Impresario: The Life and Times of Ed Sullivan

by James Maguire

  When Jack Warner realized that Sullivan had completely thrown out Wallace’s second version—and that Ed’s replacement script was just a work in progress—he was apoplectic. In Warner’s view, the production schedule had turned into a series of delays with no end in sight. From his vantage point a troubling specter loomed: with the constant delays, by the time the film was released Sullivan’s ratings might have tumbled, or worse, the show might be canceled, making his investment an embarrassment. In early December, Warner wired an angry telegram to Arnold Grant: “We will have to be a magician to put this together. As you know, this is not like putting on a TV show. People expect to see something.… If he is going to try and ad-lib this picture as he does his TV show it won’t come off, nor will we produce it that way.”

  Still, notwithstanding Warner’s impatience, the studio bent to Ed’s conception. Sullivan’s script called for a less-fictionalized approach than Wallace’s, using more of the showman’s actual words. So between late November and mid January, Wallace and two other writers labored to develop a script that included all of Ed’s ideas. On January 12 they sent him a draft for his approval. The start of shooting had been pushed back yet again, to March 1, and by this point script approval needed to happen shortly. The studio executive supervising the script wrote to Sullivan: “We will be most anxious for your reaction—by phone, if possible.”

  Instead of approving it, Ed set to work—yet again—rewriting the script. Four days later, he sent a note to Arnold Grant, noting that he had boiled the first five pages down to three, and complaining, “I don’t think that Irving Wallace will ever be able to write the story.”

  Jack Warner, hearing of Sullivan’s plans for still more rewriting, was livid. He canceled the film—that very day. Eight months after the project’s start, both parties signed an agreement to mutually void the contract. Warner Bros. would never release The Ed Sullivan Story. When reporters asked Ed why the movie was canceled, he claimed that he didn’t want to interrupt his show’s schedule long enough for filming.

  The project had been a train wreck between two controlling men, and one in particular—Sullivan—who could not for a moment relinquish his producer’s role. Given a chance to star in a feature film that glorified his life and career—and be paid $100,000 to do so—he was unable to compromise enough to complete the project.

  His controlling nature worked well for him in television. It allowed him to pull together, on the fly, week after week, a highly popular one-hour variety show. That same controlling nature doomed The Ed Sullivan Story. He had, remarkably, once again proven to be a failure in film, even with a major studio lending every possible support.

  Although Sullivan’s alliance with Hollywood usually ran much smoother than his attempted project with Warner Bros., in April 1955 it precipitated yet another run-in, this time between the showman and Frank Sinatra.

  Ed, continuing to show his viewers a steady diet of film previews, negotiated with Samuel Goldwyn to present excerpts from Guys and Dolls, starring Sinatra, Marlon Brando, and Jean Simmons. Ed planned to produce a half hour piece using the excerpts along with interviews of Brando and Simmons. Sullivan paid Goldwyn $32,000 for the excerpts, and he also paid Brando and Simmons for their interviews. He did not, however, ask Sinatra for an interview. Ed explained this by noting that the Simmons interview would be her television debut, and that Brando was the hottest thing in show business, yet Sinatra “is not exactly a TV novelty.” In other words, the vocalist had recently appeared opposite Sullivan on an NBC “spectacular,” as well as on Comedy Hour, and Ed viewed him as a competitor.

  As Ed’s plans coalesced, the studio let it be known that it expected Sinatra to appear for a Sullivan interview, paid or not, to help promote the film. At this point Sinatra balked. In his view, since Sullivan was paying Brando and Simmons but not him, the showman was attempting to arm-twist him into making an unpaid appearance. That the pressure came from the studio, not Sullivan, wasn’t reported in most news articles about Frank’s unhappiness. Samuel Goldwyn pointedly told reporters that his actors’ contracts required them to make unpaid promotional appearances. But that contractual fine point was lost as the story devolved into a conflict between two egos, Sinatra’s and Sullivan’s.

  The two had once enjoyed a warm friendship. The singer appeared on Sullivan’s 1943 radio show and in his war bond rallies. Ed defended Sinatra in his column when the singer came under fire from columnist Westbrook Pegler for not serving in the military. In April 1947, after Sinatra punched Hearst columnist Lee Mortimer, resulting in a spate of bad press—as Look magazine archly observed, “The number of things he does besides sing is astounding”—Ed again came to his rescue. “Basically, Sinatra is a decent, warm-hearted person and I think it’s about time they stop kicking him around,” he wrote. (Ed, for his part, appreciated anyone who slugged Hearst columnists.) Deeply grateful, Frank sent Ed an effusive letter of thanks, along with a gold wristwatch inscribed, “Ed, you can have my last drop of blood. Frankie.”

  Yet now, upset by the Guy and Dolls dispute, Sinatra complained to the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) about unpaid promotional appearances. SAG quickly passed a new regulation prohibiting unpaid appearances on commercial television shows. Not satisfied, the singer went on the attack against Sullivan, decrying “newspaper personalities on TV” who use movie actors “without paying for their services.”

  Ed counterattacked by taking out full-page ads in Variety and the Hollywood Reporter to print his open letter to SAG president Walter Pidgeon: “Let us overlook the fact that Sinatra, regularly trounced by us when he becomes part of the rival network’s ‘spectacular,’ hardly qualifies as an impartial or disinterested witness. What I particularly resent is Sinatra’s reckless charge that Toast does not pay performers.” His show had paid over $5,000,000 in performers fees, he claimed, rendering “substantial benefits to motion pictures.” Additionally, “If Sam Goldwyn approached Sinatra, that hardly is my concern or problem. Certainly, I never approached Sinatra. My negotiations with Mr. Goldwyn involved an offer by me to pay a substantial sum of money … to represent, on film, thirty minutes of Guys and Dolls as an exclusive preview. Sincerely, Ed Sullivan.

  P.S. Aside to Frankie Boy—never mind that tremulous 1947 offer: ‘Ed, you can have my last drop of blood.’ ”

  The letter sent Sinatra into a sputtering rage. He took out full-page ads in the same trade publications, stating, “Dear Ed: You’re sick. Frankie. P.S. SICK! SICK! SICK!” To drive the point home, the word “sick” grew larger as it descended the page. The dueling full-page ads gave newspapers the fodder to nurture the story for an additional two weeks. Sinatra did not appear as part of Sullivan’s promotion of Guys and Dolls (though he was in a film clip that Ed showed), and in the short term their erstwhile friendship foundered.

  In the 1955–56 television season, the first year the program was called The Ed Sullivan Show, a number of factors combined to make Sullivan’s showcase a cultural focal point. In the previous season it had ranked number five among the 122 shows in prime time, and this season’s ratings were trending still higher, drawing the attention of not only viewers but entertainers. Performers now practically clawed to get on the show; musicians knew an appearance sent their vinyl sales soaring, and comics knew a Sullivan introduction pushed their nightclub fees skyward. Moreover, MCA president Sonny Werblin provided Sullivan with an open door to his rich hoard of talent, so it was easier to get bigger names, which in turn made the show more attractive to other high-profile performers. Adding momentum was the increased production budget of $50,000 per episode.

  With his now-larger budget, Ed often gave Lincoln Mercury automobiles to stars as inducements to appear: Henry Fonda got a black Thunderbird, Robert Mitchum got a black Lincoln Coupe, Bing Crosby got a red station wagon, Gene Kelly got a blue Lincoln convertible, and Gary Cooper got a champagne-colored Premiere.

  Many Sundays now included a lavishly produced scene from a current Broadway play, performed by original
cast members. In October, for example, actors Tony Randall, Melvyn Douglas, and Ed Begley performed a scene from Inherit the Wind, a play about the Scopes Monkey Trial written in response to the hysteria of McCarthyism. That same show saw performances by the Dave Brubeck Jazz Quartet, bejeweled pianist Liberace, vocalist Rosemary Clooney, and animal trainer Robert Lamouret with his talking duck.

  In an unorthodox variation on his Broadway presentations, Ed booked film actors to recreate scenes from current movies, in essence performing a live trailer. The season opened with Robert Mitchum and Lillian Gish reprising a scene from Night of the Hunter, and later in the year Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster reenacted a scene from Trapeze. These film tableaus were always just one of a half dozen acts on any evening; Curtis and Lancaster, for instance, shared the bill with vaudevillian Benny Fields, Metropolitan Opera singer Lily Pons, and trampoline acrobat Larry Griswold.

  Rock ’n’ roll was just a squalling infant in November 1955, yet that month the public heard one of its original voices. On the night of November 20, Ed told viewers they were about to hear something novel: “Now ladies and gentlemen, as everyone knows, whenever any new musical trend has evinced itself in the popular trends—the Charleston or the black bottom or any of the rhythm songs—the first area to find out about it in advance is Harlem. A couple of weeks ago I went up to Harlem, I’d seen these shots in the newsreel about thousands of people jamming the streets around the Apollo Theater, all trying to get in to see Dr. Jive’s …”—and here Ed hesitated, unsure of what the music was called, so he riffed a few variations—“rhythm and roll, rhythm and color, rhythm and blues. So here is Dr. Jive!”

  Dr. Jive was the stage name for Tommy Smalls, a tall, handsome, nattily attired black disc jockey, promoter, and band manager, who that evening presented his rhythm and blues revue: Bo Diddley, LaVern Baker, The Five Keys, and Wallis “Gator Tail” Jackson. The electrified beat that the four acts laid down formed the foundation of rock ’n’ roll, and that night was the first time that most of Ed’s viewers ever heard such a sound.

  Most notable among Dr. Jive’s acts was Bo Diddley. When the Mississippi-born singer-guitarist moved to Chicago’s South Side, he brought a style of polyrhythmic syncopation he learned from black sharecroppers. Called “hambone,” it was a chant that was sung over an intensely physical cross-layered beat—its rhythm was the basis for tap dancing. The hambone chant had been handed down from slaves, who brought it with them from Africa. When Diddley recorded his first song with the hambone rhythm in Chess studios in 1955 (just months before his Sullivan appearance) he dubbed it “Bo Diddley.” This was the song he wanted to perform tonight.

  At rehearsal that afternoon, Ed hadn’t liked it. The song was pure rhythm. Instead of a traditional verse and chorus, it was a driving, electrified version of the generations-old hambone chant-song, played over a visceral voodoo beat. Sullivan vetoed the selection. Diddley could remain on the bill, but Ed, casting around for a suitably contemporary alternative, told him to play Tennessee Ernie Ford’s “Sixteen Tons.” By comparison with “Bo Diddley,” Ford’s tune was a lumbering dirge, yet it was hot at the moment—it held number one on the charts, having sold more than a million copies in three weeks. Diddley apparently agreed with the song change, otherwise Ed wouldn’t have let him on that evening.

  Yet during the live broadcast, when the camera cut to Diddley, he jumped into “Bo Diddley” as if he had never considered anything else. He and his three band-mates, dressed in matching light-colored blazers, started with a kick-snare cross-rhythm, then overlaid a percolating maracas; the bass player began thrumming the backbeat, and Bo joined in with rhythm guitar and chant-song vocals. The result was musical combustion, blissful and unapologetic. The tune would reverberate throughout rock ’n’ roll for a generation, with musicians from the Rolling Stones to Bruce Springsteen proudly claiming to have been inspired by it. Ed, however, was furious—Diddley never again played the Sullivan show.

  Not all the shows that season introduced the audience to such otherworldly sounds. For Ed’s program on Christmas Day—he wasn’t going to take the day off—actors Gary Cooper and Rod Steiger performed a scene from their film The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell, the Michigan Glee Club sang carols, and Ed presented a taped segment from a holiday ice show featuring Czech skating champion Miroslava Nachodska.

  In January’s tribute to America’s songwriters and composers, famed bandleader Cab Calloway tap-danced in black tie and tails with his daughter Layla. In February, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz shared the stage with vocal quartet the Ames Brothers; Desi sang along as Lucy goofed around pretending to be the fifth singer. Later in the hour, Rodgers and Hammerstein chatted with Ed about their music and introduced performances of their favorite songs. Following them was actor Orson Welles rendering a scene from his Broadway production of Shakespeare’s King Lear, and ventriloquist Rickie Layne riposting with his dummy Velvel.

  The following week, Pulitzer Prize—winning poet Carl Sandburg recited his “A Lincoln Portrait” accompanied by the ever-mellow Andre Kostelanetz Orchestra; actor Hal Holbrook monologued as Mark Twain; and Clayton Moore, who played TV’s Lone Ranger, demonstrated some swift pistol work, after which acrobatic team the Amandis dazzled with a teeterboard.

  As winter turned to spring, the Sullivan show presented actors Jimmy Cagney and Jack Lemmon in a scene from the Broadway play Mr. Roberts; Walt Disney gave an award to Fess Parker for his dramatic performance in Davey Crockett; French mime Marcel Marceau re-created the story of David and Goliath; and Ed hosted the Mother of the Year Awards, spotlighting actresses Betty Grable, Deborah Kerr, and June Allyson.

  For the show’s eighth-anniversary program in June, Ed arranged for a crowd of celebrities to pay tribute to the show’s longevity. In a group sing-along, Ronald Reagan (host of the popular General Electric Theater), Natalie Wood, Robert Walker, Walt Disney, Lucille Ball, and Desi Arnaz all warbled “Happy Anniversary” in a tribute to Ed. Broadway veteran Ethel Merman belted out “Sullivan for Me,” longtime friend Louis Armstrong stopped by to sing “Happy Birthday,” Harry Belafonte crooned calypso music, and screen star Gregory Peck previewed next week’s lineup.

  Peck was a natural choice: the following week Ed dedicated the full hour to director John Huston, and Peck gave a dramatic reading from Moby Dick, a Huston film currently in production in which he starred. Sullivan presented film clips from the director’s work, including Treasure of the Sierra Madre and The Maltese Falcon, interviewing Huston along with Peter Lorre, Mary Astor, and José Ferrer, who demonstrated getting in and out of makeup for a Hollywood movie. Ed performed mock gangster dialogue with Edward G. Robinson, then Robinson, Ed, and Huston brought on Lauren Bacall, who talked about her husband Humphrey Bogart’s work with the director. (Bogart was seriously ill and in the last months of his life.) In the audience for a bow that night was horror maven Vincent Price.

  Over the next few weeks, Ed interviewed Bing Crosby, presented Borscht Belt comic Myron Cohen, and introduced the Iowa Highlanders, a Scottish bagpipe squad. In late July—Ed continued to produce new shows almost all summer long— Sullivan showcased the Barnum & Bailey Circus, spotlighting famed clown Emmett Kelly and the full mélange of aerialists, big cats, and trapeze artists.

  As the weeks of glittering spectacle and celebrity flew by, The Ed Sullivan Show’s ratings edged ever higher. Having been television’s fifth-ranked show the previous year, Nielsen ratings for the 1955–56 season indicated that it was now the third-ranked show. It ran behind only I Love Lucy and The 64,000 Question, and was one spot higher than Disneyland, The program had reached its loftiest perch yet. By most accounts the show had been second-ranked in the 1948–50 time period, running behind Milton Berle, yet there was very little competition then. Now, the Sullivan show had regained its earlier leading status in a crowded field, in an industry whose production standards boasted the beginnings of sophistication.

  Further sign of the program’s ratings dominance was seen in the f
ate of the show that ran opposite Sullivan’s, NBC’s Comedy Hour, which collapsed that season. As Time reported, “Colgate, which was displeased with the failure of its show to equal the drawing power of the Sullivan show, asked to be relieved of its contract.” Ed, inarguably, had done it. He had reached the pinnacle of the new medium that was taking over the American living room.

  At the tail end of the 1955–56 season, for all the dizzying success Sullivan enjoyed, the showman stumbled. In question was his booking of film star Ingrid Bergman. On his July 18 program, Ed made a titillating announcement about the Swedish-born actress: she was scheduled for a guest appearance in October.

  Viewers across the country gave a collective gasp. Known for her luminous portrayals in 1942’s Casablanca and 1945’s Spellbound, Bergman had shocked Hollywood and scandalized the public in 1949. Although married, while in Italy filming Stromboli she had fallen in love with the film’s director, Roberto Rossellini. As news of her pregnancy and her decision to leave her husband made headlines, the public turned away from her.

  Yet Bergman proved remarkably resilient. After a career trough in the early 1950s, during which she lived outside the United States, she landed the lead in the 1956 big-budget Hollywood film Anastasia. She was in London filming the picture when Ed announced her upcoming appearance. As Sullivan left for London to shoot some footage from the set, reporters deluged him with questions. His announcement of Bergman’s return was a national news item—which was why he made it. Between her earlier controversy, her long self-exile, and her current film role, the prospect of the first live Bergman television appearance touched off a publicity firestorm. How, reporters wanted to know, had Sullivan pulled off such a scheduling coup? Responding to their queries the day before he flew to London, Ed explained that the actress’s guest shot had been scheduled in conjunction with Twentieth Century Fox.