My colleague Brandon alerted me to a nifty flashback item on the Saturday Evening Post‘s website. In February 1956, the Post published an article under Garroway’s byline (well, an “as told to” byline, at least) titled “I Lead a Goofy Life.” In it, Dave talked about the strange occurrences that happen when you host an early-morning program, set in a big fishbowl of a studio, in which your assistants include a Miss America and a young chimpanzee. Better still, there’s a link to the entire article, viewable in its original layout, at the bottom of the entry. It’s a fun article. Go check it out.
Charles Van Doren (left) with Jack Lescoulie and Dave Garroway in Paris, 1959. (NBC photo)
Charles Van Doren passed away this week at age 93. No matter what else he accomplished in those years, he is remembered forever for a decision he made in 1956, at age 30, to be a contestant on the television quiz show Twenty One. The 14 weeks he spent sealed in an isolation booth on live television, answering questions about anything under the sun, made him a very famous man. He was respected, admired, and even became something of a national crush – a charming young man with all the answers.
Or so it seemed. In late 1959 he confessed before a House committee that he had been given answers on Twenty One. And after his admission, Van Doren spent the next six decades in a sort of exile. Instead of celebrity, Van Doren labored in the world of the mind, working as an author and editor, doing some teaching, and trying his best to build a good life. He didn’t like to comment on his moment of celebrity, despite numerous attempts by many parties to get him to talk or to participate in the making of documentaries or feature films. Not until 2008 did he tell his side of the story, when he wrote an essay for The New Yorker.1
Charles Van Doren is so often remembered for his association with Twenty One that it’s easy to overlook what immediately followed his time on the quiz show. NBC, eager to capitalize on the appeal this brainy young man from an intellectual family could bring to the network, signed Van Doren to a three-year contract worth $50,000 a year. He would advise the network on public service and educational matters. And in that capacity, he eventually found himself part of Dave Garroway’s team on Today.
As Van Doren recalled it, NBC News was given the task of finding him something to do, but not much seemed to stick. A stint writing radio newsbreaks didn’t work, and an assignment to help out in the Washington bureau became a minor disaster. But while those chores didn’t work out, Van Doren fared much better as a contributor to programs such as Wide Wide World, where a longer-form style and a more philosophical approach let him play to his strengths. In time Van Doren became what he called a “semi-regular” on the program, and it led to his opportunity with Today.2
At the time Van Doren started on the program, Today was still presented live. He had to get up each morning at five to be ready to go on the air for two hours. Then he had to write the next day’s segment, and then take the subway to Columbia University for his regular teaching job, “where my sudden celebrity seemed to impress no one.”
NBC photo
As Van Doren remembered, he was initially awkward on Today. But Garroway eventually gave him five minutes each day for a cultural and literary segment, and on Friday Van Doren would read some of the great poems and provide some insight about their authors. Other times he might provide a brief lesson on something like non-Euclidean geometry. The segments were well-received by the audience, and by Garroway.
But all the while, stories were circulating that the big-money quiz shows had been rigged, and in 1958 an incident on another program prompted a full-blown investigation. Van Doren maintained his innocence, both before a Manhattan grand jury and before the Today audience. On the air he insisted, “I myself was never given any answers or told any questions beforehand,” and he likewise insisted his fellow contestants had received no similar coaching. And all seemed well in the world of Today.
One morning in August 1959, as Van Doren reviewed some notes just after the program went off the air, a young Congressional investigator introduced himself. Richard Goodwin3 was working for a House committee that was looking into the quiz shows and planned to hold hearings. Goodwin told Van Doren that the grand jury testimony of the contestant Van Doren had defeated to become champion on Twenty One contradicted Van Doren’s own testimony, and that two of the show’s producers had come back to the grand jury and confirmed the contestant’s assertion. Goodwin and Van Doren adjourned to an empty office, where Van Doren learned that other contestants had lied. “From all that he said, I realized that the committee wanted my story to come out at hearings in Washington,” Van Doren later wrote. Goodwin advised Van Doren that it would be best if he said nothing to anybody.4
A month later things started to happen. Van Doren had been waiting to learn if NBC would renew his contract. His agent insisted NBC was just waiting for the quiz investigations to blow over. “There’s no problem, is there?” his agent asked. But Van Doren sensed that NBC executives were feeling uneasy. On October 9, he was suspended from Today. In late October, he and another Twenty One contestant returned to the grand jury and made what the district attorney called “substantial changes” to their original statements. Soon, Van Doren’s testimony to the House committee was scheduled for Monday, November 2. As all this played out, thousands of viewers wrote to NBC and pleaded for Van Doren’s reinstatement. Some letters asked when Garroway would say something about the situation. He would, but events would intervene.
On November 2, Van Doren made a public confession before the House committee. The next day, NBC terminated its contract with him.
That afternoon, as Today was being recorded for the next morning’s broadcast5, Garroway finally spoke. In a five-minute talk, Garroway spoke of Van Doren as being part of “a little family on this show,” of the bonds that form when you’re doing a show in the early hours of the morning, and that while he could never defend anything Van Doren had done wrong on the quiz show, he would remember the cultural pieces and philosophical essays, the friendship he had built with Van Doren and his family. “What do you want me to say?” Garroway asked, as he held back sobs. “I can only say I’m heartsick.”6 After the segment ended, an overcome Garroway had to leave, and Jack Lescoulie informed viewers that “Dave has gone home.”
Inside NBC there was some deliberation over whether it would be appropriate to show Garroway’s emotional essay about Van Doren. But producer Bob Bendick believed that running a program as recorded was essential to the show’s credibility.7 Therefore, Garroway’s teary farewell to Charles Van Doren was aired that morning, made headlines that afternoon, and was even featured in Life Magazine’s look at the aftermath of Van Doren’s confession.
The revelation that Garroway’s tearful farewell had been pre-recorded also brought fire. Critic Jack Gould slammed the “misuse of video tape recordings” as another “depressing development” in the quiz show scandal. Gould wrote that one could sympathize with Garroway’s emotions, but upon learning that the whole thing had been recorded and kept overnight to be put on the air, “there can only be one thing to say: Why?” Henry Lee of the New York Daily News wrote that NBC’s reluctance to admit Garroway’s tears were prerecorded “was TV’s fitting farewell to Charley.”
What happened to the relationship between Charles Van Doren and Dave Garroway? As Van Doren remembered, they wrote to one another a few times but eventually fell out of touch.
As for Charles Van Doren himself, the immediate aftermath of his confession meant the loss of his NBC job and his teaching job at Columbia University. He spent the remainder of his life keeping a much lower profile, finding fulfillment in being an author, editor, teacher and scholar. He turned down requests to take part in projects related to the quiz show scandals. In retirement he found happiness, living with his wife in an old house that had been in the family for a long time, finding joy in being a parent and a grandparent.
In these times we look back on the sins of Charles Van Doren and other quiz show contestants, and the whole matter seems…quaint.8 And others can say more, much more eloquently than I ever can, about how he took his lumps and retreated, to rebuild a life with some kind of dignity. But let’s take a moment to remember him as a sometimes-overlooked member of that little family on Today.
SOURCES:
Steven Battaglio, From Yesterday To Today. Philadelphia: Running Press, 2011.
“Dave Garroway Heartbroken Over Van’s Disgrace.” Monroe (La.) News-Star 4 Nov 1959: 10.
“Garroway Cries Over Van Doren.” Pittsburgh Press 4 Nov 1959: 4.
Jack Gould, “Contempt for Law Is Most Sickening Part of Scandal.” Corpus Christi Caller-Times 8 Nov 1959: 78.
Robert Metz, The Today Show. Chicago: Playboy Press, 1977.
Gordon T. Mills, “The Way I See It….” Burlington (Vt.) Free Press 7 Nov 1959: 12.
Charles Van Doren, “All the Answers.” The New Yorker 28 July 2008.
This image wasn’t from “Babes in Toyland.” It’s from “Today,” and that’s Florence Henderson next to Santa Dave. It’s the best I could do on a moment’s notice. (NBC photo)
We all have our ideas of Santa Claus. For some it’s the image of Santa as immortalized by Coca-Cola. For others it’s the Rankin-Bass Santa Claus who finds room in his team and in his heart for a certain unique reindeer. Or maybe you think of the jaded department store Santa from A Christmas Story. But would you believe that for two years, Dave Garroway was Santa Claus? It really happened.1
Let’s go back to 1954. NBC Television faced a problem: staving off the heavy competition CBS was putting up in prime time. Key to NBC’s efforts to fend off this threat was an idea that the always-innovative Pat Weaver had: a collection of ambitious, creative 90-minute productions called “spectaculars.” Aired in prime time, these programs were meant to draw eyes over to NBC to see something they wouldn’t see anywhere else. These presentations were produced by Fred Coe as Producers’ Showcase and by Your Show of Shows impresario Max Liebman2 as Max Liebman Presents.
Some of the “spectaculars” fared better than others. NBC’s first presentation, Satins and Spurs with Betty Hutton, was relentlessly promoted and set high expectations, but laid an egg. Others, however, became beloved classics, as happened with the Fred Coe-produced Peter Pan with Mary Martin. And not only were the spectaculars meant to lure eyes to NBC, but they were also aimed at promoting the color television system pioneered by the network’s parent company, RCA.3
In late 1954 NBC announced a special Christmas-themed spectacular, an adaptation of Victor Herbert’s musical Babes in Toyland, to be aired on Max Liebman Presents. It was adapted by a team of very talented writers, which included a young Neil Simon. The cast was a who’s who of the day’s television and radio stars, including Wally Cox (of Mr. Peepers), comic Jack E. Leonard, and Dennis Day (well-known from being the resident tenor on Jack Benny’s programs). Bil and Cora Baird would create marionettes especially for the program. Oldsmobile’s dealer network would sponsor the program. And holding it all together as the department store Santa who narrated the proceedings? None other but our own Dave Garroway.
Babes in Toyland aired on December 21, carried both in black-and-white and in color, and met good reviews. It was a charming program with moments that could be enjoyed by children and adults alike. And Dave Garroway made for a droll, delightful and slightly bemused Santa, keeping a lost little girl entertained at the end of a wearying day. Reviews were good. One columnist decried some “inappropriate Broadway-type wisecracks” the writers put in Garroway’s mouth4, but considered the production “well done” and wrote that it “should become as much of an annual classic for TV as Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’ for radio.”
Liebman later said he began planning a rebroadcast for 1955 as soon as the good reviews came in. NBC liked the idea. When a re-staged Babes in Toyland was announced for Christmas Eve 1955, it was eagerly anticipated. One paper called it a “TV treat” and looked forward to its return. Liebman told a reporter that it would be much the same production as the year before, using the same scenery and much the same cast5, and that modifications would be minor. There was some concern that with the program airing for 90 minutes starting at 9 PM on Christmas Eve, it would interfere with the tradition that children would need to go to bed early so Santa could do his work. But Liebman said otherwise. “I have it on the very best authority that Santa isn’t going to start making the rounds this year until after 10:30. He’s going to be watching Babes in Toyland.”
Liebman had hoped Babes in Toyland could become an annual tradition, and told a reporter, “I was discussing the matter with Garroway the other day, and we agreed that if we all could get just a little more money, it would almost be practical for us to put on this show once a year and do nothing else.” But it was not to be, and the Liebman production of Babes in Toyland wasn’t presented again after 1955.
Although it wasn’t aired again, both years’ presentations were preserved via kinescope (only black-and-white, alas; the color presentation is lost forever).6 A few years ago, the kinescopes were made available on DVD, and you can watch, compare and enjoy whenever you like. Having watched them both, it’s easy to see just why adults and children alike were so charmed by this presentation. And it’s a glimpse at a whimsical side of Dave Garroway, too. Why not pick up a copy and make it part of your own Christmas tradition?
Sources:
Jack Gaver, “‘Babes in Toyland’ Changed Little,” Louisville Courier-Journal, Dec. 19, 1955: 15.
Women have always been an integral part of Today, from the very beginning when Mary Kelly and Estelle Parsons were among the first hires for the program staff and even did some on-camera work. And women even served sometimes as substitute hosts when Dave Garroway was elsewhere. But when women are mentioned in the context of the first decade of Today, it’s often in reference to the Today Girls, the sort of little-sister/next-door-neighbor member of the on-air staff whose role was to bring a little light and a little beauty to the morning’s proceedings. Several famous women carried the Today Girl title, among them Lee Ann Meriwether, Betsy Palmer, Helen O’Connell, Florence Henderson.
But one Today Girl’s path to the seat next to Dave Garroway wasn’t through a pageant, a movie studio or a singing career. Instead, she was promoted from the program staff because Dave Garroway considered her “the perfect woman.” She was a writer, producer, and a keen observer with a sharp wit – and she left us with witty and candid recollections of her eight months on the air and her time working for Dave Garroway. And after she left Today, she went on to a brilliant career as an award-winning writer and producer for television and radio. Today, let’s meet Beryl Pfizer.
A New Jersey native, Pfizer graduated from Hood College with a music degree in 1949. She then moved to New York City to fulfill her dream of living there. Pfizer worked on the staff of Arthur Godfrey’s CBS programs, then joined NBC and worked as a writer on Home. In 1960, she was assigned as a writer on Today. Before long, she ended up getting more than she imagined.
During this period, the Today program was going through writers, producers, and Today Girls at a rapid pace. Things looked placid to the viewers at home, but behind the scenes was what staffers characterized as chaos and uncertainty.1 Dave Garroway’s power and influence as host reached their height just as his personal life was itself a handful (and that will be discussed more in the book, of course, but let’s say that Dave’s tendency to burn the candle at both ends was catching up with him). If the ratings slumped, or if Garroway decided someone didn’t have the magic, that person might find themselves replaced. Author Robert Metz, in his history of Today, wrote that Garroway’s high expectations, forged after years of carrying the show on his back, left him “always looking for someone who could bring perfection to the show.”
The Today Girls were no exception. Pfizer wrote years later that her tally of Today Girls came to 30 during the Garroway years. Sometimes they had left for personal reasons, as Florence Henderson had when she was expecting a child. But other times, “whenever Dave grew restless with the show, or there was any dip in its sales or popularity, they threw out the old Today Girl and got a new one.” And it was under that kind of circumstance that Beryl Pfizer would become one of those thirty.
Dave Garroway and Beryl Pfizer, 1961. (NBC photo)
Dave Garroway had long been fascinated by her. According to one account, he had first seen her on a bus in Manhattan one day and thought she was the perfect woman. But before he could walk up and introduce himself, she disappeared into the crowds walking along the city’s streets. Which left him surprised the day he was in the studio and saw that “perfect woman” show up – turned out, she worked for Today. And before long, that “perfect woman” experienced the glare of the spotlight, promoted to Today Girl.
Pfizer later wrote about her experiences on Today, praising Garroway as a gifted communicator and an observer with an offbeat point of view. But she also remembered his “great ability to inspire rage, just as he had a great ability to inspire loyalty in those around him.” She remembered him as “a disorganizer” with “an incredible ability to create chaos out of order…he would arrive at the studio at the last minute and find fault with everything.” Sometimes he’d reorganize the program at the last minute and have the second hour’s guests on during the first hour, which prompted a frenzy of staffers hurriedly reshuffling things at the last second.
Years later she wrote of the daily journal she kept, recording Garroway’s daily eccentricities, sayings and claims. Sometimes she never knew how to take what she saw and heard: for example, his claim that during his transit from his home to his studio, somebody or something turned his undershorts around backwards. Or the morning “DG came back to desk, dipped hairbrush in tea, brushed hair, then drank some of the tea.” Pfizer wrote that staffers sometimes called him “Big Spooky” because of his fascination with strange happenings.
If Garroway’s antics weren’t enough, Pfizer found being an on-camera personality its own handful. She wrote a 1961 TV Guide article about how her seven-month on-air tenure was marked, from beginning to end, by others’ constant obsessions with how she looked on television. Everyone from the makeup man to the producer, the lighting director, and others on the staff had some idea of something she should change: make her upper lip appear thicker, change her hairstyle, make her chin look less pointed or her cheekbones less prominent. If it wasn’t that, others were suggesting changes to her wardrobe. The publicity photographer even suggested she wear a set of falsies that he kept in his desk. And as if the comments from program staff weren’t enough, the viewers’ mail brought complaints and suggestions of their own.2
And, she wrote, one day she took all this to heart, and the day she was doing everything properly, in came a letter from the NBC Talent Department notifying her that she was being dismissed from the program. She said that although it was well-known that Garroway made those decisions, he hated to be the bad guy and wanted someone else to pin the blame on. She remained on the show for a few weeks after she had been served notice that she wouldn’t be renewed. As she remembered, “General David Sarnoff3 was a guest in the studio one day. Dave turned to me and said, ‘Want to meet the man who fired you?’ I did meet the General, who winked at me and said, ‘My wife and I have coffee with you every morning.’ It was obvious he not only hadn’t fired me, he didn’t even know I was fired.”
But her dismissal from Today didn’t slow Pfizer’s career, and she worked elsewhere for NBC News as a writer and producer, working on convention broadcasts, on NBC Radio’s Monitor service, and even wrote and produced a Pink Panther series for NBC television. Her NBC Radio series The Women’s Program was awarded a commendation from American Women in Radio in Television in 1979, and the following year she won an Emmy for producing Ask NBC News with John Chancellor. Outside broadcasting, she wrote the “Poor Woman’s Almanac” feature for Ladies Home Journal. She also loved being physically active, and was an avid runner and tennis player. She also did volunteer work for a local hospital.
When Dave Garroway died in 1982, she was approached about saying something about him. She found herself choked up “not with sadness, but with rage,” she wrote, for Garroway’s suicide shook her to the core. Recalling how he would turn broadcasts upside down at the last minute, she likened his suicide to “his final act of defiance…here was Old Dave again, taking us off-guard, refusing to let thing go along in any normal, orderly fashion.” She wrote of her belief that his famous benediction of “peace” was “more a personal plea than a political one. After two hours of jousting with his own peculiar talents, his intellectual curiosity, his restless need to depend on gimmicks, his insecurity about his own abilities, he must have said that word in a plea for some inner peace for himself.”4
Beryl Pfizer (right) with Estelle Parsons at a 60th anniversary celebration for Today in 2012. (NBC photo)
Beryl Pfizer lived a long and active life, and stayed in touch with her friends from the broadcast world, attending Today‘s 60th anniversary in 2012. Her friendships extended throughout the industry, and she helped establish a scholarship at Hood in honor of her friend Andy Rooney.
Well into her 80s she remained active, continuing to do volunteer work and being active in her community. She even ran a race only a month or so before she passed away in February 2016 at age 87.5
This entry is a little far afield from our usual focus on Dave Garroway, and Beryl Pfizer was only in his orbit for a brief period. But it’s through her that we get an unusual, perceptive, and unique view of what he was like. Besides that, her story means something to every woman who’s working in mass communications today. It was the Beryl Pfizers of the world, blazing a path in times that weren’t the easiest, that made it possible for all of us to do what we do. All of us owe something to her.
Our journey through TV Guide‘s examinations of Dave Garroway continues on. Today’s piece examines a big and slightly controversial change at how his flagship broadcast was produced.
TV Guide photo
“Garroway No Longer Will Work By Dawn’s Early Light” read the headline in the August 1, 1959 TV Guide. “Thanks to tape, Dave will be able to live like most of us,” read the sub-head. NBC would begin videotaping each Today program the preceding afternoon starting in September.
Producer Bob Bendick told TV Guide the change would allow more scope. “There are more things happening at 4 in the afternoon than at 7 in the morning,” he said. “We’ll be able to cover many stories that we could never do before, including activities on the West Coast.”
Garroway and most of his staff were reportedly happy with the change, though they would miss the amusing little things that could happen when guests had to be awakened to be on the program. Dave told a story of when production assistant Estelle Parsons was sent to pick up Ava Gardner at her hotel, only to find Gardner had locked the doors and refused to answer through any means Parsons tried. “So Estelle returned to the studio and we put her on camera to impersonate Ava,” Garroway said. “She did a beautiful job.”
TV Guide photo
In another instance, Garroway remembered when the United States Olympic weightlifting team appeared on the program. Before the program, they asked for some coffee. Five minutes later, one of them “sheepishly” asked an attendant for help…because he couldn’t pull the stopper from the coffee jug. The attendant popped it right out. “At least we won’t be serving so much coffee when we move to afternoons,” Garroway laughed. Other incidents, including the morning George Jessel foiled an invitation for Harry Truman to come in, were mentioned.1
Bendick explained that an afternoon taping would allow the staff to keep a better grip on what’s going on. He explained that at 7 a.m., they could never get a good report on what was going on in Congress. “At 4 p.m., Congress is in session. We hope to be able to move our cameras someday right into the Senate corridors, into committee rooms.” Afternoon tapings might also open opportunities for Garroway to go on location – for instance, to a Broadway theater to talk with performers while an afternoon rehearsal was underway. Likewise, they could drop in on baseball or football games in progress, with Jack Lescoulie covering them. “And if we want to interview a baseball personality such as Casey Stengel or Yogi Berra, think how much better it will be for Jack to talk to them at Yankee Stadium. Until now, we had to invite them to visit our studio at 7 a.m,” Bendick said.
While the bulk of the program would be taped, the periodic news reports from Frank Blair would continue to be done live. Bendick promised that if a big story broke during the night, “we’ll be prepared to go live with the entire show,” with the entire staff notified to show up and go on live.
The article stated Garroway and the staff saw the benefits of videotaping during Today‘s visit to Paris. They also learned that it was better to do the entire program straight through, as if being done live, rather than taping segments out of sequence and assembling them for broadcast.
One more issue Bendick hoped the move would solve was the search for a new “women’s editor.” Betsy Palmer had left the show some months before, and the early hours played a role in her departure. Several women had tried out for the role after Palmer’s departure. Bendick hoped an afternoon taping might make an aspirant more likely to stay on, which meant “her personal and professional lives will not have to conflict.” He noted, however, that “no girl who has auditioned has complained that the 7 a.m. starting time was too rough.” Bendick also said they’d know when they’d found the right girl: “All the meters in the place will go ‘boing’ at the same time.”
While Jack Lescoulie had been a popular sidekick to Dave Garroway on Today, the guy who could be relied upon for a funny aside or a class-clown moment, the program was changing. When Garroway left in mid-1961, the program was restyled. It had a bent toward harder news, with John Chancellor taking Dave Garroway’s spot. Frank Blair became Chancellor’s sidekick, while Edwin Newman became the newsman.
Jack Lescoulie didn’t fit this new, more serious Today. Instead, NBC put him on a new educational series called 1, 2, 3, Go! with a 10-year-old actor named Richard Thomas.1 Lescoulie was a kind of sidekick and tour guide to young Richard as he went on adventures and imagined himself in various roles. In a program about a haunted house, for instance, Richard met a ghost played by Lescoulie. In another about the Department of the Treasury, Richard imagined himself as a Secret Service agent capturing a counterfeiter…played by Lescoulie. For his part, Lescoulie enjoyed it. “I hope the children watching 1, 2, 3, Go! get even half as much fun out of it as I do,” he said. But it didn’t work out. He later reflected, “We worked hard. We turned out, I thought, good shows. But no matter what we did, we couldn’t get any kind of audience. Those educational things don’t.”
In January 1962 Today celebrated its tenth anniversary. Old friends showed up for the telecast, including Jack Lescoulie. Viewers, happy to see him on the program again, flooded NBC with 15,000 letters. It didn’t take long, and effective July 9 he was back on Today in a permanent role. An NBC executive stated they were “very delighted” to have Lescoulie back on a program he was so long identified with, and that “his delightful sense of humor and easygoing manner will be a valuable addition to the program.”
Lescoulie (far right) during his second tour. Seen with Frank Blair, Pat Fontaine and Hugh Downs. According to some who worked on the program, that look Lescoulie is giving Hugh Downs might reflect the frustrations of a second banana who wanted to be the star. (NBC photo)
Paul Jones of the Atlanta Constitution captured what made Jack so special. Jones offered Toots Shor’s observation that Jack was the “pace” of the Today program. “If Jack is in good humor, the show moved along smoothly, swiftly. However Jack feels, that’s the way the show looks on that particular day.” To the famed restaurateur’s observation, Jones added, “Since Jack seldom had a bad day, Garroway’s Today seemed always to have a smooth pace – something it sorely lacked when Jack left.” Another writer, in 1963, called Lescoulie “a fresh-faced, tall, blond fellow with a wild off-beat sense of humor and inborn irreverence whose yeasty comment often saves the program from disastrous monotony. Lescoulie’s unexpected reactions are like a tonic as the earnest news-purveyors of the show busily dig and probe into the news and newsmakers.”
Neil Hickey of TV Guide attempted to pinpoint Lescoulie’s appeal. Hickey wrote that Lescoulie “consciously woos acceptance by casting himself as everybody’s next-door neighbor, by being liked as a regular fellow by regular fellows, by walking the straight and narrow path between big-city sharpness in dress and manners, and the wide-eyed, wide-lapel ingenuousness of the hayseed.” Lescoulie told Hickey that he built a career out of being “a guy you can’t resent for small things.” It meant he bought off-the-rack clothes so he didn’t look too upscale, keeping his hair an average length, never wearing flamboyant neckties. “This gets you to the people,” he said. “It’s being the ideally-dressed salesman. I believe you’ve got to take every edge you can get.”
Yet Lescoulie knew how precarious this image was, having known of cases where “big stars who let it slip out that they were not really nice guys at all, and it damaged their careers.” Lescoulie thus knew that “a quick shot in an off-guard moment” could ruin him, and he took care to keep the on-screen Jack and off-screen Jack in alignment. “The closer you come to being yourself on the screen, the longer you last.”2
Today‘s executive producer, Al Morgan3, called Lescoulie “deceptively good. He’s the darling of old ladies and kids. I’ve never seen a performer get the kind of mail he does – cough remedies, fishing advice, everything.” Morgan said Lescoulie’s on-air persona had not only great warmth, but range. “He kids around a lot, and then suddenly he says something very penetrating.”
Lescoulie’s day began at 3:45 a.m. for the program’s start at 7 a.m. “Sometimes it seems as if all my early training was preparing me for this show,” he said. “Take just the matter of getting enough sleep. I learned in the Air Force to take a nap when I could get it. I can lean my head against a steel pile and go right off – and 15 minutes of that does wonders.” After his duties were complete, he and some pals of what was called the “Sentimental Drinking Society” were off to Toots Shor’s for refreshments and a lot of sports talk. By 3 p.m. Lescoulie was headed back to his home on Long Island to be with his wife and children.
Lescoulie with Hugh Downs, Barbara Walters, and Frank Blair. (NBC photo)
In between his NBC duties Lescoulie continued to do commercials and announcing work. By 1965 he was earning $175,000 per year, much of it from his non-Today work. “For the last seven years I’ve been the highest-paid announcer in television,” he told Hickey, noting that his careful style in choosing only a few accounts helped his earnings.
Yet he continued to feel something was missing. He told one journalist he’d felt he had played things too safe by sticking to the announcer/sidekick role, and that he was “delivering only 10 per cent of the sum total of which I am capable.” Complicating all this was his indecision about what to do next: act in films, act on stage, or host a variety program. Each appealed to him, and “that’s part of my problem. I simply cannot focus my thoughts or energies on one exact area. But I don’t worry about this. I think the pieces will fall into place without my having to set out in search.” Lescoulie predicted that as he went for bigger things, “I think I’m going to surprise an awful lot of people in the next then years. I also think at the same time I’m going to get punched in the nose a lot. But who cares? A punch only hurts for a minute.”
That punch would not be long in coming. On his second day in the Virgin Islands during a 1965 field assignment for Today, Lescoulie asked the unit manager for more cash. This particular unit manager, whose reputation for keeping a very tight hold on funds had earned him few friends, turned down the request. Lescoulie was very unhappy. (Despite later characterizations of this dispute as a fistfight, these tensions appear to have never erupted into physical violence.) But instead of discussing the matter with management, Lescoulie wrote a memo threatening to walk out any morning he came on set and saw that unit manager.
One day in 1966, according to Robert Metz’s book The Today Show, Lescoulie came on the set and that very unit manager was there. Lescoulie stayed true to his threat and walked out. NBC fired him. His last show was September 2. Rumors had circulated about his fate after the dispute in the Virgin Islands, but the firing confirmed things weren’t rosy. The network claimed Lescoulie’s contract was going to expire at the end of August 1966 because he didn’t figure into the plans for the show. Lescoulie’s manager countered, “Of course he was fired. NBC had the absolute right to fire him. It’s their money. They just didn’t want him any more.” For his part, Lescoulie claimed that Morgan “slowly wrote me out of the show.” But he philosophized that he was in good company. “I can’t be too bad if they fired me,” he said. “After all, they fired Bob Kintner.”4
Lescoulie continued working in smaller jobs, doing commercials and announcing chores. In May 1968 he remarried. That summer, he did some work with WLW-TV in Cincinnati, hosting coverage of the Ohio State Fair. “We worked 14 hours a day up there,” he said. “I worked like I never worked before.” He also did some fill-in work in August 1969. His track record led to an offer from WLW’s parent company, Avco Broadcasting, to narrate documentaries, be an on-camera host for sports programs and special events, and fill in as needed. Lescoulie signed with Avco and moved to Cincinnati from Greenwich, Connecticut. “The only place (to be) is where there is live TV,” he said. “The future of TV is in live shows.”5
But New York was never far from Lescoulie’s mind. When the original incarnation of Hurley’s, the legendary watering hole adjacent to the RCA Building, closed in 1975, Lescoulie showed up to join Dave Garroway and Frank Blair for one last drink. “For seven years Frank and I sat in the corner and had breakfast every morning,” he told a reporter.
The original duo together one more time during the January 1982 anniversary program. It was magic. (NBC photo)
And Lescoulie showed up for the Today anniversary specials. On the 30th anniversary in 1982, he and Garroway shared reminiscences about the old days and proved their rapport hadn’t lost a step. Six months later, he was back to mourn Garroway as the program paid tribute to its original master communicator.
His last appearance was during the 35th anniversary special, aired on a Saturday night in January 1987. Although his spirits were high and his mood playful, he was suffering from colon cancer. On July 9, he was admitted to St. Francis Hospital in Memphis, where he died on July 22.
Lescoulie on “Today at 35,” aired in January 1987 (NBC photo)
In the 1950s, his friend Jackie Gleason had said to Lescoulie, “Do you know why you were never a big hit in radio? Because they couldn’t broadcast teeth.” Although he may be long gone, those who know the work of Jack Lescoulie, his comforting and cheerful voice – and most of all, the grin that was once called “one of television’s most durable monuments” – know why he matters.
Here’s to you, Jack Lescoulie.
SOURCES:
Associated Press, “Jack Lescoulie, One Of ‘Today’ Founders, Dies of Cancer.” Oshkosh (Wis.) Northwestern, July 23, 1987: 19.
Bob Considine, “On The Line: Jack Lescoulie Not Worried As NBC Prepares to Fire Him.” Muncie (Indiana) Evening Press, Aug. 18, 1966: 4.
Sam Dobbins, “Just One Last Drink at Good Old Hurley’s.” Corpus Christi Caller-Times, Oct. 13, 1975: 9C.
“Fame, Popularity and Wealth Don’t Satisfy Jack Lescoulie.” Lansing (Mich.) State Journal, Oct. 16, 1965: 20.
Neil Hickey, “The Man With The $175,000 Smile.” TV Guide,Jan. 30, 1965: 20-22.
Steve Hoffman, “Jack Lescoulie Joins Avco Staff.” Cincinnati Enquirer, Oct 10, 1969: 51.
Julia Inman, “Delighted Jack Lescoulie Finds Country Doesn’t Stop at Hudson.” Indianapolis Star, Aug. 7, 1970: 19.
“Jack Lescoulie Has Offbeat Parts, But He Finds All Fun.” Dover (Ohio) Daily Reporter, Nov. 11, 1961: 17.
“Jack Lescoulie’s July Return To ‘Today” Show Is Announced.” The Daily Times (New Philadelphia, Ohio), June 16, 1962: 9.
Paul Jones, “As I See It: Lescoulie Added, Today Brightened.” The Atlanta Constitution, July 12, 1962: 10.
Paul Jones, “As I See It: Jack Lescoulie Deserves Better.” The Atlanta Constitution, Aug. 18, 1966: 82.
Cynthia Lowry, “Cheerful Waker-Upper – That’s Jack Lescoulie.” Binghamton (N.Y.) Press and Sun-Bulletin, Apr. 7, 1963: 56.
Robert Metz, The Today Show (New York: Playboy Press, 1978), 154-156.
United Press International, “Jack Lescoulie ‘Fired’ From NBC’s Today.” The Press Democrat (Santa Rosa, Calif.), Aug. 11, 1966: 1.
United Press International, “Jack Lescoulie, Today Announcer.” South Florida Sun Sentinel, July 23, 1987: 26.
Jack Lescoulie had just settled into his new job at CBS when an opportunity came to audition as announcer for a new early-morning program NBC was putting together. Lescoulie tried out for the job and was quickly hired. On January 14, 1952, his was the first voice that viewers heard as the new Today program made its debut.
Lescoulie’s role was not that well-defined at first. “When I first went to work on Today, I did not have a strong role,” he said. “I did the announcing at the top of the program and at the end of the breaks and that was it.” Surviving footage from Today‘s early programs bears this out; on the first program, for example, Lescoulie mostly does the announcements, occasionally interacts with people on the set, and does a sports-related report near the end of the second hour.
In his search for the right role on the program, Lescoulie did some research. “Since Today was designed to be a television newspaper, I went to the city room of a New York newspaper to observe,” he said. “While there, I found a young man who used to come and just kid everybody, and no one seemed to resent it. When I tried that on the set it worked beautifully, and did for many years.”
Lescoulie with Frank Blair, Dave Garroway and J. Fred Muggs (NBC photo)
Lescoulie had battled some doubts, as well. “Frankly, I didn’t think I could make it [in television],” he said. “I believed I was unphotogenic. But suddenly there I was, the third man between Dave Garroway and Frank Blair.1 I knew if I were to make it on the show, I’d not only have to blend with the personalities of those two men but create one of my own. So I became the smiling, mischievous clown, the good-natured everyman. It worked.” Although Lescoulie would later wonder if that on-screen persona had limited his opportunities, it was key to a long-lasting relationship with Today, and a style that drew appreciation from viewers.
NBC photo
Lescoulie’s abilities also drew appreciation from the program’s “master communicator,” Dave Garroway, who placed an unusual amount of trust in him. “There was a great rapport” between the two men, Lescoulie recalled. “Garroway told me several times that if I felt an interview or particular segment on the program was dying, I should step in and ‘save’ it.” That’s how Lescoulie came to be known as “the saver.”2
Lescoulie in a fencing match on the “Today” program (NBC photo)
And it was in those years Lescoulie became the member of the Today team whose job it was to do anything for the cameras. At the Bronx Zoo, he wrestled a walrus named Herbert (who won, best two falls), and walked into a penguin cage and asked a penguin what brand of cigarette it smoked.3 He let an archer shoot an arrow off his head, William Tell-style. He played opposite Jayne Mansfield in an on-set scene from Cleopatra. He scrimmaged with the New York Football Giants. He faced off against Olympic athletes in their specialties, including water polo. Once he was sent to Palisades Park for a segment on the kiddie rides. “That almost did me up, and I was dizzy for three days,” he said. Almost as demanding was the segment tied to a national magazine feature in which Lescoulie had to eat six different breakfasts in succession and render a verdict on which was best. “The whole project just ruined my lunch that day,” he said. Some of the demands of the role led him to muse to a reporter that “reporting bombing raids was rather placid” by comparison.
Yet Today wasn’t the only outlet for Lescoulie’s talent. He was in demand as an announcer, too. He did advertisements on the Milton Berle program in 1954 and 1955, and was also sought after to be the voice of several products. Lescoulie knew his own value and was careful about the jobs he accepted. “It’s not a secret that I’ve always played the game rough, and not been easy to get,” he said. “I take on only a few accounts.” That care ended up making him one of the highest-paid announcers in the business.
But one job Lescoulie was happy to take on was being the announcer for his friend Jackie Gleason, who years before had promised, “Someday I’ll be the greatest and you’ll be with me.” From 1952 to 1959 Lescoulie was the voice of Gleason’s programs. “The Great One” placed complete trust in Lescoulie. One night, a piece of scenery fell backstage. Without a second’s hesitation, Gleason told Lescoulie, “Ad lib three minutes while I find out what’s happening back there.” And Gleason insisted that Lescoulie be the voice of his program, not of its commercials. “I want you,” he said. “Let the sponsor get his own man.” NBC had considered asking Lescoulie to sever his association with Gleason because he was on a competing network, but Lescoulie pointed out that he didn’t have a contract with NBC, instead working on a week-to-week basis.4
As if that wasn’t enough work, in July 1956 Lescoulie began hosting a Saturday sports interview program called Meet The Champions. With all these duties – five days a week on Today, his work for Gleason, hosting the Saturday program, and doing advertisements – Lescoulie later reflected that “I was seen by more people than the president.”
But in January 1957, Lescoulie left Today to enter the realm of late night. When Steve Allen left Tonight, NBC restyled the program into a live, roving look at the country’s nightlife. The new Tonight! America After Dark promised live remotes from different points around the country to see what was going on. It took cues from Today, even originating from the RCA Exhibition Hall. And Jack Lescoulie was signed to host the program.
With Judy Johnson on the “Tonight!”/”Today” set (NBC photo)
Unfortunately, the new format was an almost instant flop. Two months in, Lescoulie insisted the program still had a chance, stating that he took the job because he believed in the show and still did, writing that critics’ reviews were “unfair” and “hitting below the belt,” and that improvements had been made. Yet he admitted that Dave Garroway was holding open his old slot on Today for him because Dave “is such a good friend” and “wants me back” should Tonight! flop. “That is the way Dave is.” As it happened, Lescoulie was let go from Tonight! in mid-year, and returned to Today on June 24, 1957, just in time to fill in while Garroway took seven weeks off. The next year, he accepted a role as co-host of the quiz program Brains & Brawn.
Lescoulie’s talents weren’t just behind the microphone. In high school band he had played the trombone, and during his years with Gleason the great man had persuaded him to get back into playing it. With a few other notables, Lescoulie played in a little combo. “Garroway plays a very bad set of drums and Gleason plays a very bad trumpet,” he said. “Once in a while we get together at Dave’s house as a Dixieland band.” Sometimes Steve Allen would stop in and play piano or tuba, or Jac Hein5 would sit in on trumpet and drums. And Lescoulie was a good enough amateur golfer to play in matches in the United States and Canada, once scoring a hole in one at his home course, and even playing against Arnold Palmer in 1963.
And even with his lucrative announcing gig, he wanted something more. “Show me an announcer and I’ll show you a frustrated actor or singer,” he said. “Like all other announcers, I just fell into the business. It’s really an illegitimate profession.” He likened himself to a singer or actor who “missed the boat somewhere along the way and took to announcing because they couldn’t get anything better.” That had happened to him, he insisted. “I had a long stretch of unemployment. Ever try to act on an empty stomach?” While announcing and hosting, he still took dancing and vocal lessons, and yearned to “get my teeth into a good part, and I will accept it providing that it’s entirely foreign to the television host you now see on your television screen. I would love to play the meanest heavy I could find.”
Part of our mission at Garroway at Large is to remember not only Dave himself, but some of the people who worked with him who aren’t as remembered as they should be. Over the next couple of posts, we’ll be paying tribute to a man who’s now virtually forgotten, but at one time was one of the busiest people in the television business, who was also Dave Garroway’s trusted “saver” on Today, the man whose easy and folksy manner brightened many a morning and whose grin was considered “one of television’s most durable monuments”: Jack Lescoulie.
You’ll find several accounts of when Jack Lescoulie was born. While his official NBC biography said he was born November 17, 1917, other sources have his birthdate as May 17, 1917 or May 17, 1912. In 1965 Lescoulie was asked about the birthdate listed on his NBC biography. “That’s the best I can do for them,” he said. “You can never tell when somebody might want to retire you.”1
Lescoulie was born in Sacramento, California. His mother was an actress and his father was a soundman for what became 20th Century Fox. “I cut my teeth on a microphone, I guess,” Lescoulie remembered, adding that his dad “used to bring home stills of all the old stars when I was five years old.” The Lescoulie children – Jack, brother Bud, and sister Sylvia – formed an act that played West Coast vaudeville circuits and PTA meetings. “It was the world’s worst act,” Jack remembered. However, Jack honed his acting skills and won a Shakespeare-declaiming contest, and with it came a scholarship to the Pasadena Playhouse.
After he finished high school, Lescoulie became an announcer for KGFJ in Los Angeles, and hosted a program called “Jack Lescoulie’s Orchestra.” When an earthquake hit Long Beach in March 1933, he stayed at the station for three days and nights to help provide continuing coverage of the earthquake’s aftermath.
Lescoulie left KGFJ in August 1935 when he joined the production of Achilles Had A Heel, a play by Martin Flavin. The play, with a cast of 40, opened October 10, 1935 at the 44th Street Theater in New York. Lescoulie’s job? In addition to being assistant stage manager, he provided the sounds of an elephant. He had listened to the elephant recordings to be used in the production and decided they sounded too much like a horse whinny. He spent a week at the Los Angeles Zoo listening to the elephants there, and developed a repertoire of sounds depicting elephants in their many moods. Lescoulie’s diligent efforts, however, couldn’t save Achilles Had A Heel. It drew bad reviews and closed after eight performances.
Smarting from the crash of Achilles, Lescoulie lived frugally, earning money by delivering pants for a cleaner and working as a soda jerk. Another shot at the stage, this time in Tapestry in Grey, lasted three weeks. After that, Lescoulie bought a bus ticket back to California and went to work on movie productions, doing technical work and picking up an occasional acting role. Eventually he landed a job with radio station KFVD.
In 1938 came the program that put Lescoulie on the map. Nat Hiken, a former journalist who had moved to California to become a writer for screen and radio, had an idea based on the “griper’s column” he had written while a student journalist. Hiken had become friends with Lescoulie, who was now on KFWB, and told him about this idea. The two decided to try it on Lescoulie’s radio show. One day, Lescoulie cast aside his trademark cheer. He told his audience that he had been at a party and his head hurt. He’d play their records, but he wasn’t going to be happy about it. And from that came the Grouch Club, which became a hit with fans and critics. “Jack Lescoulie turns out a program with big-time humor, expertly written and delivered,” wrote Los Angeles Times columnist Dale Armstrong. “Here’s a local lad who should be peddling his wares on the networks. He’s top-flight.”
The popularity of the Grouch Club paid off, and in April 1939 the program made its national debut over CBS in the west and NBC in the east. Originating from New York, the network version of the Grouch Club paired Lescoulie with Arthur Q. Bryan2, and had Leon Leonardi as musical director. The popularity of the program prompted Warner Brothers to sign Hiken and Lescoulie to make a series of two-reelers about things that made people grouchy. In July 1939 they organized a convention of Grouch Clubbers at the Hollywood Bowl, to help “the Big Grouch” Lescoulie organize a committee “to substitute sneer for cheer.” Lescoulie told the press he expected 25,000 Grouches to be there and if they didn’t all show up “he really will be grouchy.”
Lescoulie was reaching the big time not only with the Grouch Club, but in other areas. He appeared in supporting roles in a few movies and did voice acting in a couple of Warner Brothers cartoons. In one of them, he did his dead-on impersonation of Jack Benny, an impersonation that Benny himself deemed “wonderful.” And after a pictorial in Radio Guide depicted Lescoulie going into Grouch Club-style tantrums over everyday nuisances, three studios requested screen tests from him.
But it didn’t last forever. When the network version of the Grouch Club lost its sponsorship, Lescoulie was “broke in New York all over again.” Not long after, the United States entered the Second World War. Lescoulie was inducted into the Army Air Force and ended up as a combat reporter in Italy, flying 25 missions as an observer on bombing missions, including missions over Trieste and the raid on Ploesti. “Real horrible stuff,” he told Dave Garroway on Today‘s first program in 1952. “Watching the bomb hits and trying to describe it, you kind of lose track of the fact that you’re an announcer.”
In late 1945 Lescoulie returned from the war and tried to get back into radio, but found it hard going at first. Hired as a staff announcer at WNEW in New York, he was told one Friday in 1946 that he and fellow announcer Gene Rayburn needed to develop a morning program that would debut the following Monday. The two created Scream and Dream with Jack and Gene (also known as Anything Goes), in which the two “threw all caution to the winds.” Lescoulie was fired the following year, replaced by Dee Finch.
In the wake of his firing, Lescoulie bounced around several jobs and even ended up performing in the Poconos during the summer as a singer, dancer, comedian and trombonist. He also got on the staff of Milton Berle’s NBC television program as an assistant producer. This helped out when radio station WOR held a competition to find the host of an all-night program. Lescoulie arranged to bring the Berle show’s company in the studio to have an all-night talk session. It worked, and Lescoulie was hired to do a program that lasted from 2 a.m. to 5:45 a.m. each morning. In October 1947, he was assigned to a Saturday afternoon show.
Lescoulie’s circle of show business friends included not only Berle, on his way to becoming one of television’s early mega-stars, but also an up-and-coming comic named Jackie Gleason. “Someday I’ll be the greatest,” Gleason told Lescoulie, “and you’ll be with me.”
And always wanting to act, Lescoulie landed a few performing roles. In June 1949 he appeared on the premiere of ABC’s drama series Volume One, appearing with Nancy Sheridan in a story about a pair of bank robbers who were trapped in their hotel room. Other parts included playing the lead in a production of No Exit produced by Al Morgan in 1950.
That same year, Lescoulie was hired by CBS as a producer. Little did he know that a huge opportunity was just around the corner, and with it fame and riches beyond anything he had known.
“Allen Franklin To Review Sports On KXOK At 6 P.M.” St. Louis (Missouri) Star and Times July 15, 1939: 11.
Dale Armstrong, “Tibbett Sings On Air Tonight.” Los Angeles Times March 28, 1938: 10.
Associated Press, “Jack Lescoulie, One Of ‘Today’ Founders, Dies of Cancer.” Oshkosh (Wis.) Northwestern, July 23, 1987: 19.
Hedda Hopper, “Hedda Hopper’s Hollywood.” Los Angeles Times May 11, 1940: 10.
Neil Hickey, “The Man With The $175,000 Smile.” TV Guide Jan. 30, 1965: 20-22.
Steve Hoffman, “Jack Lescoulie Joins Avco Staff.” CincinnatiEnquirer Oct 10, 1969: 51.
Julia Inman, “Delighted Jack Lescoulie Finds Country Doesn’t Stop at Hudson.” IndianapolisStar Aug. 7, 1970: 19.
Bill Jaker, Frank Sulek and Peter Kanze. The Airwaves of New York: Illustrated Histories of 156 AM Stations in the Metropolitan Area, 1921-1996. McFarland, 2008. 137.
“Jack Lescoulie Has Offbeat Parts, But He Finds All Fun.” Dover (Ohio) Daily Reporter, Nov. 11, 1961: 17.
“Jack Lescoulie Spends 17 Hours Before Camera In Course of A Week.” Louisville Courier Journal Oct. 17, 1954: 94.
“Many Wish To See Radio Favorites.” Belvidere (Ill.) Daily Republican Aug. 5, 1939: 4.
“Nathan Hiken’s ‘Grouch Club’ To Begin Sunday Over NBC.” Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle (Milwaukee, Wis.), Apr. 14, 1939: 9.
“News of the Stage.” Brooklyn Daily Eagle Oct. 3, 1935: 21.
Carroll Nye, “Plane Races To Go On Air.” Los Angeles Times Aug. 30, 1935: 33.
Frederick C. Othman, “Around Hollywood.” The Austin (Texas) American, June 1, 1939: 4.
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.
The first “Today” team: Dave Garroway flanked by Jim Fleming and Jack Lescoulie (NBC photo)
The Dave Garroway story is not only the story of Dave himself, but also of the people he worked with. Some of them are well-known, but others have fallen through the cracks of history. From time to time I hope to highlight some of those forgotten stories here.
Let’s begin with Today‘s first news presenter. This is a role that’s kind of gone with the times on some programs, but once it was commonplace for the hosts to throw to someone at the top of every half-hour for the news. John Palmer, for instance, was who I remember from when I watched Today in the ’80s, and of course Frank Blair’s long tenure as newsman is never far from our minds here. But it all had to begin somewhere, and in the beginning it wasn’t just the job of reading news on the air: the news editor was literally the news editor. And the first news editor of Today is all but forgotten.1 So let’s take some time to remember Jim Fleming.
Jim Fleming on the first “Today” program in 1952 (NBC photo)
James F. Fleming, a native of Wisconsin, attended the University of Chicago and graduated in 1938. He moved to New York with the intent of going to law school, but accepted a job with CBS as a radio announcer. The announcing gig ended up becoming a role as a correspondent. Fleming reported from the Middle East, covering the Cairo and Teheran conferences, and also reported from the Soviet Union. On the first Today program, as Garroway gave a summary of Fleming’s credentials and mentioned his issues with the Soviet censors, Fleming said with a chuckle, “They ejected me, Dave.”
In 1949 NBC hired Fleming, and he worked on projects for television and radio. One of his duties was serving as editor of the radio series Voices and Events, a half-hour summer replacement program that highlighted events in the news. Fleming was eyed early on as news editor for Today, being discussed in mid-1951 before Dave Garroway entered the picture, and it was Fleming’s role to get together a staff and everything the program would need to bring the world’s happenings to the broadcast each morning. Fleming’s staffers included a young Phi Beta Kappan named Gerald Green, who had been reporting for the International News Service. Another of Fleming’s helpers was a young production assistant named Estelle Parsons, who remembered him as “wonderful…so brilliant” and “a wonderful intellect.” According to her, Fleming had the ability to take something that had come off the wire and know all about it no matter what it was or where it had happened.2
Fleming appears amazed as Garroway shows him some exciting leader film in a too-obvious publicity photo (NBC photo)
Fleming’s tenure at Today was brief, and there are varying accounts as to why.3 Regardless, in March 1953 he was replaced by Merrill (“Red”) Mueller. Fleming worked on various projects4 until he was tapped by Pat Weaver to be the executive producer of an innovative weekend programming service for the NBC Radio Network. This project, which became Monitor, ran for nearly 20 years.5
Not long after the debut of Monitor, Fleming was off again. CBS hired him to work on one of its many efforts to counter-program Today in the early morning hours. He also produced documentaries for CBS, including the Peabody-winning The Hidden Revolution, which he co-produced with Edward R. Murrow. In 1962 and 1963 he worked with David Susskind to present Festival of the Performing Arts. Later in the decade he worked with six crews to film a four-hour documentary about Africa for ABC. The resulting documentary, Africa, was narrated by Gregory Peck and aired for four straight hours on ABC prime-time in 1967. Fleming’s efforts resulted in an Emmy award.
Jim Fleming on Today’s 40th anniversary show (NBC photo)
In later years Fleming stayed out of the spotlight, although he did make a too-brief appearance on the January 14, 1992 Today program, where Faith Daniels (who was then on the news desk) interviewed him about the early days.6 Married and with four children, Fleming made his home in Princeton, New Jersey, where he died in August 1996 at age 81.
There’s much more to the story of Jim Fleming, and I look forward to finding it out as we continue the research process.
But in January 1957, Lescoulie left Today to enter the realm of late night. When Steve Allen left Tonight, NBC restyled the program into a live, roving look at the country’s nightlife. The new Tonight! America After Dark promised live remotes from different points around the country to see what was going on. It took cues from Today, even originating from the RCA Exhibition Hall. And Jack Lescoulie was signed to host the program.
Lescoulie’s talents weren’t just behind the microphone. In high school band he had played the trombone, and during his years with Gleason the great man had persuaded him to get back into playing it. With a few other notables, Lescoulie played in a little combo. “Garroway plays a very bad set of drums and Gleason plays a very bad trumpet,” he said. “Once in a while we get together at Dave’s house as a Dixieland band.” Sometimes Steve Allen would stop in and play piano or tuba, or Jac Hein
In 1938 came the program that put Lescoulie on the map. 
The popularity of the Grouch Club paid off, and in April 1939 the program made its national debut over CBS in the west and NBC in the east. Originating from New York, the network version of the Grouch Club paired Lescoulie with 
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).
