NBC studios – Page 3 – Garroway at Large

Gehman on Garroway: “Portrait Of A Tormented Man”

A couple weeks ago we looked at a 1954 Esquire article Richard Gehman wrote about Today. Close to seven years later, now writing for TV Guide, Gehman returned to the Today studio to observe Dave Garroway in action. But in that time, much had changed both with the program and with the master communicator. Stories regularly circulated about staff shake-ups, of fits of temper from an unhappy Garroway. And, of course, the sudden death of Pamela Garroway in April 1961 compounded things. Soon after her passing, Garroway announced he would leave Today.

The first part of Gehman’s article ran in the July 15, 1961 TV Guide.¹ A box on the cover promised, “Dave Garroway: Portrait of a Tormented Man.” A subhead in the spread stated, “His peaceful television image belies a seething personality.”

Perhaps our understanding of this article will be helped by a look at Richard Gehman’s style. In their terrific study Changing Channels: America in TV Guide², Glenn Altschuler and David Grossvogel wrote that freelancer Gehman, who contributed many articles for TV Guide, was the kind of writer appreciated by editorial director Merrill Panitt. For the sort of respected publication Panitt and publisher Walter Annenberg wanted TV Guide to become, they felt that celebrity profiles shouldn’t gush; instead, they should probe. Panitt told Altschuler and Grossvogel that where other magazines gushed, TV Guide “looked for warts.” And Richard Gehman’s work, they wrote, “helped change the direction of the magazine.”

Gehman, they noted, grounded “virtually every profile in popular psychology.” He also employed the “new journalism” technique of placing himself in the story as participant or observer. And another calling card was his use of literary allusions. In “Portrait of a Tormented Man,” we see those techniques at work as Gehman tries to capture the essence of Garroway, who turned 48 in July 1961, as he seeks the next chapter in his life.³

Gehman leads off with a literary allusion, comparing a Christmas party for the Today staff to a Roman bacchanalia which “would have delighted a contemporary Edward Gibbon.” While others at the party lived it up, Garroway “sat near the center of the saturnalia, his bony face expressing boredom that was close to despair,” perhaps wishing he were instead working on one of his cars or relaxing with his telescope. “Whenever anyone approached, Garroway forced a wan, Proustian smile. He spoke cordially but with obvious effort.” Less than an hour into the party, Garroway left.

Why? Associates repeated things Gehman had heard for years – he’s shy, hard to know – and a Today director called Garroway a “cold fish” who “can’t warm up to people in the flesh.” But to Gehman, the best explanation came from a passage in Nathanael West’s The Day of the Locust, describing the protagonist as “really a very complicated young man with a whole set of personalities, one inside the other like a nest of Chinese boxes.” Gehman wrote that the phrase could have been written for Garroway. “For 14 years, off and on, he has been seeing a psychiatrist in an effort to learn what is inside those boxes. And what he has learned is that there are more boxes.”

To Gehman, the conflicting aspects of Garroway’s personality – a man who could engage in breezy, light conversation and then moments later opine about dark scenarios that Communist agents had already hidden small atomic bombs in major cities, and describe his own Manhattan bomb shelter in great detail, including a supply of Seconal capsules (“better to go that way than to die horribly of radiation”) – made the real Garroway hard to define, and Gehman found the man’s own explanations contradictory. Although Garroway stayed aloof to most people, he claimed to enjoy the company of others. “Yet there was a period when he seldom ventured out before he had disguised his face with cotton wads slipped into his nostrils and cheeks and under his upper lip. ‘It made me look mean and feel mean; it got me into two fights,’ he told me.”⁴

Now, Gehman wrote, “he no longer disguises himself except with an air of impenetrable calm,” stylized by the famous “peace” signoff, which he also used “to bid farewell, to express approval, or to get out of arguments. Or, in the majority of cases, to shun small talk.” Garroway admitted he had difficulty relating, but insisted it helped him with the casual style he had on the air; in front of the camera, he felt he could be himself. His in-person aloofness, his preference for spending time with gadgets instead of people, didn’t come across to home viewers. “They think he loves them. They regard him as an old friend who is welcome to drop by for breakfast any morning,” Gehman wrote. One morning Garroway lamented that American-made screwdrivers no longer had wooden handles; within days his office was inundated with packages from viewers, sending him wooden-handled screwdrivers.

Viewer loyalty to Garroway made Today a very profitable program for NBC, and Garroway was handsomely rewarded for it (more than $350,000 a year). But Gehman wrote that for more than two years Garroway had been unhappy because “he has been forced to work under what has seemed to him mysterious pressures, not only from sponsors but from the NBC brass.”

Complicating things, Gehman wrote, was Garroway’s home life. “Garroway’s moody introversion has made him not only hard to know but also to live with,” he wrote. When he married his second wife, Garroway was not aware of what Gehman called her “unhappy girlhood” and that she was “a highly emotional young woman.” Her psychoanalyst would not discuss her case with Garroway, citing ethical reasons. Late in April, while Garroway was spending a weekend at their summer home on Long Island, his wife was found dead in their Manhattan townhome, having overdosed on sleeping pills. On May 29, Garroway announced he would be leaving Today.

The second half of Gehman’s profile, in the July 22 issue⁵, tries to get inside Garroway’s head through a biographical approach. Gehman writes that Today‘s variety, and the departure of its host, couldn’t be attributed to one answer. “There are several, all as intertwined as Garroway’s several personalities.” And his closest associates “argue about what makes him tick – and about whether or not he does tick.” (“He doesn’t,” said former Today director Mike Zeamer. “He hums, like an electronic watch.”)

And here Gehman uses his favorite tactic, putting Garroway on the analyst’s couch and tracing that “humming” to a childhood spent moving from one place to another. He describes Garroway as “a shy, withdrawn youth who found communication with strangers difficult, perhaps because he met so many,” having attended 21 different schools by the time he graduated high school. “It may have been his desire to make people like him by entertaining them that led him eventually into radio, as an announcer,” Gehman writes.⁶

In a few paragraphs Gehman traces Garroway’s two decades or so in broadcasting, from his start as an NBC page through the birth of his style in wartime Hawaii, through the Chicago years and his tenure on Today, and his role in turning the show into “a reflection of his many interests. Also, he says frankly, it is a reflection of his shortcomings, for he does not have time to prepare adequately for the many different spots he is called upon to fill.” Gehman notes that Garroway has made mistakes for this reason, criticizes the program as “often shallow,” and that Garroway’s behavior has sometimes seemed excessive, citing an on-camera confrontation with a delegate from a Communist-controlled country that came across as “a disjointed argument on Communism.” Garroway insisted to Gehman that he spoke up because he feels anti-communists had a duty to do so. “Because he has spoken up so many times, he is certain that if the Russians ever defeat us, he will be one of the first to be liquidated.”

The article concludes with Gehman’s account of being with Garroway in Studio 3B⁷ during a May 29 rehearsal, right after Garroway announced he was leaving the program. Around Garroway nearly fifty people were busy with the varied tasks that went into recording each day’s program. At one point a woman slipped into the studio and approached Garroway, saying, “Darling, are you ready to go?” Garroway calmly replied, “Just a minute. I’ll get my stuff,” and gave what Gehman called “a significant look” at a nearby page, who escorted the woman away. A few moments later, someone brought Garroway’s four-year-old son into the studio, and the host put aside his preparations to visit with his child. Not five seconds later, someone summoned Garroway to the phone to talk with an upcoming guest. Gehman noticed that as Garroway was on the phone, he played with his keys – “a huge bunch, two whole handfuls, symbolic of the locks and barriers that make prisoners of all stars in television. He obviously was tense, holding himself inside the Dave Garroway shell with an immense effort.” But the moment the show was to go on, Garroway put aside his nervous tics, smiled, turned to the camera, and became “the Garroway his audiences know.” Producer Fred Freed whispered to Gehman, “How he’s been able to do this for damned near 10 years, I’ll never tell you.”

After the taping ended at 6:30, Garroway went to an appointment with his psychiatrist, then was back home at 7:45 for dinner with his three children. But he couldn’t relax, as the phone constantly rang with reporters wanting to know why he was leaving Today. Garroway patiently told them he wanted to refresh himself, read books, travel, take stock of himself, and rest. But Gehman said he had learned “through reliable sources” that Garroway and NBC had been at odds for two years because the network wanted him to stress entertainment. In addition, Gehman said, Garroway’s home life had already been unhappy for two years, and then the shock of his wife’s death made him stop and review his life.

“I find my attitudes, after nearly 10 years for Today, have standardized themselves into about 25 different cliches,” he told Gehman over a drink that night. “I’m tired of them and everybody else must be.” But Garroway saw himself getting back on television at some point. “I’ve got four years to go on my NBC contract. Relations are amiable now. I’ll be back – but I don’t know, right now, how or when.”⁸

The Rube Goldberg Hour

As television production was being carved from the wilderness, some things worked better than others. Live production was challenging enough in a regular studio with two or three cameras and simple switching from the nearby control room. Throw in additional elements – live remotes, telop cards, film chains, you name it – and the chances of things going wrong went up even more. On Today, one of the most ambitious and technically complicated programs on the air in the early 1950s, flubs were inevitable.

In the early days of Today, the program originated from the RCA Exhibition Hall⁹, across 49th Street from NBC’s facilities inside 30 Rockefeller Plaza. But while the program was directed from a control room downstairs from the studio floor, additional elements had to originate from inside 30 Rock. And one source of constant angst was the coordination of filmed pieces, which were ordered up from the control room and had to be inserted from inside the main facilities across the street.

In a 1954 Esquire article about Garroway and Today, writer Richard Gehman¹⁰ described the challenges of bringing it all together. Sometimes the wrong film came up (Gehman mentioned a morning when Garroway announced, “We take you now to Ambrose Lightship!” and instead a film of the Vienna State Opera appeared). Other times, the timing was off, since the film machine required five seconds to get going up to speed. Gehman noted that if the director didn’t give an on-time cue to the assistant director to tell the film technical director to “roll up” the film machine, viewers might see numbered leader film or an empty screen. “Considering the difficult timing involved,” Gehman wrote, “it is miraculous that such horrors do not appear more often.”

But other times, film goofs weren’t the fault of the control room. Today writer and managing editor Gerald Green¹¹, interviewed by Jeff Kisseloff for the great oral history The Box, told of an ongoing frustration with Garroway and Jim Fleming that led to film problems. In their copy, on-camera talent say certain words that serve as a cue for the control room to roll a particular piece of prerecorded material – appropriately enough, this is called a “roll cue.” Green remembered that he had difficulty getting Garroway or Fleming to read their roll cues as prescribed – instead, they’d ad-lib and since the roll cue wasn’t given, no film would follow. After the program, when they would ask Green what happened to the film, he would reply, “Read your roll cue and you’ll get the film on time.”¹²

Green remembered that when he was managing editor, he’d watch Today from his home and watch Garroway or Fleming ad-lib, miss the roll cue, and then muse aloud that there was supposed to be film to go with this. Green would shout at his television, “Run it! Run the damn film!”¹³

All of which led to the evening Green was in the kitchen, and from the den he heard his young daughter yelling. He went in to see what was the matter. In the den, he saw his daughter watching Felix the Cat. Sure enough, she was yelling at the television: “Run it! Run the damn film!”¹⁴

One week in: “Gutenberg’s reputation is not threatened”

We spend a lot of time here talking about the early days of Today, and there’s a couple reasons for that. The first, obviously, is because when you look at the career of Dave Garroway you find a ton of material about his years on that program, and to not talk about it is sort of like talking about Neil Armstrong without mentioning that whole Apollo 11 thing. But it’s also interesting to look at those early days because Today was such a departure from anything else that had come before, and it’s worth seeing how a program we now take for granted brought such responses when it was new. In this installment, we’ll look at how Broadcasting looked at the first few days of Today in its January 21, 1952 issue.

(Before we go any further, it’s only right to thank the amazing online archive at the incredible American Radio History website, where this and a ton of other issues of Broadcasting, along with many other titles, are available for research. Folks like these make historians’ jobs so much easier, and they really deserve an award or ten for doing this stuff.)

The review begins by noting the immense buildup NBC had created around the program, “suggesting that the program would be of greater historical consequence than the invention of the printing press.” After the first few days, however, the review noted “Gutenberg’s reputation is not threatened” – and that the early-morning radio programs Today was meant to rival should not yet be thrown out.

Its main problem, Broadcasting noted, was that it tried to do too much too quickly and set an impossible mission for itself. “No one television show can deliver the contents of the Library of Congress to America’s living rooms and that is just about what its originators envision Today as attempting.” As a result, it reduced news stories to brief headlines, three-minute songs were truncated to a minute’s play, and book segments didn’t go into any appreciable depth. Even the trans-Atlantic reports seemed to do little more than just demonstrate such communications were possible.

The review included this really nifty depiction of the Exhibition Hall studio. (Broadcasting Magazine)

Broadcasting was not impressed with the busy studio, noting its array of clocks (“one showing the time in Calcutta, a hot-bed of interest to Indian viewers”), flashing lights, recorders and other gadgetry “as to suggest it was designed by the producers of Captain Video or Space Cadet.” The busy set with its many occupants milling about would resemble “St. Vitus’ dance brought to the screen were it not for the restorative presence of the man who now saves the show and can, with proper support, establish it as an important television feature.” Broadcasting praised Garroway as “imperturbable” and suggested Today would be successful only if the rest of the program were tuned to more closely match Garroway’s calm demeanor.

The review noted a moment from the January 15 edition that suggested a path Today could take. That morning, Garroway had interviewed New York Daily News drama critic John Chapman about a play that had opened on Broadway the previous night. Chapman told Garroway he hadn’t cared for the play, and explained why. After Chapman expressed his views, Garroway presented a recording made the night before in which theatergoers’ opinions differed from Chapman’s. “This was imaginative,” Broadcasting noted, “and an example of the kind of foresighted thinking that it will be necessary to employ consistently to make this program a success.”

Broadcasting noted that NBC had put a lot of resources into making Today a success, and “it remains only for production genius to figure out how to use it.” The review suggested that Today limit its mission to what it could do well within its allotted two hours, for at its current pace, “it will succeed only in being a costly what-is-it, running a poor second in music and news to radio in the competition for the morning audience.”

In a separate item below the review, Broadcasting noted that on its first day Today claimed a newsbeat, with NBC publicizing that a bulletin on a Northeast Airlines plane that crashed in the East River “scooped all networks and stations.” Broadcasting noted that the “scoopees” presumably included NBC’s New York flagship station WNBT-TV, since East Coast stations left Today at 9:00 AM, while the bulletin was seen only on the additional hour for Central Time Zone viewers.

One final note: In a sidebar, the basic facts about Today included an approximate cost of $35,000 per week. In January 2018, that translates to $327,371.51 per week, which…I somehow doubt would cover the week’s expenses these days.

Lost Garroway: “Dave’s Place,” 1960

There are moments in Dave Garroway’s career that are well known. But for every one of those, there must be at least ten that have vanished into the ether and are likely gone forever. One of those is a curious entry from 1960, when Dave Garroway tried one more time to bring the Chicago magic to prime time. Very little material exists on it, and so far as we can tell there’s no known recording – not even the Paley Center seems to have a copy. Which is a shame, because on Friday, November 18, 1960, NBC invited viewers to spend an hour at Dave’s Place.

According to Robert Metz in his book The Today Show, the idea for Dave’s Place began sometime in 1960. Garroway had sensed his days at Today might be numbered, and that a good showing on a prime-time special could lead to a series. Garroway asked his producer, Robert “Shad” Northshield, to head the project.

Northshield hired Andy Rooney, who had written for Arthur Godfrey, to write the program. At least once, Rooney visited Garroway’s town house to discuss the project. But Garroway was unhappy with Rooney’s script, and turned to Today writer I.A. “Bud” Lewis, on whom he had come to depend in recent years – so much that Garroway informed other Today writers that he refused to speak any lines unless Lewis had approved them. Lewis and Lester Colodny completed the script; more than a decade later Lewis himself later referred to the script as “slap-dash” and “not a particularly good show.”

As if that wasn’t enough, during the special’s gestation, Northshield fell out of favor with Garroway and was soon gone from both Today and Dave’s Place. Norman Kahn was brought in to shepherd the prime-time special to its air date. The program went over budget, and Garroway himself funded part of the production. Lynwood King was tapped to direct.

The thought of Garroway in prime time tantalized columnists. Larry Wolters of the Chicago Tribune noted that the title reminded him of Studs Terkel’s old program Studs’ Place, and that like Garroway’s Chicago program, “the atmosphere will be relaxed, and the format free wheeling.”

As it happened, the completed script wasn’t so much about Garroway himself. Instead, the script connected everything through the RCA Building at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, a place Garroway had called his professional home for decades. “The theme, the mood and even the format of the program are an expression of how Dave Garroway feels about the building and the NBC studios it houses, where he has spent such a large part of his life,” read NBC’s press release. “As Dave puts it, ‘Twenty-three years is a long time to be in love with an idea…but I have…and it’s all been connected with this building.'”

The day before the program aired, newspaper columns previewed the program. Most had high hopes. The Nashville Tennesseean looked forward to “an amiable amble” through the RCA Building as Garroway told stories and met people, while the Salt Lake City Tribune noted “it seems that Mr. Garroway has decided that ordinary stage settings are inadequate for his Friday night show…thinking big, he has decided to use the 70-story RCA Building.” Another columnist suggested, “If you’re one of his early morning addicts or want to know if you could be one, here’s an hour-long amble, visit, sentimental journey or what-have-you, with NBC’s goggle-eyed philosopher-astronomer-huckster at his “home” in New York City…mostly this is Garroway, wandering about from lobby to studios to roof, the happy historian of 23 years at Dave’s Place.” Several listings had it as a viewing “best bet.”

According to surviving accounts, the program began with a view of the outdoor skating rink at 30 Rock. Garroway arrived in his beloved Jaguar, walked to the rink, and began telling the audience about “Dave’s Place” and what it meant.

Inside 30 Rock, Garroway took viewers to several points of interest, including the central videotape facility; Studio 3B, where The Dave Garroway Today Show originated; and the eighth floor, which Garroway noted was the home of all the big shows back in the day. Garroway reminisced about his first job at NBC, as a page on the eighth floor, and about being present on Christmas Night, 1937, as Arturo Toscanini debuted the NBC Symphony Orchestra in Studio 8H.

Along the way, Garroway met up with his old Chicago friend, comedian Cliff Norton; comedians Sid Gould, Bernie West, Helen Halpin, and Al Kelly, known for his double-talk routine. Singer Julie London performed three songs: “Making Whoopee,” “Well, Sir” and “All of You.” The Joe Wilder Sextet performed “Heat Wave,” and the New York Woodwind Quartet presented “St. Anthony’s Chorale” by Haydn. In a joint performance, the two groups presented an original song, “It’ll Never Sell,” by Alec Wilder. As the program went on, Garroway segued into several commercials – for American Tourister luggage and Elgin watches, among other sponsors.

Near the end of the program, Garroway stood on the RCA Building’s observation deck, looked down on the lights of Times Square, and then cast his gaze on the stars above. This led into a sequence (likely based on one of Garroway’s favorite works, The Cosmic View by Kees Boeke) that showed how, in the grand scheme of things, humans and the world itself were both insignificant and unique against the scale of the universe.

Along the way were some innovations. A “motion sculpture” sequence, using stainless steel rods that were vibrated with electricity, provided what one reviewer called “fascinating images” on the screen. And at 45 minutes into the program, Garroway remarked that closing credits usually go unread. As Julie London sang a song, the closing credits were seen in the dark background behind her.

Other little whimsical moments took place during the hour. At one point, Chet Huntley passed by Garroway in one of 30 Rock’s corridors. “Good night, David,” he said, reprising his famous Huntley-Brinkley signoff. As Huntley walked on, Garroway said, “He says that to everybody.” And at the end, in a sequence a reviewer called “eerie,” a photo of Garroway morphed into a photo of RCA chief Gen. David Sarnoff. “We’ve called this Dave’s Place, and it surely is,” Garroway said. “Good night, and thank you, David.”

Reviews were lukewarm; the consensus was that while the Garroway charm was there, the execution was off. “N.B.C. made a stab at re-creating the atmosphere of the old Garroway at Large program last night,” read a review in the Louisville Courier-Journal. “A closing sequence rather oversimplified the theory that man is pretty small potatoes compared to all creation. The show, though pleasant in spots, bore out this viewpoint.”

Harry Harris of the Philadelphia Inquirer generally liked the program but was distracted by the constant commercials. “We kept wondering if it wouldn’t have been more appropriately tagged ‘Dave’s Store.’ Almost every moment, he seemed to be peddling something – luggage, watches, spark plugs, NBC and, not least of all, Dave Garroway. Maybe it just SEEMED like a commercial-studded commercial because, except for a song interlude by Julie London, Dave was endlessly present, making with the soft-voiced hard sell.” Harris also noted that by confining the proceedings to within 30 Rock, the former Wide Wide World host “seemed reduced to serving as guide to an extremely narrow world.” However, Harris was entertained enough by the musical and comedy segments to call Dave’s Place “a winner of a ‘Place’ show.”

While Dave’s Place was a pleasant Friday night diversion, it never led to anything beyond that single program, and records about it remain scant; even finding this much about it has been a challenge. I’d like to hope a kinescope or videotape exists – not only because of the obvious Garroway connection, but having roamed the halls of Dave’s Place myself, I would love to see how some familiar places looked in 1960, made even better with Garroway as my tour guide. It may have been an odd little program, but if a copy exists, it would sure be a treat to see.
—
SOURCES:

“Dave’s Place.” Fort Lauderdale News, Nov. 18, 1960.
Harris, Harry. “Screening TV: Hallmark’s “Macbeth” Is Excellently Filmed But Not Top Video.” Philadelphia Inquirer, Nov. 21, 1960.
Londino, Cathleen. The Today Show: Transforming Morning Television. Rowman & Littlefield, 2016. p. 52.
Martin, Richard O. “Checking the Channels: TV Goes Bizarre Today.” Salt Lake City Tribune, Nov. 18, 1960.
Metz, Robert. The Today Show. Playboy Press, 1978. p. 130-133.
“Radio, TV Highlights: Visit to ‘Dave’s Place’ Is All Dave Garroway.”
Eugene (OR) Guard, Nov. 18, 1960.
Rooney, Andy. “The Death of Dave Garroway.” Lakeland Ledger August 3, 1982.
Terrace, Vincent. Television Specials: 5,336 Entertainment Programs, 1936-2012. 2d ed. McFarland, 2013. p. 119
“TV Review: N.B.C. Tries To Re-create Old Garroway Program.”
Louisville Courier-Journal, Nov. 19, 1960.
“TV Scout: Garroway Ambles Through RCA.” Nashville Tennesseean, Nov. 18, 1960.
Wolters, Larry. “Dave Garroway to Do 1-Night Variety Show.” Chicago Tribune, Oct. 13, 1960.