What Do ‘Bonanza’, The Beatles And Bozo Have In Common?

The amazing Alan Livingston…that’s what!

Livingston was best-known for his years as president of Capitol Records during the 1960s, when he signed The Beatles, but he also created Bozo The Clown and as an NBC executive, was responsible for ‘Bonanza’ coming to the screen.

As Capitol’s president, he signed artists like The Beach Boys, Steve Miller and The Band. His most famous signing, however, took longer than might be expected.

Livingston first heard about the Beatles in 1963 when he read about the group in the English music press. The Beatles’ records were being released in the United Kingdom by EMI. And because EMI was Capitol’s major stockholder, Capitol had the right of first refusal on the Beatles in America. But Capitol rejected the Beatles’ early hit singles as unsuitable for the American market.

Livingston finally received a call from the Beatles’ manager, Brian Epstein, from London wanting to know why there was no interest in the group. When Livingston said he hadn’t even heard the Beatles sing, Epstein told him to listen to one of their records and call him back.

Livingston did, and the Beatles signed with Capitol, which agreed on a $40,000 budget to promote their first single. In February 1964, the Beatles made their first appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” and Beatlemania in America was in full swing.

While growing up, he took saxophone and clarinet lessons, and his brother, Jay, studied piano. Jay later teamed with fellow songwriter Ray Evans, and they shared Oscars for writing “Buttons and Bows,” “Mona Lisa” and “Que Sera, Sera.” Jay Livingston died in 2001.

While at the University of Pennsylvania, Livingston and his brother paid expenses by forming an orchestra that played at fraternity dances and school events. After serving in the Army as a second lieutenant during World War II, Livingston was hired by Capitol Records in Hollywood in 1946 as a writer and producer of storytelling record albums with illustrated read-along books for children.

He called the new concept a “record-reader.”

After writing “Bozo at the Circus,” Livingston worked with an artist to create the clown narrator — a composite design of Livingston’s based on various clown pictures — and he hired former clown and cartoon voice-over artist Pinto Colvig to supply Bozo’s voice.

“Bozo at the Circus,” with music produced by Billy May, was a big hit, with the series reportedly selling more than 8 million copies over the next several years and spawning Bozo merchandise and Bozo-hosted TV shows.

Other Livingston-written and produced children’s recordings followed, featuring Woody Woodpecker and various Disney and Warner Bros. cartoon characters.

In the early ’50s, after becoming vice president in charge of creative operations at Capitol Records, Livingston signed Frank Sinatra, then at a low point in his career, and teamed him up with arranger Nelson Riddle — a pairing that launched Sinatra’s comeback on the charts.

Livingston, who was married for several years to actress Betty Hutton, left Capitol in the late ’50s. He became vice president of NBC network television programming, during which he supervised the pilot for the western series “Bonanza.”

Livingston returned to Capitol Records as president in the early ’60s and became chairman of the board before leaving again in 1968. He later formed his own company, Mediarts, which was involved in movies, records and music publishing.

From 1976 to 1980, he was group president for 20th Century Fox Film Corp.’s television production, records, music and film processing operations.

He then became president of Atalanta Investment Co., a position he resigned in 1987. He also wrote a novel, “Ronnie Finkelhoff, Superstar.”

Now THAT’s one hell of a carrier! Gone but not forgotten…Alan W. Livingston left us March 13, 2009. Thanks to Glenn Mack for recommending some research into Mr. Livingston. Enjoy and share!

In the photo, we see Livingston presenting The Beatles with their first, of many, gold records from Capitol.

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CBS Studio 52…A Surprise, With Studio 50 & 51 History Expanded

Here is a ticket from July 14, 1949 for ‘The 54th Street Revue’ television show from Studio 52. Thanks to author and television historian David Schwartz in Los Angeles who sent this, we now have proof that Studio 52 was in television service two years earlier than we thought.

Thanks to David, we also now know that CBS Studio 51, The Maxine Elliot Theater at 109 West 39th Street, was the first CBS television theater property. It was probably converted, from legitimate theater to television, in anticipation of the start of Ed Sullivan’s ‘Toast Of The Town’ show which debuted from there on June 20, 1948.

Remember, before this, all the CBS television originations were from their studios in the Grand Central Terminal Building at 15 Vanderbilt Avenue and one or two small studios at the headquarters building at 485 Madison Avenue.

The second conversion was CBS Studio 50 which came only a few months after 51’s conversion. I think Studio 50, which CBS used as a huge radio studio, was up and running by January of 1949 and with work completed there, the engineers went around the corner to Studio 52 and began work.

‘The 54th Street Revue’ debuted on Thursday night, May 5,1949 from Studio 52 and this may have been the first ever television series produced there. The host was Jack Sterling with the Harry Sosnik Orchestra and guests on the first show were Cliff Edwards, a comedian, singer and cartoon voice who you may best remember in the role of Jiminy Cricket in Walt Disney’s ‘Pinocchio’. Edwards’s rendition of “When You Wish Upon A Star” is probably his most familiar recorded legacy. Other debut guests included the dance team of Bob Fosse and his wife Mary Ann Niles and singer Carol Bruce.

As I learned when I created the 40 part History Of NBC’s New York Studios earlier in the year, many times old tickets can tell us things that are absent in other records. Thanks to David for his help. Enjoy and share!

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A Brief History Of CBS Studio 52…254 West 54th Street

Here’s a shot of the long running CBS soap opera ‘Love Of Life’ in rehearsal at Studio 52, which is located just around the corner from The Ed Sullivan Theater on Broadway. Actually, it’s around either corner because Studio 52 went all the way from the front entrance on 54th to the 53rd Street back entrance which is just across the street from the entrance to the famous Birdland nightclub.

Speaking of famous nightclubs, after CBS sold it in 1976, Studio 52 was bought by Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager and opened as Studio 54 in 1977. The venue was built in 1927 and opened as the Gallo Theater and changed hands several time till it closed in 1940 under the name of The New Yorker Theater.

CBS bought the property in 1943 and turned it into a radio theater, which Studio 50 (Sullivan Theater) was too at the time. As you’ll see in another post at the top of this page, this studio was converted to television in 1949, not long after Studio 50 and 51 made the leap.

When the now famous ‘$64,000 Question’ debuted, in 1955 it was from Studio 52 and along the way, ‘Video Village’, ‘Password’, ‘To Tell the Truth’, ‘Beat the Clock’, ‘I’ve Got a Secret’, and ‘Captain Kangaroo’ all called Studio 52 home.

It seems that except for ‘$64,000 Question’, pretty much all the shows to come from Studio 52 were move ins from other theaters. One of those move ins was ‘I’ve Got A Secret’ and here is the first episode of that show to originate at Studio 52 from June 12, 1960. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJqXuzejV2k

I was in this venue earlier this year and can best describe it as long and narrow. When radio left and television took over, most of the floor seats were taken up and most of the audiences were seated in the balcony as the floor space was needed for cameras and stages. The floor seat were temporary and could be moved around. At one time, there was an underground passage from Studio 50 to Studio 52 but when 50 was remodeled for David Letterman, that passage was bricked up.

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The Man Behind The Curtain…The Wizard Of Ollie

Here is a rare look behind the curtain at the creator of the great ‘Kukla, Fran And Ollie’ show, Burr Tillstrom at work. He had two monitors to see how he was doing on the other side.

Burr was the creator and only puppeteer on the show, which premiered as the hour-long ‘Junior Jamboree’ locally on WBKB in Chicago on October 13, 1947, where it stayed for a year.

Tillstrom got a better offer from across town competitor WNBQ (and NBC O&O stations) and they moved. The program was renamed ‘Kukla, Fran and Ollie’ and aired locally on WNBQ (the predecessor of Chicago’s WMAQ-TV) starting November 29, 1948.

NBC NY executives saw the show and wanted it for the network. The first NBC network broadcast of the show took place on January 12, 1949. It aired from 5–5:30 p.m. Eastern Time, Monday through Friday from Chicago.

Fran was Fran Allison, a radio comedienne and singer who was usually the only human to appear on screen, filling the role of big sister and cheery voice of reason as the puppets engaged each other concerning their foibles.

Fans became so attached to the show that when it was cut back to 15 minutes in November 1951, letters of outrage poured into NBC. During that time, KFO was a hugely successful show that counted Orson Welles, John Steinbeck, Tallulah Bankhead, Ben Grauer, Milton Caniff, and Adlai Stevenson among its many adult fans.

From August 1952 to June 1954, KFO ran as a weekly program on Sundays but NBC gave them a weekday radio show in October of that year. Incidentally, Gene Rayburn made his first network appearance on KFO and would occasionally have Burr and the puppets on ‘The Match Game’.

Here’s a short clip of the show from WNBQ in Chicago. Enjoy and share!

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‘The First Hundred Years’…Television’s First Daytime Soap Opera

There are several “firsts” to cover, but first…a word from our sponsor, Tide. In the rare opening credit clip above, you can get the gist of why they were called “soap operas”. Having evolved on radio, most of the midday dramas there were presented by laundry, dishwashing and bath soap makers who were targeting their prime demo…housewives.

‘The First Hundred Years’ debuted on CBS Television December 4, 1950 and originated from Studio 63/64 which had been recently purchased by CBS from Dumont which explains the occasional sighting of Dumont cameras in some of the old CBS photos…now we know those were in Studio 63/64 only at 205 East 62nd Street.

The series was produced on a budget of $8,650 per week and was directed by Gloria Monty, who subsequently directed ‘The Secret Storm’ and produced ‘General Hospital’.

Created and written by prolific radio soap writer Jean Holloway, the series aired lasted only until June 27, 1952, and is credited with being the first to use the Teleprompter. As you see here, back then teleprompters were quite large and were handled more like Q cards.

Although the show ranked among the top ten daytime programs in the spring of 1952, Procter & Gamble officials reportedly felt that it was not drawing quite the audience the company desired, and replaced it with the television version of the long-running radio serial ‘The Guiding Light’ which was a good idea, because that show went on to become the world’s longest running daytime drama running from 1952 till 2009, which was preceded by a fifteen year radio run.

Please remember to visit the Eyes Of A Generation home page as Facebook doesn’t give you all our posts in your timeline.

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‘Your Hit Parade’…The Original, Music Countdown Show

Long before the Casey Kasem or American Bandstand countdowns, there was ‘Your Hit Parade’ which started on radio in 1935 and ran there till 1955. The television version started on NBC in 1950 and ran there till ’58 when it went to CBS for a year.

In the great photo below, we see one of the show’s biggest stars, Dorothy Collins singing before the cameras at NBC’s Ziegfeld Theater, in color. The show started July 10, 1950 in NBC’s brand new Studio 6A which was converted May 29, 1950.

The show needed more floor space for the 10 song scene sets and the next year it moved to NBC’s brand new 8H which was converted January 30, 1950. The show was done in color occasionally from The Colonial Theater, but went all color in 1956 when it moved to Perry Como’s new home at the Ziegfeld Theater.

You can tell from the look of this video clip that this was a color broadcast captured on black and white kinescope film. It shows Dorothy Collins singing “I Get A Kick Out Of You” from the Ziegfeld. When the show moved to CBS, it went back to black and white. Enjoy and share!

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What Was On TV In March 1957? Take A Look!

Thanks to our friend Steve Dichter, here is a short video look at a KNXT Los Angeles program guide. KNXT is now KCBS but has always been the CBS flagship station there.

The most interesting part to me is on the last page…the 9AM hour has four 15 minute soap operas followed by Walter Cronkite at 10 with a ten minute news cast.

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WSB’s White Columns…A Shrine To Atlanta Radio & Television

When NBC Radio started in 1927, WSB was already on the air and was one of the first affiliates to sign up. As a matter of fact, the famous NBC chimes were inspired by WSB’s chimes.

White Columns on Peachtree Street was one of the grandest broadcast centers anywhere, and although it’s gone now…it is not forgotten. This article from our friend Bob Foreman is full of rare photos and some interesting facts. One of which is the date WSB broadcast NBC network shows in color…1954. Enjoy and share!

By the way, the photo is shows Atlanta legend Don Kennedy in his earliest days as “Officer Don” on an early ‘Clubhouse Gang’ show. With him is Howdy Doody host, Buffalo Bob Smith and given Smith’s appearance and the lack of the regular set, this may be the show’s debut.

http://insidebobforemansbrainpart2.blogspot.com/2014/08/august-2014-white-columns.html

INSIDE BOB FOREMAN’S BRAIN PART 2: AUGUST 2014 WHITE COLUMNS

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New Article From Richard Wirth…”Theatrical Television”

The subject this time is Theatrical Television and explores the early days of TV when is was thought it might replace motion picture film. Now, almost 85 years after those first attempts, that day has finally come. What took it so long? Read Richard’s perspective on the answer to that at this link. Enjoy and share!

Theatrical Television

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