In The Beginning…CBS STUDIO CITY

Below left is the original property as it looked in 1926 as the Mack Sennett Studios. On the left, a rendering of how it looks now and at the link, a guided tour via an animated map. Here’s the history. http://www.cbssc.com/map.htm

The year was 1926 and plans for a new city in the San Fernando Valley were being developed. It began with the purchase of a 50 acre lettuce ranch at the corner of Colfax Avenue and Ventura Boulevard, along with a 300 acre ranch located at Laurel Canyon. During this time, “King of Comedy” Mack Sennett, known for his two-reelers and the Keystone Kops, was looking for a new studio location. A deal was struck and in 1928 Mack Sennett Studios opened and the surrounding area became known as Studio City. At this time the Studio consisted of one office building, a projection room/film editing building, a film library, a two-story dressing room building attached to a large sound stage, a wardrobe building, garage, and a stage with an inground swimming pool. With the advent of sound in 1929, Sennett was the first producer to use RCA equipment, with which he produced a bunch of singing short subject films with a young unknown named Bing Crosby.

In 1933 the Great Depression forced Sennett into bankruptcy and the Studio became an independent production facility. Mascot Pictures, under the direction of Nat Levine, became one of the principle tenants and for the next two years the Studio was known as Mascot Studios. Mascot produced the Saturday matinee serial which always ended with the heroine left tied to the railroad tracks as a speeding train came hurtling toward, interrupted by “continued next week.”

In 1935 Mascot Pictures, Monogram Pictures and Consolidated Film Industries joined with several other independent producers and became known as Republic Studios. By then there were six sound stages and several more support buildings. Republic produced over fifty features a year which starred, among others, legends Roy Rogers, John Wayne, Joan Crawford and Barbara Stanwyck. With the advent of television in the early 1950’s, Republic entered a new medium and produced a number of series. By this time there were twenty-three sound stages and the largest scoring studio in the world.

In 1963 the CBS Television Network entered into an agreement with Republic Studios whereby CBS became the major lessee and the facility was renamed CBS Studio Center. By 1967 CBS decided to purchase the studio and long range improvement plans began. The lot continued to grow and throughout the 60’s and 70’s such television classics as Gunsmoke, Big Valley, Gilligan’s Island, Get Smart, My Three Sons, Bob Newhart, and Mary Tyler Moore were produced at the Studio.

In July of 1982 CBS and 20th Century Fox Film Corporation formed a joint venture which included ownership and operation of CBS Studio Center, and for the first time in almost twenty years a new name appeared on the sign above the main gate, CBS/Fox Studios. Then in 1984 Fox sold its interest in the Studio to MTM Enterprises and the facility became CBS/MTM Studios. Shows produced on the lot during the 80’s included Roseanne, Different World, Thirtysomething, St. Elsewhere, Newhart, Hill Street Blues and Falcon Crest.

CBS acquired MTM’s interest in the Studio in 1992 and once again the CBS Studio Center sign appeared at the gate. Seinfeld, Grace Under Fire, 3rd Rock from the Sun, Cybill, and Caroline in the City are just a few of the shows which called CBS Studio Center home during the 90’s. Features such as Father of the Bride 2, Dr. Doolittle, and I Love Trouble were also filmed on the Studio lot.

Some of the more recent hit shows produced on the lot of CBS Studio Center are, CSI:NY, The Defenders, The Talk, Hot in Cleveland, According to Jim, Will & Grace, Big Brother and That 70’s Show.

Today the Studio continues to flourish and grow. CBS Studio Center is now home to a brand new Broadcast Center which houses CBS2 and KCAL9.

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Who Knew? The Story Of Kay Thompson & Andy Williams

Meet the lady behind Andy Williams…Kay Thompson. Today, some may call her a “cougar”, but back in the 40s, she was a tiger! Andy and his three older brothers—Bob, Don, and Dick, (pictured below with Kay) formed The Williams Brothers quartet in late 1938, and they performed on radio in the Midwest, first at WHO in Des Moines, Iowa, and later at WLS in Chicago and WLW in Cincinnati. Moving to Los Angeles in 1943, The Williams Brothers sang with Bing Crosby on the hit record “Swinging on a Star” (1944). They appeared in four musical films: ‘Janie’ (1944),’ Kansas City Kitty’ (1944), ‘Something in the Wind’ (1947) and ‘Ladies’ Man’ (1947). In 1945, The Williams Brothers were signed by MGM to appear in ‘Anchors Aweigh’ and ‘Ziegfeld Follies’, but before they went before the cameras, the oldest brother Bob was drafted into military service and the group’s contract was canceled. Kay Thompson, a former radio star who was now head of the vocal department at MGM, had a nose for talent and she hired the remaining three Williams Brothers to sing in her large choir on many soundtracks for such MGM films as ‘The Harvey Girls’ (1946). When Bob was done with his military service, Kay hired all four of them to sing on the soundtrack to Good News (1947). By then, Kay Thompson was tired of working behind the scenes at MGM so, with the four Williams boys as her backup singers and dancers, she formed a nightclub act called Kay Thompson and the Williams Brothers. They made their debut in Las Vegas in 1947 and became an overnight sensation. Within a year, they were the highest paid nightclub act in the world, breaking records wherever they appeared. Andy Williams revealed in his memoir “Moon River and Me” that he and Kay became romantically involved while on tour, despite the age difference (he was 19 and she was 38). The act broke up in 1949 but reunited for another hugely successful tour from the fall of 1951 through the summer of 1953. After that the four brothers went their separate ways. Andy and Kay, however, remained very close, both personally and professionally. She mentored his emergence as a solo singing star. She coached him, wrote his arrangements, and composed many songs that he recorded (including his 1958 Top 20 hit “Promise Me, Love” and, later, “Kay Thompson’s Jingle Bells” on his 1964 No. 1 “The Andy Williams Christmas Album”). Using her contacts in the business, Kay helped Andy land his breakthrough television gig as a featured singer for two-and-a-half years on ‘The Tonight Show starring Steve Allen’ (it helped that the producer of the series Bill Harbach was Kay’s former aide de camp). Kay also got Andy his breakthrough recording contract with Cadence Records (the label’s owner Archie Bleyer had gotten early career breaks because of Kay and he owed her a favor). Meanwhile, Andy sang backup on many of Kay’s recordings through the 1950s, including her Top 40 hit ‘Eloise’ based on her bestselling books about the mischievous little girl who lives at the Plaza Hotel in New York. Kay also served as a creative consultant and vocal arranger on Andy’s three summer replacement network television series in 1957, 1958, and 1959. In the summer of 1961, Kay traveled with Andy and coached him throughout his starring role in a summer stock tour of the musical “Pal Joey”. Their personal and professional relationship finally ended in 1962 when Andy met and married Claudine Longet and Kay moved to Rome. Above is a 1969 clip of Kay on ‘The Hollywood Palace’.

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Andy Williams…The One And Only

If you didn’t see this show in it’s original run from 1962 through 1971, it’s hard to understand how good he was as a host and singer and how good the show was, in every way. In the next post, I’ll cover some background most us never knew but as for Andy’s big break in television…it came when he was the featured singer on ‘The Tonight Show With Steve Allen’ for two and a half years. In ’59, ’60 and ’61, Williams hosted a summer replacement show on NBC which was well received and those shows set the stage for him. In the fall of ’61, ‘Breakfast At Tiffany’s’ was a huge hit and with it, ‘Moon River’ by Johnny Mercer and Henry Mancini. Andy Williams sang it at the 1962 Academy Awards show and has “owned” the song since. Each episode of the show opened with him singing eight bars of the song. The glowing sentiment and fond memories most people have for both Andy and his show is something you had to be there for to really appreciate.

Above is a still from one of Sammy Davis Jr.’s appearances on the show. There is a low quality video of this scene out there, but here is another clip of Sammy and Andy that pretty much captures the mood and gentle style of the show. Love that TK41 color too!

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The Technical Story Of The Hindenberg Crash Audio Report

On May 6, 1937, history was made at Lakehearst, NJ and had it not been for two men from Chicago’s WLS Radio, all we would have is silent newsreel footage of the event. This was more of a human interest story than news, because the German airship was in it’s second year of operation and that’s why there was no live radio coverage. Fortunately, WLS had sent announcer Herb Morrison and engineer Charles Nehlsen to the scene to record the event for playback the next day. Nehlsen was manning the Presto Direct Disc recorder they had carried with them on their American Airlines flight to and from Chicago. The whole program covered four, 16″ discs recorded at 78 rpms. On their return to Chicago, they were edited to two 12″ discs, and for the first time ever, a recorded news event was broadcast on network radio as NBC replayed Morrison’s now famous account on both the Red and Blue networks. The edited discs were taken to Chicago’s WMAQ (NBC O&O) for the NBC feed. Below is the link to the famous clip, that long ago was married to newsreel footage of the disaster. The photo at the far right shows an NBC reporter broadcasting live from the scene the next day via a portable radio unit. Above is Herb Morrison, next, the Presto Disc Recorder, next one of the actual edited discs.

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