CLASSIC: ‘Person To Person’ History

Above, cameraman Norm Hannin (who looks a lot like David Brinkley) prepares his specially branded TK30 for a live interview at the home of Bobby and Ethyl Kennedy. Notice the cut out on the bottom of the viewfinder hood. Good idea.

‘Person to Person’ ran from 1953 to 1961 and all the segments were live. The moves were rehearsed and questions were scripted but not strictly scripted so adlibs and surprises from guests did happen. Edward R. Murrow hosted it until 1959, interviewing celebrities in their homes from a comfortable chair in his New York studio. In the last two years of its original run, Charles Collingwood took over as host.

Although Murrow is best remembered as a reporter on programs such as ‘Hear It Now’ and ‘See It Now’ and for publicly confronting Senator Joseph McCarthy, on ‘Person to Person’ he was a pioneer of the celebrity interview.

The program was well planned, with as many as six cameras and TV lighting installed to cover the guest’s moves through his home, and a microwave link to transmit the signals back to the network. The guests wore wireless microphones to pick up their voices as they moved around the home or its grounds. Each episode had two live guests each week and the two 13 minute interviews in each program were typically with very different types of people, such as a movie star and a scientist.

Murrow wanted the series “in spite of television,” to “revive the art of conversation”. This was an historical step to building the cult of the personality on television. The personalities were divided into two camps, with the entertainment and sports figures in one, and the second containing all others, including artists, writers, politicians, lawyers, scientists, and industrialists.

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