April 9, 1950…First Bob Hope TV Special, NBC New Amsterdam Theater
On this day in 1950, NBC Radio star Bob Hope was lured to television by Frigidaire as he hosted his first ever special. The 90 minute show was done live from The New Amsterdam Theater on 42nd Street, just weeks after WOR TV had left the facility to move into their new multimillion dollar building at West 67th Street. Here are two shots of the stage and the control room located under the stage while still a WOR studio.
The images above are from pages 70 and 71 of this rare article on WOR’s new studios, and show us the stage and control room under it they left for NBC to lease.
Unbelievably, this show almost did not go on! For two reasons! First we’ll look at the more urgent problem. This was a live NBC remote from The New Amsterdam Theater, scheduled to air from 5:30-7:00 Eastern. Tensions in the air between the unions were so thick you could cut it with a knife. Renowned NBC Technical Director Heino Ripp was there and the man that made it happen.
With only three days of rehearsal in the theater, things were boiling between the electrical and stagecraft people and NBC’s television people, and it all got started over lighting gels. The lighting people were from Broadway and wanted to wash everything with color, but technically television needed more white light and the NBC people were taking the gels out so the cameras could get better tonal balance. One thing led to another and up till about an hour from show time, it looked like there would be a walkout.
Heino Ripp finally jumped in the middle with the heads of all the unions, explained the problems and after about 10 minutes, calm was restored.
In the months before this though, the problem was with Bob Hope. He was avoiding television as much as possible in early 1950 as he considered radio and motion pictures an “easier racket”. Hope had also declared that “NOBODY could pay him enough money to do a TV show!” Then, the ad agency representing Frigidaire contacted Hope’s agent about doing this special, asking how much did Bob want? Hope snapped, $50,000, figuring that would end it, as no one had ever asked for that much money to appear on one TV show back then.
Instead of saying no, Frigidaire countered with an offer for five specials…$40,000 for the first one, and $37,500 each for the rest. Even Hope couldn’t pass that up, and finally agreed. Once he did the special, he embraced television wholeheartedly, appearing in monthly or semi-monthly specials for NBC in the early years, but continued his weekly radio show until it ended in 1955. Hope paved the way for other radio stars to follow him in the new medium.
The full 90 minute Hope special is included below. Produced by Max Liebman, the show was called “The Star Spangled Revue” and Bob’s guest stars were Dinah Shore, Douglas Fairbanks and Bea Lillie. The first season was April ’50 till April ’51 on a monthly basis and all the shows were done from here.
But…this was not the first time NBC had broadcast from this address! RCA’s first experimental television transmissions were mechanical and began in 1928 on station W2XBS at 7 Van Courtlandt Park. After a move to the RCA Phonovision office at 411 Fifth Avenue, nightly two hour broadcasts from 7 – 9 began March 22, 1929. In 1930, testing was moved to The Roof Garden Theater on the top floor of The New Amsterdam Theater building, transmitting 60 line pictures in the new 2-3 mHz band allocated to television. From 1932-35, this was also the NBC Times Square Radio Theater where the famous “Texaco Fire Chief Show” with Ed Wynn came from. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee
This was Hope’s first network show (April 1950) but not his first TV appearance. That was on local KTLA’s inaugural broadcast in January 1947. He also mentioned in later interviews that he and Bing used to walk through the W6XYZ studio (forerunner of KTLA) on the Paramount lot years earlier when they were experimental and said that he and Bing looked like “a couple of snowmen on the screen”.
Wow! That’s REALLY early stuff.
Hope’s first network show (April 1950). The coast-to-coast cable had yet to reach Los Angeles, so the show was live from New York.
Hope was reportedly frightened of doing a full fledged, live program on TV after years of holding a script in front of him on radio and multiple takes in the movies. But money talks, and Hope rose to the occasion doing a remarkable job. But, as he hinted at the end, “this is a whole new thing” suggesting that it wasn’t easy.
Looks like a scene from “White Christmas.”
Whew! That scoop is surely warming the left rear quarter of the cameraman on Cam 1 !! 😉
I think NBC has its studio in what was the New Amsterdam’s roof theater. Never been but remember reading that somewhere.
THAnk you, THAnk you.
Bob Hope, asking for an outrageous amount of money figuring nobody would pay that amount is what Dean Martin did when asked to do The Dean Martin Show.