting events that Garroway hoped to parlay into a series; hosting gigs for the Miss Universe pageant, Talent Scouts and award shows. He signed a deal to narrate ads for the Ford Motor Company. He filled in for Arthur Godfrey and Jack Sterling on their radio programs, which prompted New York’s WCBS to offer him a twice-daily radio program. Garroway AM and Garroway PM began in April 1964, but in December Garroway announced he was leaving WCBS, claiming concerns about his son’s health and saying the preparation for each show had eaten up more time than he anticipated.

Les Crane, ABC’s bad boy (ABC photo)

In 1965 ABC offered Garroway another guest-hosting gig. Always trying to find a way to compete, ABC was trying to counter Johnny Carson’s Tonight program. It started with a show hosted by radio personality Les Crane. Initially a local program called Nightline, it hit the network in November 1963 as The Les Crane Show. It became notorious for its confrontational tone and controversial discussions. Columnist Kay Gardella later summarized the young Crane as “the Peck’s Bad Boy of TV, who parlayed such nontalents as rudeness, arrogance and conceit into a short but explosive TV career.”4 By 1965 ABC wanted to try a format with less fire and a more relaxed pace. Crane was sent away for a while and several guest hosts took turns on a show that now bore the title Nightlife. The new format abandoned controversy in favor of something more like a traditional late-night show. Several guest hosts were called in, including Shelley Berman, Pat Boone, Allan Sherman and Jack Carter. And after them, one Dave Garroway was given the chair for a week. Dorothy Kilgallen wished Garroway well in her column, writing that “Dave’s presence always guarantees the viewers a grace of intellect and originality not to be found on every spot on the dial.”

Garroway’s guests for his week as host reflected his interests. The beloved Mr. Wizard, Don Herbert, gave a science demonstration. A locksmith demonstrated how to keep locks safe from lock pickers. Singer Carol Sloane, whom Garroway had featured on Talent Scouts and while substituting on Arthur Godfrey’s radio series, appeared on the show. Godfrey himself appeared as a guest on another show, as did Morey Amsterdam. Another program found Garroway interviewing Major Donald Keyhoe, who had written a book about unidentified flying objects, while panelists Dizzy Gillespie and Dina Merrill joined in the discussion.5

Columnists cheered Garroway’s return, a calming influence on a show known for choppy seas. Ben Gross of the New York Daily News said Garroway “has given a new aura, a polish and an air of distinction to ABC-TV’s dismal flop (until this week) of a late-hour show…a knowing man, a truly sophisticated fellow, a wise and witty gentleman, he does not mar the proceedings with the garish, pushy pseudo-sophistication, the cheapness and Broadway crassness which have all too often blotted this show. Garroway should be made the permanent emcee of this attraction.” Paul Molloy of the Chicago Sun Times called Garroway “refreshing…personable, erudite and gracious,” and urged ABC to “cease its search and sign him up for some sort of duration.” Donald Freeman called Garroway “wonderful” and wrote that “the program enjoyed an immediate improvement.”

And ABC listened – after a fashion. How? Tune in next week.

Don’t watch him!


After bouncing among various gigs, Dave Garroway landed a job in 1964 with WCBS Radio in New York, hosting Garroway AM at 11:15 a.m. and Garroway PM at 4:15 p.m. CBS, always clever with its promotions, came up with this campaign. More about Garroway’s WCBS days will come in the book, of course.

“…take one.”

Several assignments are competing for my attention this coming week, so in lieu of a new post I will instead refer you to this item about Monitor, the weekend radio service NBC launched in 1955.6 In particular, click on that picture of Radio Central and see if you don’t spot someone we particularly love around here.7 (Radio Central and that big window are long gone, alas; when you take the studio elevators to the fifth floor lobby these days, you see a wall flanked by two locked doors. So that picture makes me ache.)

As always, when mention is made of Monitor around here, it’s worth reminding everyone to visit one of my favorite places on the Internet, the wonderful Monitor Beacon website, with its hours upon hours of wonderful listening.

Where it all began…and ended

Of all the historic studios at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, the most famous is Studio 8H. Since 1975, 8H has been famous as the home of Saturday Night Live. For that reason, it’s the studio everybody hopes to see on the NBC Studio Tour. There’s no question SNL is the chief tenant of 8H; there’s an elaborate permanent set, the corridors are lined with photos of previous hosts and cast members, and Lorne Michaels has a ninth-floor office with a glass window overlooking the studio.8 Outside the balcony entrance there’s a display case where costumes from famous SNL characters are on display.9

The Auditorium Studio in its original configuration. (NBC photo)

But that’s not all 8H is known for. If we could look at a cross-section of the big studio’s history, we’d find all sorts of history. We would see, for instance, the many times NBC News based special events coverage – election nights, space missions – from the big studio. We would see live drama and musical programs from the early days of television. Going back into the days of radio, we’d learn about stars like Fred Allen hosting their series from 8H.10 We’d learn the studio has had several names over the years.11 We’d learn that 8H had seen innovation, and in itself is something of a marvel.12

Maestro at work in 8H. (NBC photo)

And, of course, you cannot talk about 8H without talking about its most prestigious resident. For next to that display case near the ninth floor balcony entrance, there’s another case that preserves for posterity the music stand used by the great Arturo Toscanini. RCA president David Sarnoff persuaded Toscanini to head up a symphony orchestra for NBC, believing the radio medium needed to improve its commitment to cultural and artistic programming. From 1937 to his retirement in 195413 Toscanini headed NBC’s symphony orchestra, which performed regularly for the network, and performed for many of those years from 8H.14

By now you’re no doubt asking what all this has to do with Dave Garroway. Well, I had to tell you those stories to get to this story. In a way, 8H was where Dave Garroway’s NBC career began, and ended.

As a 24-year-old NBC page, Dave got to know the RCA Building very well. As a tour guide, he had to know the studios very well in order to explain their purpose to visitors. Sometimes he was in proximity with dignitaries and celebrities; directing Lowell Thomas to the correct studio, or after a tour he led drew particular praise, being chosen by David Sarnoff to lead tours for distinguished visitors. And sometimes Garroway would watch history unfold. When Toscanini was hired to lead the NBC Symphony Orchestra, Garroway saw the preparations that were being made to keep the notoriously temperamental maestro happy: the tour routes that were changed, the corridors that were set up, all to minimize the chances of Toscanini getting annoyed.

Sometimes Garroway would get to perform page duties during Toscanini’s rehearsals, during the months before the first concert. As the “stand-in” page, Garroway guarded the door of 8H so no one could get in or out while the great man conducted. And in time, Garroway assisted with the live broadcasts. Years later he would remember all the special considerations; for instance, the programs given to audience members were printed on silk15, so the rustle of audience members turning pages wouldn’t spoil the performance or irritate the great conductor.

But not all was perfect even then. One evening, in the middle of a Brahms symphony, a woman in the audience began to retch. She could not leave; the studio was too full. Garroway remembered how the smell filled the studio. It soon reached Toscanini, who looked back just long enough to glare at the audience. During an intermission the pages brought in buckets of sand and cleaned up as best they could, while the unfortunate woman was taken away in a wheelchair, a bag over her face to hide her embarrassment. Other memories of 8H would dot Garroway’s memory, such as being there when a guest on Fred Allen’s show literally endangered his safety by flubbing his lines.16

Over the years Garroway’s duties would bring him through 8H. But there would be none so poignant as June 15, 1961.

As programs sometimes do, Today had shifted from its usual home in mid-June 1961. Studio 3B, the program’s usual home, needed to be vacated for a while, so Today was shifted into 8H, which was spacious and available. Framed correctly by the studio cameras, no one would really know the difference.17 But bigger changes were coming. The biggest was that on May 26, Garroway had requested his release from Today. There were several factors behind this. Dave’s wife had died the previous month. He was wearing out after years of a grueling schedule. He was at loggerheads with NBC, which wanted to move Today under the control of the news department, change the format, and greatly reduce Garroway’s role and influence on the program. The management of the news division didn’t see Garroway as a journalist, and this irked him no end.18

For these and other reasons, Garroway wanted out of his Today obligations. And it happened that on his last week, Today was originating from the studio where some of his most memorable page duties had taken place. During one segment in that final week, Garroway donned his old page jacket and took viewers on a tour of 8H. The tour featured photographs and recordings of those Toscanini performances, of Fred Allen’s programs, and of other stars of a bygone age.

On Garroway’s last live program19, he took the last two minutes to say farewell, although he insisted it wasn’t really a farewell. “I’m leaving television very temporarily,” he said, “for enough time to find out what’s going on, listen to people instead of talk – when you talk a lot, you don’t hear much, you know, and you don’t read much either when you do the Today show.” Garroway expressed his desire to learn more about the world so he could come back through television “and do more to preserve that in which I hope you and I believe, this system of government, and the human individual.” He thanked viewers for all the letters they had written and said they would each be answered, but it may take a while, “so let me thank you right now, very much, for them.” And one final time, Garroway wished the audience “much love…and peace.”

Dave’s farewell, June 15, 1961. (NBC photo)

A decade and a half later, Garroway would recall his last day as the most memorable of his career, as he walked “slowly and regretfully” from the studio…the studio that had figured so often in so many vivid memories from his career at NBC.

:: While we’re talking about NBC’s famous studios, may I please recommend you treat yourself to a copy of William Bartlett’s splendid book NBC And 30 Rock? It is thoroughly researched, well-written and lavishly illustrated, and I guarantee you’ll find some happy surprises therein. Seriously, treat yourself to one.

When the echoes disturb

There are times when the work I am doing on the life of Dave Garroway, though those events took place decades ago, has echoes of the times in which we now live. And sometimes, those echoes are for the saddest reasons.

Over the last several weeks, I have been transcribing a handwritten log of articles I’ve saved from my searches in archival newspapers. You rediscover a lot of things you’d put aside in your head when you do that. Some of the rediscovered items are funny, and some are goofy. I had planned this week to write about a few cute little pieces I’d found about Garroway, along with Steve Allen and a few others, making it cool to wear glasses.

But this week isn’t the time for that. Not with what’s going on right now, not with its raw and inescapable sadness and frustration, the vaguely sick feeling it’s provided, and the many reminders of how much we’ve fallen short and how far we have yet to go. All of this has made me think, instead, about some things that echo with disturbing similarities.

In the last few days, I have been working on the late 1950s and early 1960s. By this time Dave Garroway, having hosted Today for several years and being very successful in so doing, had very much made the show his. The program had moved into heavier content as its novelty wore off, and Garroway had not been hesitant in using the program to bring attention to things that concerned him. One of those things was the cause of civil rights.

A few years back I covered an instance when Garroway faced down a bunch of bigots who were heckling a young Sarah Vaughan. To him, such things weren’t a pose; equality, and thinking for yourself, were core values. His father had taught him to get all the facts before judging anyone or anything, and it was a lesson he never forgot.

Garroway’s commitment continued into the Today years, both on the program and behind the scenes. Prominent figures for justice such as Thurgood Marshall would be interviewed by Garroway, as would victims of injustice, such as a black applicant who was denied a job as a page in the House of Representatives. Black entertainers such as Erroll Garner were prominently featured.20 On a March 1961 edition of Today, Garroway devoted both hours to Oscar Brown to help raise support for his his musical Kicks & Co.; within days the musical, which needed backers for part of its $400,000 budget, had received thousands in donations from dozens of viewers, ranging from a music teacher’s check for $5.00 to two separate donations of $5,000.

Oscar Brown with Dave Garroway. (NBC photo)

One day in December 1957, when it was learned that an elevator operator at Rockefeller Center had been the first black military pilot and a World War I hero, Garroway insisted on interviewing that man, Eugene Bullard, on Today. At the end of the interview, the crew spontaneously applauded.

Garroway displays Eugene Bullard’s medals. (NBC photo)

Today‘s commitment to equality didn’t just apply to what people saw on camera; behind the scenes, for instance, Fred Lights became network television’s first African-American stage manager.21

It would be comforting to think Garroway’s take on matters of equality was warmly received. But it wasn’t always. Going through the archival collections from that era, we find signs of those times in sad abundance. Some examples: a South Carolina newspaper editorial accusing Garroway of “dramatizing” the crisis around the integration of a Little Rock school in 1957, or a letter to a Florida newspaper calling Garroway “one-sided” and “out to get the MVP award from the NAACP.” When Sen. Strom Thurmond appeared on Today after his marathon filibuster against civil rights legislation, Garroway asked Thurmond if the filibuster was meant to counter the possibility that South Carolina Gov. George Timmerman might run against him in 1960; Timmerman, himself no friend of civil rights, told a newspaper that if he ran, “I won’t leave it up to a nincompoop like Dave Garroway to make an announcement for me.”

While some of that is rather ripe, nothing can match the venom aimed at Garroway from a couple of states in particular during the period from 1956 to 1961. Going through papers from Mississippi and Louisiana in particular will make you acquainted with some particularly awful editorials and opinion pieces.22 For instance, a December 1956 Today story about prosecutors rebutting a story of bigotry motivating a prosecution was blasted by a Mississippi paper as being slanted. When Mississippi Gov. James Coleman was interviewed in April 1957, an editorial charged Garroway with asking “loaded questions” and displaying a “slight air of holding his nose.” A subsequent editorial accused the press of hating Mississippi and looking for angles to get that slant in.23 Even an item about Lynda Mead being the second consecutive Miss Mississippi to be crowned Miss America found a way to slam Garroway as “one of those northern bigots who likes to lambast the South with innuendo” and hoped he would “change his tune after his audience rating falls off drastically.”24

In May 1961, as the Freedom Riders challenged segregation laws in the South, Garroway aired a piece about one of the movement’s figures, activist James Peck, on Today. Peck, whose long tenure as an activist in several movements had seen him arrested several times, was called a felon by Mississippi Gov. James Eastland in an effort to discredit the Freedom Riders movement. The Peck interview on Today was yet another opening for segregationists to attack Garroway.25 Subsequent editorials called Garroway a “South-baiter” and slammed his impending resignation from Today as a hypocritical act.26 Another editorial praised the mayor of Jackson “for his word duel with TV Communistator Dave Garroway, whose soon departure from the networks will cause no tears to drop in Dixie.” Yet another extended hollow condolences on the death of Garroway’s wife: “Of course we know of the terrible tragedy in his family and we offer our deepest sympathy27 but we believe that his leaving the air lanes will be one of the greatest aids the South could have had, by his absence.” A columnist called “Davie Garroway’s Today show” as “offensive to Dixie” and “due to lose its bigoted star…Dour Dave.”28

Garroway would sometimes wonder if his outspokenness on civil rights had cost him, both in terms of his career and in his personal affairs.29 And there were times when he was at personal risk. Dave Jr. remembered a story in which his dad went to a jazz club in the South and stepped outside for some fresh air. Garroway suddenly found himself surrounded by a group of angry bigots who called him “a (racial slur beginning with ‘n’) lover” and tried to shove him around. The band leader saw this, gave a signal to his band mates, and, still playing, they marched out of the club. Without missing a note on their instruments, they surrounded Garroway and shielded him from the bigots.

There are many things troubling us right now. I hope someday soon I’m writing on more uplifting aspects of Garroway’s life. This, however, was too uncomfortable a parallel with our current moment. As in the times Garroway lived, we’ve got some work to do.

How do you replace a window?

NBC photo

One of Today‘s most famous features in the early years was the big window along 49th Street. Not only could people watch Today as it was being produced live, but often the people on the street became part of the show. The RCA Exhibition Hall became kind of a tourist magnet in those years, and there are many stories of how some onlookers used that window and the chance to be on television for purposes sweet (a man who stopped by the window and greeted his mute mother in sign language) and sneaky (a man who used the window to plug a competing show).

But the window didn’t last forever, and Today moved out of the RCA Exhibition Hall in July 1958. Part of it was practical – putting the show in a storefront had brought challenges, and there was only so much space. Part of it was because a rival television manufacturer had charged that it was unfair competition for NBC to put on a television show in its parent company’s glass-fronted exhibition hall, where RCA’s products could be seen on television.

So came the move across the street, and on July 7, 1958 Today began to originate from Studio 3K30 in the RCA Building31 Although there was some amazement at how much more spacious the new studio was (associate producer Mary Kelly marveled to a reporter that the new control room seemed as big as the old studio), there were things the show missed. A lot of memories and a lot of history had been made in the Exhibition Hall. Betsy Palmer32 would remember that the window provided a form of connection with the audience, and the audience with the show. It was live and spontaneous. “When we went into the third-floor studio,” she said, “all of a sudden it was like losing the air.”33

And it didn’t take long to realize something was missing. That big window had provided more than just a trademark for Today; it also had a practical function. When there was time to fill, or when there was a cutaway to a break, that window and the people on the other side were a convenient and interesting visual. Now, inside the studio, that was gone. This became obvious the first day. Stage manager Fred Lights34 would later remember a gap of about thirty seconds they had to fill with something. “No one had thought about a replacement for the window,” Lights said. “We had nothing to shoot. You should have seen the shock, the chaos, that first morning in the studio. It looked like the chariot race for Ben Hur.”

And immediately after the show was finished, they solved the problem. A fish tank was brought into 3K. Now, when a visual was needed, the camera would linger on sights aquatic. Sometimes this would be built into the show’s rundown; during the five-minute “co-op” made available to local stations, those remaining with the network might see Garroway and the rest of the cast chatting, or they might get the fish swimming lazily along as music played behind.

Other tactics were employed to bring back some spontaneity. In January 1959, bleachers for a studio audience were set up in the studio, and 40 people each day were allowed to watch the show (but were not provided with coffee).35 But that experiment proved short-lived. The fish tank remained, but it couldn’t take the place of what had been left behind on the street below.

Inside the Florida Showcase. (NBC photo)

In 1962 Today took another try at capturing the spontaneity of a decade before. Through an arrangement with Florida’s tourism board, NBC originated Today from the Florida Showcase, the state’s tourism office on the ground floor of 30 Rock, with big display windows along 49th Street. For three years passersby could look in, watch the show on the air, and occasionally be captured by the cameras. But this came at a price, as each day the set had to be taken down and all the television equipment stowed away so Florida’s tourism office could conduct business. Plus NBC, going full-color, couldn’t justify keeping several precious (and HUGE36) color cameras down on the ground floor when they were needed in the main studios upstairs. So once again, Today lost its window on New York. For nearly three decades, the views of New York from within the Today studio would be through graphics.

In June 1994 Today went back to where it all began – or, at least, next door. A building on the corner of Rockefeller Plaza and 49th Street was converted into a modern television studio known as Studio 1A. With large glass windows along two sides, Today had gone back to its roots. And just as happened in the days when Garroway held court in the Exhibition Hall just down the street, it didn’t take long for the people outside the window to become part of the show. And, once again, a big window on 49th Street has become a must-see for tourists visiting New York.

Dave’s first car

Those of us who drive never forget our first car. For a lot of us, it was a car that was already in the family and handed down to us (as was the case with the cars that got me through college and graduate school). But how many of us can say our very first car was custom-made for us?

Dave Garroway – a lifelong lover of all things automotive – could.

As Dave told it, he was five years old when he spied a Chandler automobile that was owned by a neighbor, and was smitten by it. His Grandfather Tanner, who had owned a bicycle shop before getting into the roofing business, had a basement full of tools and metal-forming equipment that fascinated young Dave. So Dave enlisted his grandfather’s help in building a car from wood, parts from a wagon, sheet metal bodywork, and four wheels (depending on when Dave told the story, the wheels came from a baby carriage or a shopping cart). “It had a top speed of about six miles per hour if you fed the motor – me – two Eskimo Pies,” Garroway would recall in 1962.

Five-year-old Dave Garroway sets out on another adventure on the streets of Schenectady. (Garroway family photo)

This first car would later inspire Dave to build another one, this one pedal-powered. He would remember it as “my first automotive adventure.” And from there, a love affair was born. (And all the years he spent constantly tinkering with his beloved Jaguar can be traced back to that little car he built with his grandfather.)

Garroway goes to the dogs

One regret of the recent lapse has been I haven’t acknowledged a neat contribution that reader Bryan Olson recently found (thanks, Bryan!). This ad is from 1957, when Dave Garroway was presiding over a Today program buoyed by sponsors that clamored for the man himself to pitch their products.

On the other hand, here’s an item from a Dorothy Kilgallen column in late July 1952. If it was true, then that sounds like our Dave.

Assorted oddities (first in an ongoing series)

As I go through the decades of newspaper clippings I’ve compiled, there’s a lot of information to sort through. And, on occasion, you’ll find things that while you can’t neatly use them, they’re too…interesting not to use somehow. From time to time I’ll share some of them.

For one, here’s an April 1948 ad from the Chicago Tribune in which a certain radio personality is trying to downsize his car collection. When you read the description (including the interesting upholstery), there’s no doubt who that car belongs to:

And then there’s this, also from 1948, right when Dave was getting noticed and starting to draw serious attention from sponsors. Now, I’ve never seen any pictures of Dave from this era in which he looked like he needed this kind of treatment. Was it really that good, or was he just that skilled a pitchman? You be the judge.

More to come!