Ed Sullivan was a legendary showman who grew up in Port Chester, New York. His career as a long-time television host came about from hard work and good luck. His background taught him to open doors to those—particularly African Americans—who lacked access. In the process, he changed American entertainment.
When The Ed Sullivan Show was at its height, between 45 and 50 million people tuned in weekly. They saw live performances of the biggest musical acts (including Motown singers), performances of numbers from Broadway musicals, an array of stand-up comedians, magicians and jugglers, as well as ventriloquists, dog acts, Chinese tumblers and drill teams.
Audiences loved the variety, and The Ed Sullivan Show had it all.
Table of contents
Early Life
When Edward Vincent Sullivan was born in 1901, the family lived in Harlem. The neighborhood was a mixture of Irish and Italian immigrants. Ed was a twin, but his brother, Danny, died before their first birthday.
When another Sullivan child died in infancy, their father Peter Sullivan decided to move the family out of the city. He chose Port Chester, New York, to be their new home. It was a small village at that time. The town still relied on a local blacksmith as well as a doctor who made house calls via a horse-drawn carriage.
Ed was the middle child of the surviving five children, and in his autobiography, Always on Sunday, he wrote: “I still recall the excitement of Helen, Charles, and me en route to Port Chester, where we first saw cows grazing in the country fields.”
House Filled with Music
The Sullivans rented the top floor of a two-story house on Washington Steet. The entire family loved music, and someone was always playing the piano or singing. A phonograph was a prized possession; the family loved playing all types of records on it.
Ed’s mother hoped Ed would master an instrument. Each week if she could spare the change, she gave him money for piano lessons. Ed dutifully left the house, but he went to the nickelodeon near Liberty Square where he could watch short films instead.
His father Peter worked as a customs agent, but with five children, everyone needed to contribute. When Ed was still in grammar school, he and his brother Charles would meet after school and walk the three miles to the Apawamis Club in Rye, where they worked as golf caddies for 35 cents a round.
Loved All Sports
Ed and his siblings attended St. Mary’s Catholic School and then Port Chester High School. Sullivan was a gifted athlete, earning 12 athletic letters in high school. He played halfback in football, and he was a guard in basketball. In track, he was a sprinter. With the baseball team, Ed was catcher and team captain, and he led the team to several championships.
Baseball made an impression on him that affected his career as well as the culture of America. Sullvan noted that in suburban high school sports integration was taken for granted.
“When we played against teams in Connecticut, they, too, had Negro players,” he wrote. “In those days this was accepted as commonplace; and [that explains] my instinctive antagonism years later to any theory that a Negro wasn’t a worthy opponent or was an inferior person. It was just as simple as that.”
Enlisted for War
With the U.S. entering World War I, Sullivan, only 16, applied to the local draft board. He was turned away for being too young. Sullivan was determined, so he took a train to Chicago, figuring no one would know him there. Unfortunately, recruiters in Chicago also required proof of age. He couldn’t afford a train ticket home, so he got a job as a busboy to decide on his next plan. Six months later, he wrote his brother asking for train fare to return to Port Chester.
Back to High School
He returned to high school and continued to play sports. He also wrote about them for the school newspaper. During his senior year, he contacted the local paper, The Portchester Daily Item, and asked to write a column on high school sports. Sports were big in town, so the editor agreed. Sullivan was paid on a per column basis.
After high school, he continued to write for the Item.
Newspaper Career
In 1919 he moved to The Hartford Post and then on to The New York Evening Mail. When that paperclosed, Sullvan worked for a succession of newspapers as well as the Associated Press. When he was hired to write a sports column for The Evening Graphic, he was in good company as show business journalist Water Winchell worked there.
When Winchell was hired by the larger New York Daily Mirror, the Graphic asked Sullivan to take over Winchell’s show business column.
Always Looking for Extra Money
Newspaper writers were not well paid, so they all scrambled for extra work. Ed Sullivan wrote screenplays for B-level movies at one time, and then in 1942, he started doing a radio show, “Ed Sullivan Entertains.”
Following in Walter Winchell’s footsteps, Sullivan began recording his shows at the El Morocco night club. (Winchell headquartered at the Stork Club.)
Sullivan’s column, “Little Old New York,” was eventually picked up by the New York Daily News, where he stayed for 40 years. Even after he started appearing weekly on television, he continued to write for the newspaper. His last column appeared in the paper the day before he died.
More Side Gigs
Because of his contacts with entertainers he interviewed for print and on his radio program, Sullivan was often asked to produce vaudeville shows. He had a good eye for talent and was always on the lookout for new acts. He stayed in touch with the entertainers in Harlem as he knew theater producers there were always on the cutting edge of what was popular.
For a good number of years, the New York Daily News sponsored a huge charitable show, the Harvest Moon Ball, held at Madison Square Garden. Sullvan served as master of ceremonies and was in charge of talent procurement.
TV Arrives
In 1947, he was preparing for that year’s Harvest Moon Ball, and CBS decided to televise the event. Television was in its infancy, and this was CBS’s first remote broadcast. It went well.
One of the executives liked Sullivan as M.C. and hired him to host a show CBS wanted to launch called “Toast of the Town.” Sullivan was 46 when he first hosted the program. CBS knew that as more Americans bought televisions, the audience would grow, and it did.
Sullivan served as both host and impresario for “Toast of the Town,” nailing down the guests he wanted to have on the air. Sullivan clearly had an eye for what people liked, and he soon became known as a star maker.
In 1955, the title of the show was changed to “The Ed Sullivan Show.”
Ultimately Sullivan’s show ran successfully for 23 years—1948-1971– what Sullivan pronounced as “a rillllly big shew!”
Cultural Issues Arise
From Elvis’s swiveling hips to the Black performers that were featured on Sullivan’s show, television advertisers were always nervous. They kept tabs on what CBS was going to do about the performers. Camera angles could help with appearances by Elvis, but with the Black performers, it was a different matter. Some advertisers didn’t want these performers on the program at all, fearing that television sets across the South would click off. But as the network saw how popular the acts were, they took a new stance: Sullivan should keep his distance—he should not shake hands with the men or kiss the ladies.
Ed Sullvan was having none of it. He knew from his experience in high school athletics, that people of all ethnic backgrounds were the same. What’s more, many of them helped him out when he was producing his local charity events. He wasn’t going to cut them out now.
According to a recent Netflix documentary, Sunday Best, Sullivan also had a hunch that great music and incredible talent would appeal to viewers. Even people who marched against integration might take a few minutes to see who was appearing on the show. The performers were electric and the music was catchy…it was hard to resist.
Sullivan had everyone from Nat King Cole and the Supremes to Pearl Bailey on his program. These performers got the same handshake or kiss on the cheek as any of the white performers. By giving Black talent equal status with white, Sullivan was instrumental in diversifying American entertainment.
Sunday Night
The show was broadcast from CBS Studio 50 at 1697 Broadway at 53rd Street. Eventually the show settled into its long-running time slot—Sunday night from 8-9 ET.
When asked by a reporter to explain his success, Sullivan shared his secret: “Open big, have a good comedy act, put in something for children and keep the show clean.” In short, he believed in something for everyone.
He also gave credit to the medicine men who used to stop in Port Chester to peddler their wares: “Those medicine men were my first contact with great showmen. They had pace and great authority with an audience.”
Did any of the acts ever miss? Of course there were a few, but Sullivan’s most resounding failure was when he tried to introduce opera to middle America. Families either changed channels or quickly turned off the set.
Elvis Presley
Steve Allen actually was first to bring Elvis Presley to television, and when Allen’s show beat Sullivan in the ratings, Ed was on the phone to Presley’s manager within 24 hours.
The Beatles, however, were all Sullivan. They came directly from England, making their American debut on Ed Sullivan’s show on February 9, 1964. The chaos of the teen girls, both in and out of the theater made for an event that few people alive at the time will forget.
Sullivan became powerful with his bookings and sometimes specified what songs even the big-name performers (including Buddy Holly, Bob Dylan, and Bo Diddley) were to perform. Those who defied him found they sometimes weren’t invited back.
Unusual Host and Star
As a television host, Sullivan received mixed reviews. He was an awkward man, a situation partly caused by injuries caused by a serious car accident. His sternum and ribs were crushed inward, and his front teeth were knocked out. His movements were described as “wooden.” He also sometimes garbled his introductions: One night he announced, “Right here in our audience, the late Irving Berlin.”
In 1971, CBS was in search of a younger audience, and they cancelled The Ed Sullivan Show.
Ed Sullivan felt betrayed and refused to do a final show that season. However, he and CBS finally agreed to a truce. Sullivan subsequently produced and hosted a number of specials.
Personal Life
On April 28, 1930, he married Sylvia Weinstein. They had one daughter, Betty, who married Sullivan’s producer, Bob Precht.
For many years Ed and Sylvia lived in the Delmonico Hotel at 59th and Park Avenue in New York City. He called Sylvia after every show to get her comments.
While Sullivan’s life was mostly centered in Manhattan, in later years he returned to Port Chester to help with local benefits. In 1965, he was honored by the village with Ed Sullivan Day.
Sullivan died of esophageal cancer (age 73) on October 13, 1974, at New York’s Lenox Hill Hospital. His funeral, attended by 3000 people, was held at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. He is entombed in a crypt at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale.
Ed Sullivan brought popular culture to all of America at a time when families were excited to gather around the living room television set just to see what Mr. Sunday Night had to offer. People came to know of and appreciate songs from a wide variety of performers.