Dave’s life – Page 6 – Garroway at Large

Garroway vs. bigotry, 1948

I try to keep the present out of what we do here at Garroway at Large. Most times I succeed. But the events of last week, especially what happened Saturday in Pittsburgh, cannot be disregarded. After such events you’re left struggling to make some sense of it all. To put it mildly, I’m heartsick.

Instead I have done my best to follow the Fred Rogers philosophy: when something horrible happens, look for the helpers. And I’ve also remembered that as a historian, I know this kind of thing isn’t new, not even in our country. And it was while thinking back over the history of hate in our country that I remembered a moment when our own Dave Garroway took a dramatic stand against bigotry.¹

In 1948 Garroway was well into his tenure as host of The 11:60 Club on WMAQ in Chicago. He often served as a master of ceremonies at concerts for acts his show featured. One of those acts was a young singer named Sarah Vaughan. Dave had first heard her music in 1946, when his friend Charlie Andrews played “If You Could See Me Now” for him. Garroway claimed he was upstairs when Charlie started playing the record, and was so mesmerized that he missed two steps and tumbled down the staircase. “We both knew that one of the great voices of our generation had come along.” Garroway played the song several times on his show, much to the acclaim of listeners, and he credited her songs with making The 11:60 Club so successful.

The divine Miss Vaughan in 1946. (William P. Gottlieb/Library of Congress Collection)

So it was one day in 1948 that Garroway and three other deejays were emceeing a concert at the Chicago Theater. Sarah Vaughan came on stage and began to sing. Just then, some bigots in the balcony began throwing tomatoes at her. Sarah fled the stage. As an account the following year² put it:

Garroway strode to the microphone. His famous “relaxed” manner was gone. “Yes,” he told the audience, “now you know. Now you have seen in capsule form the hate which poisons the heart of America. It started the last war, and even now is starting the next. Today, hate-mongers stopped you from enjoying a great artist. Tomorrow, if you don’t halt them, hate like this, magnified into war, will kill you and your children too.”
Garroway made each person in the audience understand the attack was on them as well as on Sarah, and that it had significance far greater than a few tomatoes thrown at a great Negro artist. With shouts, the people brought Sarah Vaughan back for a great ovation, and carried home in their own consciousness new and personal realization of the consequences of discrimination.
Garroway, still burning with righteous indignation, also told his air audience about it, with the result that Sarah Vaughan was deluged with letters, telegrams and flowers. Garroway’s point of view had penetrated.

In these troubling times, may we have the same courage to speak up when we need to.

11:60 and all that

When Dave Garroway returned to Chicago after World War II, he ended up with a midnight time slot on WMAQ-AM, mainly because he was one of the few staffers who had a car and therefore didn’t have to work around local transit’s nightly shutdown. To this freeform effort he gave the name The 11:60 Club and billed himself “Eagerest Beaver” of said society, as you can see on the membership card below:

Now, you might think those are a couple of clever names that ol’ Garroway would have come up with on his own, right? But I’ve now seen the handwritten evidence that tells us otherwise. The name The 11:60 Club came from a popular record of the day by Harry James and His Orchestra, “11:60 P.M.”

As for the “Eager Beaver” title, that’s courtesy of this incredible Stan Kenton instrumental:

All this makes it that much more of a shame that so few recordings of The 11:60 Club remain. Just the few minutes I’ve heard from one of the surviving recordings was pure fun, with a young and playful Dave Garroway purring into the microphone and playing really cool music. It’s easy to understand why so many folks stayed up past 11:60 each night to hear him.

To Red

A couple years ago I was on a certain popular auction site doing one of my semi-regular searches for Garroway memorabilia. Much of what you’ll find is common – magazines, press photos and so forth. But sometimes you’ll find an item that leaves you speechless. This was one of them. I put in a bid, not expecting much to come of it. The auction ended and I was the new owner. I was glad the price was so low, and yet the price I paid seemed like an insult to what the item meant.

This is a photo Dave inscribed to jazzman Red Norvo. If you’re up on your Garroway history, you know Red was a contributor (with Matt Dennis) to Dave’s RCA album Some Of My Favorites. Something about the way Red played really moved Dave, and it’s apparent in the inscription. It’s also apparent Red cherished the photo, for he had it very nicely framed and matted (in a frame with no glass), and the wire on the back shows signs that the photo hung on a wall for a long time.

The years of display and the inevitability of time made Dave’s inscription fade, but as best I can tell, it reads:

To Red
who has brought more beauty to my life thru music than any other artist. The little appreciations we applaud loudly for. For the great ones we are silent for there are no words except, perhaps:
Peace
Dave Garroway

In the way that so sadly happens when someone passes away and their belongings scatter to the winds, somehow this particular item ended up on the auction site needing a new home. I don’t know the story of how it got there. All I know is that Red’s cherished photo is now a part of my home, and Dave now looks on from a place high on one of our shelves. My hope is that both Dave and Red somehow know how cherished it is.

:: You may have noticed this update came a little late. There is a reason (well, there are several, but one is seriously good). I’ll need some time to roll this out, but I can say that something incredible happened a few days ago. I will share more as I can, so stay tuned!

Come see us!

In a few hours I’ll be on the road, bound for the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention. On Thursday morning I’ll be giving a presentation about Today, Home and Tonight with my friend Kevin Doherty. Also on the presentation schedule is our friend (and author of a newly-published book!) Mitchell Hadley, who will be speaking about just why TV Guide matters. There will be plenty of interesting presentations, a lot of celebrities on hand signing autographs (and I’m already planning to suspend my usual aversion to autograph collecting, because some of the celebrities on the program are worth suspending it for).

Last year’s convention was my first, and I had an awful lot of fun there. This year I’ll have more travel flexibility (I’m driving instead of flying…which, given the current weather situation, means I won’t have to worry about canceled flights) and will give myself a second day on site. I will, of course, post as I can from the convention and hope to provide a full report once I’m back home.

In the meantime, if you’re in the Baltimore area, come see us bright and early Thursday morning. I think you’ll enjoy our presentation. And take some time to enjoy the whole convention. You will meet a lot of interesting people, most likely make some new friends, and you will find some cool stuff to buy. What’s not to like?

:: On a personal note, it’s funny how exactly one year ago we were dealing with the remnants of Irma here at Garroway at Large World Headquarters, and now we await whatever Florence will bring. We are prepared here (my husband, who lived 30 years in Florida, knows a thing or two about hurricanes). But since we’re really far inland, we’re preparing more for remnants where we are. Our thoughts, of course, are with the people on the coast. Play it smart and stay safe, y’all.

July 10, 1953: “Garroway Today”

As an early star of the national medium, one with a highly distinctive style, a lot of ink was spilled on behalf of Dave Garroway in television journals of the late 1940s and early 1950s. Let’s take a look at some of those pieces the next couple weeks or so, and perhaps that will help us remember just what a big deal Dave Garroway was back then.

The first full-length article on Garroway I could find in TV Guide was in the July 10-16, 1953 issue.³ It’s titled “Garroway Today,” and its subhead divulges, “That Chicago Touch Got Him A Penthouse On Fifth Avenue.”⁴ As was TV Guide‘s custom of the time, the article bore no byline.

The piece begins with an account of the summer day in 1951 when Garroway and his favorite writer and best friend, Charlie Andrews, were vacationing in a small Swiss town. At four in the morning, Garroway received a call from NBC informing him that the sponsor for Garroway At Large had pulled out. This brought the tour to an abrupt end. “Our sorrows melted 12 feet off the Matterhorn,” Garroway said.

But the loss of Garroway At Large opened the door for Today, which had debuted to great skepticism but was now a great success. “There’s no argument as to the reason: Dave Garroway.” The article noted that certain segments of the program even drew higher ratings than that of the wildly popular Arthur Godfrey, who was on later in the morning. The writer disagreed with those who compared the two, arguing that while Godfrey worked hard at being the “common man,” Garroway “lives in a world of discovery, of finding new things under the sun.”⁵

At the same time, the writer noted that Garroway’s more intellectual nature might be working against his wider success, that “he’s managed to build up resentment among some people who fiercely resist any idea that entertainment can be fresh and original,” and that his unusual nature may have put off some major agencies looking for more traditional fare for their sponsors.

The article makes Dave’s life sound busy but happy, noting the $2000 he made each week from Today and the additional income from the daily Dial Dave Garroway radio program, and that Dave liked how Today presented new material each day. One staffer noted that public reception was positive, and that people who thought his Garroway At Large persona was phony had changed their minds when they watched Today and saw they had been seeing the real Garroway all along. The article also notes the recent addition of J. Fred Muggs, and that Garroway was pragmatic about it. He liked that Muggs had raised Today‘s ratings two points, and “if he can help us that way, sure I want to keep him.”

Garroway and Andrews discussed each day the prospect of bringing Garroway At Large back to television, but the article noted it would be a challenge. Not only would they have to locate a sponsor, but several of the old castmembers – Jack Haskell, Connie Russell, Bette Chapel – had gone on to other things, and that only Cliff Norton was in New York.⁶

Of Dave personally, the article notes that the Garroway of television is much like the real Garroway, only that the latter is “a little shyer off camera.” It noted that Dave was divorced but had been seen in the company of Betty Furness, who had knitted “all of Dave’s present collection of loud Argyle socks.” Still, Dave was apparently in no hurry to get married again.⁷ Rather, he was more interested in getting Garroway At Large back on the air, and as part of the preparation was trying to get on a diet. “It would seem that the only way to get Garroway at Large back will be to have Garroway not-so-large.”

Happy birthday, Old Tiger

I was born on the family farm near Schenectady, New York on July 13, 1913 at 1 p.m. Or at least that’s what I was told, although I was too damn busy at the moment to notice the time or the place.

It’s a big day for us – but July 13 always is here. For one, it’s Dave Garroway’s birthday. He was born 105 years ago today. And although his 69 years had some incredible triumphs and some pretty deep lows, it was a colorful and remarkable life, and a life well worth remembering.

Closer to home, it was one year ago today that our site went live. Since then we’ve uncovered a few things, traveled a few places, made some incredible discoveries and tried to have some fun along the route. We’ve tried to make a start at telling Dave’s story as it needs to be told: the story of a life in full, told with candor, perspective and compassion. We’ve tried to debunk some old myths and uncover some new stories. It’s only a year in, but I think we’ve made a decent start.

While the website’s been going along, so has the book’s manuscript. As of now it’s in excess of 25,000 words and growing daily. It’s pretty safe to say that when you read the finished book, you will get a new and very personal perspective of Dave Garroway. Working on it is always interesting, and I am constantly getting new insights as I sift through Dave’s writings and build the narrative of his life’s story. I constantly find myself amazed this story hasn’t been told before now. But now it will.

And while today we celebrate Dave’s life and mark this website’s first anniversary, it’s also appropriate to thank those of you out there who visit our site, read our posts, leave us comments or drop us notes, and pass the word along to others. Thank you for helping keep Dave Garroway’s memory alive, too.

Thanks to all of you for a great first year. Now let’s see what we can do in the second one.

Through the cracks

As the manuscript very slowly starts taking shape (and I’m pleased to report it’s now past 10,000 words), I’m coming to appreciate how much material is out there and how much I’m constantly discovering, and how all of it is making the job a lot easier. Garroway’s uncompleted autobiography, for instance, exists in two drafts and one of them includes supplemental material, and as much as I wish he had brought the story current before he put the project aside I am grateful those drafts exist, for even incomplete and with their imperfections and occasional inconsistencies (and even with their occasional assertions that don’t match the historical record) they lend an awful lot of insight.

Be that as it may, there are times when I will scour through other materials and find tantalizing hints of things that either never happened, or that have fallen through the cracks and are probably gone forever. For one, many “where are they now?” pieces about the original Today gang mentioned what they were up to. In 1977 one such story mentioned the forthcoming publication of Frank Blair’s memoir, but also mentioned that Jack Lescoulie was writing a book about his days in television. What became of that project, I wonder? I can’t begin to imagine what kinds of insight that would have lent.

The same goes for a couple of women who worked with Garroway. One of them was Lee Lawrence, who was entrusted with Garroway’s materials from his memoir project. She tried to get interest in a book about the early days of Today, but to no avail. That’s a true shame, because she knew the subject, knew the principals in that story, and would have written an awesome book. The other was Beryl Pfizer, who was briefly a “Today Girl” in 1961 and wrote a couple of articles about working on Today with Garroway. She wrote that she kept a journal of the odd things he did each day. I really wanted to interview her for this project…only to find that she died a few months before I decided to take the project on. What became of her papers, I wonder?

Then there are other things that, by all accounts, don’t exist. A few months ago I came across a tantalizing mention that in January 1977, Garroway appeared on Dr. Robert Schuller’s Hour of Power telecast, and on it spoke of his newfound faith in Jesus Christ. I’ve found a couple of promotional-style clippings and advertisements, and eBay has yielded one press photo of Garroway with Schuller (the same one that’s in the ad).

You can imagine what a recording of this program would mean for our project. My heart leapt when I came across the Schuller papers, and when I saw it included some recordings I got really interested…only to find that the recordings don’t include anything from January 1977. Nuts.

Some finds in this project have come from careful planning. Others have come from being in the right place in the right time. And some of them have come from people who have contacted us out of the blue. And this, as much as any post, is a reminder that if you knew Dave, if you or a family member worked with him, if you’re related to him, if you have something that belonged to him that has a story to it, if you have a recording of any of his appearances on anything like Hour of Power or The CBS Newcomers or anything of the sort…we’re all ears, and we’d love to hear from you. This project will be only as good as the information we uncover and the assistance we’re able to get, and we’ll certainly be grateful.

FOIA and You: Partners in Research

It’s now the summer break for me, and with it comes time to process some of the information I’ve gathered and scout around for more new material. This is more than a little overdue – you’d be surprised, for instance, how little I’ve done with all the documents I gathered from my trip to the Wisconsin Historical Society last year, but between the demands of work and the sudden need to get another manuscript in shape by last December, I just hadn’t the time or brainpower to spare.

Sometimes, though, a little distance between gathering the materials and going through them is useful. I’ve certainly found that to be true as I begin sorting through the documents I hurriedly photographed during that whirlwind visit eleven months back. There are treasures to be found, and already I’ve unearthed some really nifty revelations from the NBC files that I don’t believe anyone else has reported.

But other incredible finds haven’t required me to go on the road. Some of them have been as close as my computer, even if they meant I had to wait a while.

About a year ago I had a hunch. With the Federal Bureau of Investigation posting files on on popular culture figures via the Bureau’s website, why not see if there was a file on Dave Garroway? I didn’t expect there to be much, if anything, but you’ll never know unless you ask. So I used the handy online system to put in a FOIA request.

Anyone who’s ever dealt with FOIA (and I did, back in the pre-internet days) knows it can be a glacial process. Not only do files have to be located, but they have to be scanned, reviewed, redacted (with rationale provided)…the whole process. Not to mention, this is subject to the staff’s ability to handle these requests in between official business. (There are also times when you deal with agenices or FOIA offices that get happy with the redactions or exemptions, but that’s a story others can tell better than I can, as I’ve been fortunate in that regard.) If I were still a working journalist, my patience with FOIA would be different from what it is as someone working on a project with a long lead time. But since I’m not on a deadline yet, I found it oddly helpful that I’d forgotten I made the request – it kept me from agonizing or getting impatient, and since my expectations were so low anyway I figured even one or two documents would be a win.

That’s why it was a surprise the other day when an e-mail arrived from the Bureau’s FOIA office telling me I had four document files ready for download…and when I saw that one of those files was pretty substantial. I don’t want to give away too much, because there has to be a reason for you to buy the book when it comes out. I will tell you I got a lot more from my request than I expected. A good portion of the file was taken up with a controversy over a 1949 episode of Garroway at Large, in particular a musical number that ribbed the FBI’s investigations during the Red Scare. In response, the FBI wanted nothing to do with Garroway’s programs for several years after, refusing requests for FBI personnel to appear on Today and so forth. Not until a 1956 segment on Wide Wide World did the ice begin to thaw.

As with all FBI files, you have to be careful not to take the information as gospel; some elements of the files contain what’s obviously rumor, gossip, hearsay, and other unreliable information, but even if it’s bad data it’s useful nonetheless because you can gauge what was feeding the Bureau’s perceptions.

Be that as it may, there is one section in these files that is heartbreaking to read, and it’s a section dating from the spring of 1961. It’s an account of a conversation Garroway had with an FBI investigator, and in those notes you really get an idea of Garroway’s condition at that point. I’m still sorting through it all, but even on a quick review it’s truly sad and haunting reading.

My thanks to the FBI FOIA office for getting these documents to me. It’s one more element of my quest to not only tell the Dave Garroway story, but to tell it as thoroughly as I’m able, with as few stones unturned as possible.

The article that started it all

In the ninth month of 1951 Dave Garroway was feeling lost. His television program had lost its sponsorship and time slot, and he didn’t know what was ahead for him. One morning, the story goes, Dave was having breakfast at the Pump Room of the Ambassador Hotel in Chicago (Dave was then living in the Windy City, remember). He happened to see a copy of Variety that someone had left behind, and inside was an article that outlined this new early-morning show that Pat Weaver was planning for NBC. Dave would later say the more he read, the more he felt the show was made for him. He contacted his agent, Biggie Levin, some meetings with NBC took place, and the rest is history.

I wondered how much stock to take in all this. Fortunately, the Internet Archive and its tremendous cache of periodicals came to the rescue, and after much searching I believe I’ve found the article that so transfixed Dave over that fateful breakfast, and changed his life forever. You can read that very article (and the rest of the issue) here.

Are you a vision delinquent?

Dave Garroway’s glasses were one of his trademarks, but he’d worn glasses since he was diagnosed with a vision problem at age ten. In 1960, he used his status as one of America’s most famous eyeglass-wearers (as did some others, including Steve Allen) to appear in a series of ads for the Better Vision Institute, promoting the cause of professional eye exams. “Believe it or not, more than 50,000,000 Americans are vision delinquents,” the copy in one ad warned. Another ad promoted eye exams for children, pointing out that the eye exams used in schools often could not catch serious problems. (As someone whose myopia was not caught by in-school exams and wasn’t diagnosed until I saw an optometrist when I was 16, I concur. I just thought everybody had a blurry left eye.)

Take Dave’s advice, and get an eye exam if you haven’t already.