In a few hours I’ll be on the road, bound for the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention. On Thursday morning I’ll be giving a presentation about Today, Home and Tonight with my friend Kevin Doherty. Also on the presentation schedule is our friend (and author of a newly-published book!) Mitchell Hadley, who will be speaking about just why TV Guide matters. There will be plenty of interesting presentations, a lot of celebrities on hand signing autographs (and I’m already planning to suspend my usual aversion to autograph collecting, because some of the celebrities on the program are worth suspending it for).
Last year’s convention was my first, and I had an awful lot of fun there. This year I’ll have more travel flexibility (I’m driving instead of flying…which, given the current weather situation, means I won’t have to worry about canceled flights) and will give myself a second day on site. I will, of course, post as I can from the convention and hope to provide a full report once I’m back home.
In the meantime, if you’re in the Baltimore area, come see us bright and early Thursday morning. I think you’ll enjoy our presentation. And take some time to enjoy the whole convention. You will meet a lot of interesting people, most likely make some new friends, and you will find some cool stuff to buy. What’s not to like?
:: On a personal note, it’s funny how exactly one year ago we were dealing with the remnants of Irma here at Garroway at Large World Headquarters, and now we await whatever Florence will bring. We are prepared here (my husband, who lived 30 years in Florida, knows a thing or two about hurricanes). But since we’re really far inland, we’re preparing more for remnants where we are. Our thoughts, of course, are with the people on the coast. Play it smart and stay safe, y’all.
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.”
As an early star of the national medium, one with a highly distinctive style, a lot of ink was spilled on behalf of Dave Garroway in television journals of the late 1940s and early 1950s. Let’s take a look at some of those pieces the next couple weeks or so, and perhaps that will help us remember just what a big deal Dave Garroway was back then.
TV Guide photo
The first full-length article on Garroway I could find in TV Guide was in the July 10-16, 1953 issue.2 It’s titled “Garroway Today,” and its subhead divulges, “That Chicago Touch Got Him A Penthouse On Fifth Avenue.”3 As was TV Guide‘s custom of the time, the article bore no byline.
The piece begins with an account of the summer day in 1951 when Garroway and his favorite writer and best friend, Charlie Andrews, were vacationing in a small Swiss town. At four in the morning, Garroway received a call from NBC informing him that the sponsor for Garroway At Large had pulled out. This brought the tour to an abrupt end. “Our sorrows melted 12 feet off the Matterhorn,” Garroway said.
TV Guide photo
But the loss of Garroway At Large opened the door for Today, which had debuted to great skepticism but was now a great success. “There’s no argument as to the reason: Dave Garroway.” The article noted that certain segments of the program even drew higher ratings than that of the wildly popular Arthur Godfrey, who was on later in the morning. The writer disagreed with those who compared the two, arguing that while Godfrey worked hard at being the “common man,” Garroway “lives in a world of discovery, of finding new things under the sun.”4
At the same time, the writer noted that Garroway’s more intellectual nature might be working against his wider success, that “he’s managed to build up resentment among some people who fiercely resist any idea that entertainment can be fresh and original,” and that his unusual nature may have put off some major agencies looking for more traditional fare for their sponsors.
The article makes Dave’s life sound busy but happy, noting the $2000 he made each week from Today and the additional income from the daily Dial Dave Garroway radio program, and that Dave liked how Today presented new material each day. One staffer noted that public reception was positive, and that people who thought his Garroway At Large persona was phony had changed their minds when they watched Today and saw they had been seeing the real Garroway all along. The article also notes the recent addition of J. Fred Muggs, and that Garroway was pragmatic about it. He liked that Muggs had raised Today‘s ratings two points, and “if he can help us that way, sure I want to keep him.”
Garroway and Andrews discussed each day the prospect of bringing Garroway At Large back to television, but the article noted it would be a challenge. Not only would they have to locate a sponsor, but several of the old castmembers – Jack Haskell, Connie Russell, Bette Chapel – had gone on to other things, and that only Cliff Norton was in New York.5
Of Dave personally, the article notes that the Garroway of television is much like the real Garroway, only that the latter is “a little shyer off camera.” It noted that Dave was divorced but had been seen in the company of Betty Furness, who had knitted “all of Dave’s present collection of loud Argyle socks.” Still, Dave was apparently in no hurry to get married again.6 Rather, he was more interested in getting Garroway At Large back on the air, and as part of the preparation was trying to get on a diet. “It would seem that the only way to get Garroway at Large back will be to have Garroway not-so-large.”
Last week I talked a bit about unreliable narrators, the importance of verifying information, and the process a historian must go through to make sure what’s written is as accurate as possible. This week, let’s take a look at this in action with a couple of examples, one that’s kind of related to Garroway and one that isn’t. We’ll handle the non-Garroway example first as a warm-up to how these kinds of myths begin.
Ask anybody about women in 1950s television and the name Betty Furness comes up past a certain point.7 Betty became a presence as a spokesperson for Westinghouse, famously demonstrating new appliances and opening refrigerator doors and so forth on live television. That mention of “refrigerator door” will inevitably get people talking about the night Betty Furness couldn’t get the refrigerator door to open and what a fiasco that was. And it’s a great story…except that Betty Furness wasn’t in town that night, and another lady (June Graham) was filling in for her:
And just so you’ll see the difference, here’s Betty Furness:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3r2uq9ulRU
Now, let’s take a look at a story more directly related to Dave Garroway. And since it’s a story involving J. Fred Muggs, I will have to tell it carefully8, but I will tell it regardless.
There is a story that involves J. Fred Muggs biting Martha Raye. Since it involves Muggs, the assumption is automatically made that the incident happened on Today, and it’s kind of become part of the program’s mythology since many stories are out there of Muggs’ less-than-likable antics as he grew older.9 But what does the evidence tell us?
Well, do a little digging in the stacks and you find the story’s more complicated. You find out that Muggs, who was often a guest on other programs, was doing a guest spot on Martha Raye’s own television program. The incident happened April 17, 1954, as this wire service story published in the following Monday’s Minneapolis Star Tribune (among other papers) outlines:
And Life magazine provided photographic evidence, as well as a write-up, in this article (there are more photos of the Muggs incident a couple or three pages in).
What’s the lesson of it all? It’s that you have to check these things out. And it’s not just in regards to television history; it’s in any form of history.10 Just because a story sounds great doesn’t mean it’s true. It is the job of the historian to sort through all the available evidence (and seek every bit of it humanly possible), then write from that.
– We begin this week with a happy programming note: the Wide Wide Blog is now a member of the Classic TV Blog Association. Learn more about it and find links to many marvelous affiliated blogs here (and I’ll install the blogroll here as soon as I can find a way to make it play happy with the format I use here). It’s an esteemed group (which includes some friends of mine) and I’m happy to have the Wide Wide Blog in among these good folks and their work.
– Another happy note is that the manuscript continues to grow a little more each day. I set a goal of at least 100 words a day on it, and if I don’t get that done, it weighs on me (something about a work ethic that was instilled in me at a tender age). But it continues to grow and I learn new things all the time.
And sometimes, those things aren’t what they seem to be. One challenge a biographer faces is that when you’re dealing with any account, you’re dealing with a limited perspective. Memory does strange things. Four eyewitnesses will have four different accounts. (“Wow, Rashomon was an interesting movie.” “That’s not how I remember it.”)
Sometimes we’re lucky in that we find documentary evidence that tells us how things actually went. For instance, one file contains a typewritten recollection Garroway wrote of that very first morning on Today, the last seconds before the show went on the air. He writes about how he “realized that I had better say something quickly of an inspirational nature, something wise and to the point, preferably with a little humor in it.” And it’s a great account…except what he says he said (“Good morning – it’s Today on NBC”) was nothing like what he actually said. And we know this because the kinescope tells us so:
But other times, we’re not as fortunate. And that’s where the biographer becomes a detective. How much can you find out about the circumstances? What was going on? Can you find newspaper clippings about whatever it is? (I’ll write next week about one particularly famous episode that took on a life of its own, one that has been incorrectly attributed to Today, that a newspaper search finally put the nails in.) Have others written about it? Are there photographs? If it involves a location, do those aspects add up? (Some claims are geographically impossible once you look at a map.) Did the building even exist then? You get the idea.
And sometimes you can’t find a definitive answer. What to do then? Well, sometimes you have to acknowledge the ambiguity. I had to do that in the book I just finished writing, when a family member claimed that the subject of my book had been involved in some covert operations. They were interesting claims and the account in question seemed oddly detailed, but I only had that relative’s claims to go on. All the physical evidence that would have nailed down the claim had disappeared decades before (and sadly, appears to have been thrown out along with other family papers when her children were going through her effects after her passing – not out of malice, not out of covering anything up, but out of one of those things that happens when effects are gone through and discarded after someone passes). The information was too good not to include, but I had to qualify it, acknowledging that it was based on a single source and that only a secondhand account backed it up, and though I found circumstantial evidence in my subject’s surviving papers, it wasn’t the more concrete substantiation I’d love to have had.
This is why history and biography are more difficult to write than they may appear. If it were easy, I could just rewrite the drafts of Garroway’s unfinished autobiography, throw in anecdotes I found from others, and call it done, and my only effort would be the time I put into typing it all up. That might be fun, but what kind of contribution would it be to history? It would be a souvenir, but I’m not sure it would be an accurate reflection of the man and his times. It would frustrate future historians, who look to these kinds of works as references as they write their own new works (and it’s amazing how hard it is to kill an inaccurate story; once it’s committed to print, it’s often taken as gospel, and I’ve seen great historians repeat long-discredited stories in their own works because the works they trusted repeated said stories).
And such a work would be filtered through Garroway’s own perspective, and thus limited – just as we limit our own perspectives when we tell our own stories. And memory being the funny thing it can be, sometimes things don’t add up. I’ve lost track of how often I could have sworn under oath that a thing I remembered went a certain way, only to go back and find irrefutable evidence that it was far different than I recalled.
And that’s part of why the historian and biographer must take a step back, read through claims and stories and verify them, and above all employ good judgment and sound thinking. Then again, that’s just good advice for life, period.
Next week we’ll take a closer look at this concept, using that story I mentioned above as a case study.
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.11 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.”12
Today‘s executive producer, Al Morgan13, 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.”14
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.”15
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.16 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.”17
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.18 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.19
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 Hein20 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.”21
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. Bryan22, 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.
My search through old newspapers has just led me through January 1952. As you can imagine, there was a lot of coverage and a lot of reviews related to NBC’s new early-morning experiment. Some of them are pretty famous (notably John Crosby’s review, which asked “what hath God and NBC wrought?”), some are pretty critical, some are generous and optimistic. But one stood out for me, one by H.I. Phillips that was carried widely in the days following Today‘s debut, and it takes the cake.
In a review titled “The Great Shaving Hazard,” Phillips called Today “a sort of global cafeteria of dissa and datta,” and wondered what Dave Garroway had done to “bring the heavy sentence down on his head…if he is not a superman he will petition the governor for an early pardon.” Phillips said that no program should go two hours, unless the idea is to make it tougher to take than the commercials, in which case “either Garroway will have to give up the program or we will have to give up shaving, bathing, dressing and getting ready for work with the video on. The human system can’t absorb so many things so early in the day.”
Phillips said the program, which he called “Attaway with Garroway,” had everything but wrestling and cooking recipes. “We wouldn’t be surprised to see the trend wind up with a six-hour video program in which Jimmy Durante would give the weather forecast, Helen Traubel deliver a message on the state of the union, and Vishinsky, Anthony Eden and Harry Truman alternate in giving the correct time at one-minute intervals.” He said Today “is like a trip on a flying carpet in your pajamas, with no time for orange juice and with frequent stops at a madhouse to change pilots. The plot is by Joe Cook, the settings by Rube Goldberg and the direction by Abbott and Costello.”
Of Garroway, Phillips said his personality “combines the features of Peter Lind Hayes, Jules Verne, Ed Wynn, Aladdin, Puss-In-Boots and the Forepaugh Brothers,” and that “when he stops you know you are late for work. We listened for four mornings. Now we get the same effect by playing a harmonica, doing a toe dance and studying maps of Formosa while we drink our coffee.”
While Phillips felt Today was a noble effort, it left him exhausted. “To see all those video people working in the studio all snarled up in wires, gadgets, etc., so early makes us depressed. We just can’t feel global before noon.”
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.
In a few hours I’ll be on the road, bound for the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention. On Thursday morning I’ll be giving a presentation about Today, Home and Tonight with my friend Kevin Doherty. Also on the presentation schedule is our friend (and author of a newly-published book!) Mitchell Hadley, who will be speaking about just why TV Guide matters. There will be plenty of interesting presentations, a lot of celebrities on hand signing autographs (and I’m already planning to suspend my usual aversion to autograph collecting, because some of the celebrities on the program are worth suspending it for).
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).