Impresario: The Life and Times of Ed Sullivan

by James Maguire

  On camera, he stood center stage and ushered acts on and off in a reserved monotone, pointing out celebrities in the crowd, prompting audience applause with his jerky arm movements. The critics were correct in noting he did this with surprising lack of ease. He had been in front of an audience since the early 1930s, yet tapes of the show reveal that the stage was still an alien atmosphere for him in 1948. At moments he smiled or even laughed, but, living up to his nickname Old Stoneface, he kept it to a minimum, as if this were a serious business that required a sober demeanor. In his view, his onstage persona wasn’t what the audience came for; his work was mostly done by the time the cameras clicked on.

  A big part of his job was being a talent scout. Within his first year on the air, he introduced Brooklyn-born Jackie Gleason to the television audience—four years before the comic made a major impact on TV with The Jackie Gleason Show. A master of the wordless grimace, Gleason was appearing in New York nightclubs when Ed booked him to perform a monologue about an unfortunate man who was love struck with a jukebox. In this same period, Sam Levenson, a former schoolteacher, launched his long career with a critically lauded Toast of the Town stand-up routine about life in New York City.

  More important was taking this talent and mixing it into a concoction that enchanted the living room audience. Throughout 1948 Sullivan was testing his formula, his version of updated vaudeville: highbrow and lowbrow, something funny, something for the kids. The bookings could ever so slightly challenge the audience, but he always included material to soften any edge. In July he booked tap dancer Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, a vaudeville legend who had danced with Shirley Temple in numerous 1930s musicals, to perform with jazz vocalist Ella Fitzgerald, a virtuoso scat singer. As Fitzgerald scatted through what Variety described as “neo-modern jazz vocalistics,” Robinson’s feet flashed in a flurry of heel and toe. To keep the evening from overwhelming the folks at home, Sullivan balanced Fitzgerald–Robinson with lighter material: a novelty singer who warbled about a bearded lady, acrobatic team Toy and Wing, comedian Dick Buckley, and Baltimore city official Elmert Reinhart rendering “Home on the Range.” (Spotlighting common folks was a key part of the Sullivan blueprint.) Ed’s formula was square enough for a mass audience, but rarely bland; he offered the spice of the new—like a Fitzgerald–Robinson jazz-dance duet—then provided cotton candy comforts.

  As the show’s producer, he took dictatorial control over every aspect of its production. In contrast to his persona as the reserved and respectful host, as producer he didn’t care who he offended, with the exception of a very few high-profile guests. He brought his formula to the stage with a single-minded intensity, and he was “very much in charge,” recalled several Sullivan performers.

  After conceiving of that week’s show and choosing a group of acts that realized his conception, he often dictated the material the artists performed. Comics would have their material cut or reshaped; singers might be assigned a given song (it’s likely that Ella Fitzgerald sang “Easter Parade,” the current chart-topping Judy Garland movie theme, at Ed’s directive). Then he developed the running order down to the minute, coordinating various technical aspects with Marlo Lewis.

  On Sunday afternoons he ran the entire show without pause in front of a live studio audience—a full dress rehearsal. (Performers complained about the afternoon audience; it was let in for free and many of its members were Boy Scouts and the elderly, and hence greeted many comics’ acts with polite silence. A new audience was invited in for the evening broadcast, so that response was fresh.) As the show played, Ed stood offstage, simultaneously watching the audience and each performer, making decisions about how to shape the show for broadcast. As he watched, he relied on his long education: the many speakeasy revues he saw in his twenties, the countless Loew’s State vaudeville shows he produced, the innumerable productions he reviewed as a Broadway columnist, even his failed radio and film career. While his awkward stage demeanor made him appear a neophyte, he was a veteran long before his television debut.

  After dress rehearsal he went to work. A comic’s or singer’s routine was, again, shortened or changed, as were those of the ventriloquists, the acrobats, the slight-of-hand artists, and the plate spinners—he reshaped even the animal acts, creating havoc with tigers or monkeys who knew their part by rote. And if Ed felt a performer didn’t have the magic that Sunday afternoon, after rehearsal that performer was cut altogether, a common occurrence (Marlo Lewis had the unpleasant job of informing their agents). Everything, in short, had to jibe with his gut instinct of what would reach the home audience.

  The producer at work: Sullivan in rehearsal with his original television staff. From left, director John Wray, Sullivan, coproducer Marlo Lewis, and talent coordinator Mark Leddy. The showman attempted to control every aspect of the program. (Globe Photos)

  Since his most significant role on the show was producer, Ed could have hired someone else as emcee. It would have saved him myriad slings and arrows from critics and undoubtedly aggravated his ulcer much less. But that wouldn’t have satisfied the core craving that had driven him to this point: his hunger for fame. No matter how stilted he was as the show’s host, center stage was where he wanted to stand. The program was called Toast of the Town, but he imagined a time when it would be called The Ed Sullivan Show.

  However, he had learned a painful lesson from his many failed radio shows, a mistake he took care not to repeat on television. In each of his short-lived shows he had been a performer; his chitchat with guests played a central role. But experience had taught him that an audience wouldn’t respond to him as a performer. So on Toast of the Town he walked an awkward middle path. He refused to hire anyone else as emcee—he wanted this high-profile spot for himself. Yet, knowing the show would fail if he put too much of himself onstage, he acted as a transparent host, simply pointing at the talent and getting offstage. He offered a reserved hello, a few comments, then a quick setup: “Let’s hear it for.…”

  Critics didn’t accept his withdrawn concept of hosting; it ran counter to the accepted notion of the master of ceremonies as a charismatic performer in his own right. But Ed, though the critics bothered him terribly, wasn’t going to be deterred by them. If placing himself center stage meant he would be thrashed by reviewers on a regular basis, so be it. The spotlight was what he had come for, and he had no plans to leave it.

  His decision to be the show’s emcee put a major hurdle in his path. As the show’s first summer wore on, the search for a sponsor bore no fruit. Certainly the cost was modest. Although CBS announced an advertising rate hike effective October 1, it would still cost just $1,000 per episode to sponsor an hour-long television show, up from $700 per hour that summer. Yet even with these rock-bottom rates the sales staff found no takers. Reviews of Sullivan’s onstage persona made advertisers hesitate; his wooden delivery was becoming a running joke among industry observers. Finally, in mid September, the Emerson Radio and Television Corporation agreed to sponsor the show for a year. Emerson’s sponsorship would not increase the show’s $375 weekly talent budget, but it did, in theory, put Sullivan and Lewis on safer footing with the network.

  The first broadcast of Toast of the Town for which a tape exists was on November 28, 1948. The tape reveals that Sullivan had found his signature formula for mixing acts, but that his presentation of this formula was still far from ideal. With no budget and only the most rudimentary production facility, this was television at its most primitive.

  The show opens with bandleader Ray Bloch’s razzmatazz orchestra music, the curtain rising to reveal the June Taylor dancers—a troupe of six leggy, festively costumed nightclub dancers. They shimmy while singing the show’s jingle in front of a painted backdrop depicting the Manhattan skyline. As they sashay offstage the audience applauds and Ed walks on briskly, looking ruddily handsome, his hair slicked back, wearing an elegant double-breasted jacket with wide lapels and a dark tie.

  The showman addresses the studio audience yet never
looks into the camera. His manner is upbeat but restrained, and his erect posture has a frozen quality, as if he’s held tightly by an unseen straightjacket. He dedicates the evening’s show to the city of Baltimore—part of Ed’s effort to romance each city in his viewing audience—but throughout the broadcast he mispronounces the city’s name as “Balt-ee-more.” To open the show, he doesn’t list who will appear (in fact he has no celebrity performers), but instead rambles through a stilted introduction:

  “Good evening ladies and gentlemen, as you all know, in this particular Toast of the Town show for Emerson, this is Balt-ee-more night.” The crowd cheers and he allows himself a smile, but he keeps his hands firmly clasped behind his back. “And Balt-ee-more is feeling mighty happy today; they feel the way Navy felt yesterday in reverse. Navy felt by tying, they won. Balt-ee-more Colts came up here today and knocked off Brooklyn, so let’s have a nice hand from all of the Balt-ee-more crowd.”

  The crowd obliges and he urges them on. “C’mon, make some noise!” He gestures with his arms for more applause and flashes a brief smile. “Well, c’mon, let’s hear it! I wanted to see if you could still cheer after that rooting today.… Now we’re going to open up our show tonight, we’re going to take you to the boulevards of Gay Paree. We’re going to meet a little mademoiselle and the big, bad wolf. Raymond, take it away.”

  The orchestra jumps into a jazzy horn number as the camera cuts to a male-female dance duo named Olsen and Joy, the woman dressed in a trampy caricature of a French woman, the man dressed as an American sailor. They dance and strut in an elaborate mock courtship, swing dancing, leaping, mugging with big smiles, hand-standing across the stage. They stop in the middle for a comedy routine that plays on his lust for her, then launch into ever more pyrotechnic flips, feet over head, seemingly gravity-free. In their final gesture, the sailor puts a cigarette in his mouth, lights a match, attaches the lit match to his shoe, then lifts his foot back over his head to light the cigarette; he waves his lit cigarette as the duo dances offstage.

  Ed urges the audience to keep cheering for the duo, then stows his hands safely in his pockets to introduce the evening’s celebrities in the audience. As he points out actor Jack LaRue, a Humphrey Bogart-style player of tough guys and mobsters, he attempts a momentary gangster dialect that gets a chuckle despite its labored quality. He then introduces Temple Texas, whose sole movie role was 1947’s Kiss of Death, calling her “the prettiest girl in town.” Both performers stand and take a bow to polite applause.

  To set up a commercial, all of which are performed live onstage, Ed introduces Ray Morgan, the announcer-actor who voices the Emerson ads, explaining that he’s been trying to get Ray interested in music. The camera cuts to Morgan, sitting at a desk, auditioning a young female singer. To prove her skills, she trills a love song to her Emerson radio. Morgan then dives into a hard sell as the camera cuts to a variety of Emerson radios, then he wraps it up: “Better tone! Better performance! Better value!” as the audience applauds heartily.

  Ed takes only a single sentence to introduce the next act, Red and Van Loper, a male-female dance duo who prance through a routine with a mock Indian snake-charmer theme, accompanied by jazzy swing music. They have no set; the pair simply dances in front of the show’s painted backdrop.

  As the audience applauds the dancers’ three-minute routine, Ed attempts a joke with a football theme: “When they were doing this here,” he says, mimicking one of the dancer’s moves, “that means Balt-ee-more 21, Buffalo 18.” There’s no time for audience response as the camera cuts to an operatic diva who belts out a Broadway show tune in front of the stage curtain. Suddenly, the curtain opens to reveal the evening’s most elaborate set—a papier-mâché mock-up of an adobe wall. The June Taylor dancers sway in curvy unison through a Spanish-themed number, which the vocalist brings to a high point with a triumphant soprano note and a toothy smile.

  While the audience cheers, the show appears to be interrupted by hecklers, who in reality are a husband-and-wife comedy team. They interact with Ed in a vaudeville routine whose vintage was circa 1915:

  Ed: How did you get in?

  Wife: On my sister’s tickets.

  Ed: Where’s your sister?

  Wife: Looking for her tickets! (audience laughs)

  Ed: I trust your sister’s smarter than you.

  Wife: (laughing hysterically) My sister’s dumber than me.

  Ed: (correcting her grammar) You mean “dumber than I.”

  Wife: She’s dumber than both of us! (audience laughs)

  Ed: You’re the one who lives in Washington, D.C.?

  Wife: Yeah.

  Ed: Do you know where the nation’s capitol is?

  Wife: All over Europe! (big audience laugh; the joke is a reference to the Marshall Plan, in which the United States made a huge postwar capital investment to rebuild Europe.)

  Wife: (referring to Ed) He’s some dope, I’ll say.

  Husband: Why do you call that master of ceremonies a dope?

  Wife: Why do you call that dope a master of ceremonies? (audience laughs)

  Ed introduces the evening’s act for children, puppeteer Virginia Austin. A matronly woman in her fifties, Austin wheels on a small wagon with two puppets aboard. As she operates her two diminutive characters, she sings the falsetto voice of both male and female puppets; they warble romantically and tap dance to a snappy tune. To demonstrate how easy marionettes are to operate, she works the strings of an oversized puppet, which in turn appears to operate its own smaller puppet. The smaller character then picks up a still smaller hand puppet, creating a three-level marionette act, to great audience delight.

  Ed claps largely and exhorts the audience to keep cheering, after which he sets up an Emerson Radio skit. Mom, Dad, sister, and brother, after some comic hijinks, realize they need a radio in every room. Announcer Ray Morgan explains the easiest solution—buy Emerson—then presents the evening’s climactic sales offer. With a flourish, he reveals the top of the Emerson line: a television. It’s an imposing piece of furniture in a mahogany case, with an eighteen-inch speaker, costing $349.50 “plus installation” (a month’s salary for many workers). As the commercial ends the audience claps wholeheartedly.

  Ed then introduces audience members Nicholas Joy, a Broadway performer, and—to wild applause—Baltimore Colts player Billy Hildebrand. The mention of the Colts sets up a dance number by the team’s drum majorettes, six lithesome young women in short skirts and knee-high white boots, who twirl batons and march around the stage. They’re joined by six June Taylor dancers, dressed in similarly short skirts, who perform a mock-football number, tossing a pigskin around as they strut and shake. The melding of the twelve dancers creates a blur of flashing female limbs on the small stage, a mélange of high stepping and waving. The group finishes in a tight formation with the Colts’ pennant prominently displayed.

  Ed, now appearing almost relaxed, concludes the show by introducing a Baltimore city official who solemnly presents him with a key to the city. Amid applause and cheers, Sullivan thanks viewers—“You’ve been the most wonderful audience in all the world”—and the orchestra breaks into the bouncy Toast of the Town jingle.

  Whatever the show’s charms, the critics weren’t seeing them. In December, a piece by John Crosby of the New York Herald-Tribune seemed to encapsulate the year’s reviews. “One of the small but vexing questions confronting anyone in this area with a television set is: ‘Why is Ed Sullivan on it every Sunday night?’…in all respects it’s a darn hard question, almost a jackpot question, and it seems to baffle Mr. Sullivan as much as anyone else.…

  “After a few bars of music, Mr. Sullivan, who is introduced as a nationally syndicated columnist, wanders out onstage, his eyes fixed on the ceiling as if imploring the help of God.…

  “One entertainer I know who gets from $1,500 to $2,000 a week in nightclubs was talked into doing his cherished routines—he only has three—on the show for $55. Mr. Sullivan is a persuasive fellow. If he ha
s any other qualifications for the job, they’re not visible on my small screen. Sullivan has been helplessly fascinated by show business for years.… He remains totally innocent of any of the tricks of stage presence, and it seems clear by now that his talents lie elsewhere.”

  Sullivan, livid, wrote Crosby an enraged rebuttal. “Public opinion, I’m certain, would agree that I’ve contributed more to television in its embryonic state than you have contributed with your reckless and uninformed backseat driving. You belt away at performers and producers as a means of earning a weekly salary. At least I give them a gracious introduction and a showmanly presentation that enhances their earning power. Your column acquires a tremendous importance. When it’s employed to recommend that a man be thrown out of his job it becomes quite an evil instrument.” And Ed went a step further in private. On a copy of a similar Crosby review a year later, he handwrote a comment: “I’d like to meet this fella some dark night when I’m learning to drive the largest Mack truck made!”

  As vehemently as he disagreed with Crosby or any of the reviewers who criticized him or the show, when he was through firing back, Ed often took their words into account. He did this throughout the run of the show, making booking changes or altering the production in response to a critical barb. After critics roasted his wooden stage presence, he attempted to warm up his onstage persona by hiring Patsy Flick, an old Yiddish vaudeville comic, to heckle him. When Ed walked onstage to introduce an act, Flick would shout out “Come on, Solomon, for God’s sake, smile. It makes you look sexy,” or, “Did you look dat vay when you were alive?” Ed did a similar bit with Gertrude Berg, star of the popular television series The Goldbergs. Berg bantered from the audience in a heavy Yiddish accent, calling him Solomon; Ed got laughs by answering in his own attempt at a Yiddish inflection.

  The critics, however, were unimpressed, and in truth Ed’s back and forth with hired hecklers didn’t fundamentally alter his stiff stage persona. The parade of negative reviews kept coming, as did the showman’s acerbic letters written in rebuttal. Sylvia pleaded with Ed to simply write the letters and throw them away, but he was too angry for that. Especially blistering was his retort to Harriet Van Home, New York World Telegram & Sun television and radio critic, who wrote, “He got where he is not by having a personality, but by having no personality; he is the commonest common denominator.” In response, he wrote her an uncharacteristically short missive: “Dear Miss Home. You Bitch. Sincerely, Ed Sullivan.”