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.  

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 53^rd 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 59^th 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.

Lassie became a movie star despite starting life as a spirited, unwanted pup.

In 1940 Rudd Weatherwax and his brother, Frank, had just started their own Studio Dog Training School, opting to run their own business rather than continue to work for others.  A man who was having difficulty with his puppy wanted to bring the dog to the School for training. The dog was from an AKC litter, Glamis Collies, but he had been sold to a family because he was judged only “pet quality.” His current owner wasn’t  even sure he was that.

When the car pulled up, the man opened the back door and the 8-month-old collie scampered out of the backseat: “…he came bounding into my yard, rollicking with all the friskiness—and maybe a little more—to be found in most puppies…” wrote Rudd Weatherwax in his book, The Story of Lassie.

The man explained the problems they were having with the dog they named Pal: “He chases motorcycles, he chews up everything in the house, he barks all the time, and we can’t even housebreak him.”

Weatherwax accepted the job, and the owner agreed to pay $10 for the training and come back in a week.

Lassie’s Training Begins

When the owner returned, Lassie/Pal was a much-better behaved dog. The only remaining problem was that Weatherwax had not yet ended the motorcycle-chasing.  That was still going to require some work.

It turned out it didn’t matter. The fellow explained that he and his wife were so happy with the newly discovered peace and quiet in their household that they didn’t want the dog back.  Would Weatherwax take the dog instead of the ten dollar payment?

Weatherwax had grown up with a collie, so it was easy to say yes. Eventually he was to find that this was the best deal he ever made.

Lassie: Family Pet and Hopeful Actor

The Weatherwaxes now had forty dogs in their kennel, several of which were quite busy with film work.  There were no casting calls for collies, however, so Lassie/Pal was perfectly happy to be a family pet.

One of the skills Rudd taught Lassie for family life was to help with

the Weatherwax youngster, Bob. Bob loved to roam the property, so Weatherwax trained Lassie to go and find him and bring home when it was time for dinner. When Lassie located the boy, he gently took his arm, and Bob knew it was time to go home.  This training was to come in handy in film work.

Lassie/Pal was over a year and a half old, and his career had yet to get underway. When a neighbor dropped by on his way to his ranch and suggested he take Pal with him, Weatherwax saw no reason to deny the dog a good time.

Finally a Possible Part

Several days after Lassie left, Weatherwax was scanning the ads and noted that Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was holding auditions for a dog to appear in a starring role in an upcoming film. The dog they needed? A collie.

Weatherwax jumped in his car to drive to the ranch.

When he arrived and explained to his friend why he needed to take Lassie back, the two men went to the back porch and called Lassie/Pal to come in.  From the answering bark, he was clearly a good distance away. As he came streaking toward Weatherwax, Weatherwax was shocked by the sight.

Pal had fully enjoyed his holiday, chasing rabbits, birds, and shadows around the property. His silken ruff was matted and tangled, and his coat was filled with burrs from the underbrush.  Weather put him in the car and took him home where he was bathed and combed. Weatherwax tried to remove the burrs but some had to be cut out. By the day of the audition, Lassie/Pal was far from looking his best.

Pal was one of about three hundred dogs who came to the open casting call. The MGM executives walked through the line of dogs and owners, giving each dog a once-over.  Pal did not even make the first cut.

No other dog was selected that day either. The MGM executives continued a nationwide search, finally selecting a show dog in San Francisco. When he was brought back to Hollywood for a screen test, however, he was petrified by the chaos and lights.  MGM’s sent that dog home, and the search continued.

Weatherwax Tries Again

Six months later, Lassie/Pal was looking handsome again.

Weatherwax decided to take matters into his own hands. He took the collie to the Culver City studio lot and explained to a guard why he was there. He and Pal were soon escorted to the office of Fred M. Wilcox., the movie’s director.

Wilcox was impressed by the look and the training of the dog, so they set up a screen test for the next day.  Lassie/Pal was fine through it all. Within a few days, a contract was offered and for publicity purposes, Pal himself put paw to the contract.

Filming Lassie’s First Movie

When filming began, Lassie was to film a scene where the dog is struggling to make it all the way across the Tweed River that separated England and Scotland. (The San Joaquin River in northern California substituted.) One camera was in a boat, one was onshore, and Weatherwax and Lassie were being rowed out separately.

On Weatherwax’s command, Lassie was to jump in the water and swim to a designated spot on land. Weatherwax was quickly taken back to mark the landing spot. Lassie made the swim and reached the shore looking like an exhausted dog, just as they had rehearsed.

“The dog went into the water as Pal, but he emerged as Lassie!” proclaimed Wilcox. From that time forward, Pal was always known as Lassie.

Lassie’s Bright Future

The success of Lassie Come Home in 1943 led to six more MGM films

with Lassie as the star: Son of Lassie, Courage of Lassie, Hills of Home, The Sun Comes Up, Challenge to Lassie, and The Painted Hills.

From that first film on, Lassie was never a bit player—always the star. One critic called him “Greer Garson with fur.” Lassie led the way for a new form of dog picture.

For every film Lassie was in, the SPCA was always on set.  Lassie was well cared for so there was never any complaint from the SPCA representative, but Weatherwax found it enormously helpful with audiences. If Lassie played hurt, or it was made to look like his paws were bleeding, concerned audience members wrote in.  The SPCA could defend and explain how certain scenes were filmed and could verify that Lassie was just fine.

Lassie: Radio Star

After Lassie’s fourth film, Weatherwax was offered a network radio program starring Lassie. “The Lassie Show” was the first radio program to feature an animal as the star. Each week a dramatic story would unfold, and Lassie supplied the barks, whines, and growls called for in the script.

Once the radio program began, Weatherwax and Lassie had to be flown back to Hollywood each week as Lassie had to in the studio for the show to be recorded. Weatherwax could now afford a private plane to simplify shuttling between Hollywood and their movie locations.

Lassie’s Popularity

One day they were making a personal appearance at Hollywood Park. Lassie was surrounded by young children and Rudd stepped out of the circle for a moment… one of the kids immediately pulled out scissors and began to clip some hair. When confronted, the kid said: “ Shucks, Mr. Weathrwax, I know where I can trade one lock of Lassie’s for three autographed pictures of Lana Turner!”

New Direction for Career

By 1951, ticket sales were sliding a bit, and MGM decided to move on to other types of films.  However, Lassie and Weatherwax were still under contract. To buy them out would have cost the studio $40,000 and they were reluctant to pay. Instead of pay, Weatherwax asked for and received the Lassie name and

trademark.

After the MGM contract was concluded, Lassie and Weatherwax began touring with a road show. They would do an 18-minute sequences at dog shows and department stores. They were paid well for these appearances.

Television producer Robert Maxwell had other ideas. He wanted Lassie on TV.

Maxwell and Weatherwax came up with a boy-and-dog plot that was right for Lassie. Because Lassie was truly the star, Maxwell offered an unusual option. Lassie was given the choice as to which of three young actors he preferred.

Each boy spent a week at the Weatherwax home in North Hollywood. At the end of the three weeks, Lassie seemed to respond best to 11-year-old Tommy Rettig. Tommy became the first star of the Lassie television show.

Pilots Filmed

In the summer of 1954 two pilots were filmed with the original Lassie.  When CBS executives saw the shows, they ordered the show for their fall schedule.

But the original Lassie was getting older. Lassie Junior, his stand-in, soon absorbed the lead for the television program. Lassie still came to the set with Weatherwax where he had his own dog bed, and everyone doted on him.

The Death of the Original Lassie

In June 1958, Lassie died at the age of 18.

Rudd Weatherwax slipped in and out of depression for quite some time after Pal’s death.  Rudd’s son noted, “Dad would never again watch an MGM Lassie movie. He just couldn’t bear to see Pal. He didn’t want to have to be reminded just how much he loved that dog.”

Pal was buried in a place of honor on the Weatherwax ranch and Rudd visited the gravesite regularly.

The Future of Lassie

Lassie has always been played by a male dog though the character is female. Females periodically lose their coats which changes their look. Male collies are larger which means a youngster can look “small” next to Lassie for a longer period of time.

The Weatherwaxes continued supplying Lassies for the television show and for whatever else was needed.  Then in 2000, they decided to sell the Lassie trademark. Unfortunately the first buyers did not handle the franchise well, but today the the ownership is in good hands: Dreamworks Classics.

The current Lassie is the tenth generation direct descendant of the original line and is a fully registered AKC dog. He is owned and trained by Carol Riggins who had worked with the Weatherwaxes in a multitude of capacities through the years. She now has her own company.

To read about the story on which Lassie Come Home was based, click here.

Jay Silverheels (1912-1980) is best-remembered for his role as Tonto in The Lone Ranger, an ABC television program that ran for 221 episodes (1949-1957).

Silverheels was a full-blooded Mohawk Indian born on the Six Nations Indian Reservation in Ontario, Canada. His birth name was Harold Smith, and he was one of 11 children born to George Smith and his wife. His father was Chief of the Six Nations tribe and was also a highly-decorated soldier in the Canadian World War I military forces.

Jay Silverheels achieved initial recognition as a gifted athlete in both lacrosse and boxing.

Silverheels Had Early Career in Sports

The lacrosse game at which Silverheels excelled was a new sport, called box lacrosse. Its history was documented in The New York Times as recently as 2013 (The New York Times, 8-31-2013). According to the article, the National Hockey League was looking for a way to use their arenas during hockey’s off-season.The League observed how popular lacrosse was in Canada and western New York. They opted to develop a new game that would be played indoors. Each team had seven men, down from 12 for the outdoor game. This made the group size more compatible for the limited floor space. Harold Smith, as he was known then, played for the Toronto Tecumsehs.

Box lacrosse was a rough and fast game—it soon became known as the “fastest game on two feet.”

When the team traveled to play a demonstration game in Los Angeles, actor and comedian Joe E. Brown (1891-1973) was in the crowd; Brown took note of the good-looking muscular player, Silverheels, as he was called by his teammates. The comedian spoke to Jay after the game and suggested he go for a screen test.

Smith/Silverheels, then known as Harry Smith, soon began working as an extra in films. Directors soon realized he could also do stunt work. During the 1940s, he continued to work in Hollywood, occasionally getting a minor role.

Jay Silverheels: Break-Through Opportunity

In 1947, director John Huston was casting what would become a classic film, Key Largo. Jay Silverheels was cast as one of two Native Americans fleeing the town’s sheriff when a hurricane is approaching. The two Osceola brothers (the Native Americans) take shelter at the Key Largo Hotel, which happened to be filled with what was to become an all-star cast–Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Edward G. Robinson, and Lionel Barrymore, among others.

Silverheels’ role in this movie drew the attention of producers who were casting for the television version of the popular radio program, The Lone Ranger. Silverheels was chosen over 35 other actors who auditioned for the part of Tonto.

This was notable for one primary reason: Native Americans rarely obtained parts in film or television. Any “Injun” roles were usually played by white people. Italians were popular for these roles as as they were more likely to have darker skin. However, red face paint was frequently used. Typically, a special type of red clay was mixed with water to provide a Native American look.  Perfect examples of this casting include Burt Lancaster being given the starring role of a Native American athlete in the 1951 film, Jim Thorpe: All American. As late as 1969, Raquel Welch was cast as a Crow Indian in 100 Rifles.

Bias Existed All Along

The bias against Native Americans ran deep. On a Lone Ranger fan page, film and television critic Kliph Nesteroff cites a  book, Making the Movies (copyright 1919), by Ernest A. Dench. Dench wrote that some felt that if Native Americans were given parts in the movies that it would “change” them:

“It might be thought that this would civilize them [the Native Americans] completely, but it has had quite the reverse effect, for the work affords them an opportunity to live their savage days over again, and they are not slow to take advantage of it,” wrote Dench.  “They put their heart and soul in the work, especially in battles with whites, and it is necessary to have armed guards watch over their movements for the least sign of treachery…”

These words were written thirty years prior to Silverheels’ time in Hollywood, but the decades had done little to ease tensions among the races.

Lone Ranger Debut

After a long and very successful radio run, the television program, The Lone Ranger, was first shown on air on September 15, 1949.  The Lone Ranger told the tale of a mysterious masked man and his faithful Indian companion fighting to bring peace and justice to the Old West.

The show opened each week with dramatic footage of Clayton Moore as the masked stranger riding his horse Silver through a Western landscape. An announcer narrated over the scene: “The Lone Ranger! A fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust and a hearty Hi-Yo Silver! …a mysterious character of the early West who brought fear to the lawless and hope to those who wanted to make the land their own.” To see a clip of the opening, click here.

At that time, few people had televisions, however, the number of television sets in America would increase greatly over the next few years. In the process, Tonto became a household name.

Silverheels’ character was little more than a cultural stereotype. Tonto spoke broken English and always was subservient to the Lone Ranger. But as the first Native actor to play a Native American on television, he broke new ground.

Silverheels Expanded Career

Silverheels played Tonto for the entire run of the television series, from 1949 to 1957 (with one short period in 1955 when he suffered a heart attack and some filming shots required a double). To watch the entire first episode of The Lone Ranger, click here.

He also appeared in two Lone Ranger movies, The Lone Ranger (1956), and The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold (1958).

While Silverheels is best known for his portrayal of the masked man’s loyal companion, it was far from being his only role.  In the 1950s, he starred as Indian chief Geronimo in three films: Broken Arrow, Battle at Apache Pass, and Walk the Proud Land.  Later he was in True Grit, The Man who Loved Cat Dancing, and The Will Rogers Story as well as more than a dozen westerns.  His complete filmography is listed here.  He was disappointed that he could never break out of the stereotypical roles.  (Later he did television commercials, and this 1970 one for the Chevy Blazer probably pleased him greatly because in one minute the commercial sums up how he surely felt about many things.)

Did  Silverheels Use his Position Well?

While some accused Silverheels of docilely accepting his plight and not fighting for the rights of Native people, Jay Silverheels was balancing between wanting to work while still advocating for Natives to be cast in parts other than savages.

Silverheels had witnessed what happened when African-Americans protested their on-screen stereotyping and casting.  The result was that blacks were simply written out of more scripts. Silverheels knew there was a downside to taking too strong a stand.Silverheels Stood Up for What Was Right

Silverheels Took a Stand

According to Dawn Moore, the daughter of Clayton Moore who starred as the Lone Ranger, Silverheels was comfortable standing up for himself. In a 2011 article in The Huffington Post, she shared an anecdote that her father told.

The show was on location, filming in Chatsworth, California. Moore’s costume was made of heavy wool, and Jay was in suede. The two actors shared a trailer as a dressing room, and it was beastly hot when they were working, as well as in the trailer when they were given a few moments to rest.  Jay told Clayton he was going to say something to the director about working conditions.

Moore observed from afar as Jay talked to the director, and when he came back, Moore could tell by Jay’s face that that the conversation had not gone well. Jay mounted his horse, Scout, and took off. Clayton was concerned about his friend and followed, riding  Silver. When he caught up to the spot where Jay stopped, Moore said, “Jay, this isn’t right, you shouldn’t be holding up production like this.”

Jay quietly turned and said, “No, Clay What isn’t right is the way we are being treated…we need better working conditions.”

Jay explained that he was going to stay there for a time to show that he was serious. Then he would return to finish shooting.

The next day there were two new dressing room trailers, one for each of them.

Other Pursuits

While the show continued in re-runs, and thereby paid Silverheels residuals, he eventually found that he wanted other things in his life. He wrote poetry that he sometimes performed, and he appeared on a variety of television shows, including a number of westerns.

In the 1960s he formed the Indian Actors Workshop based in Echo Park to train and prepare more Native Americans for film. (It no longer exists but you can see a short slide show of it here.)

In 1974 he received a license for harness racing and for a time enjoyed breeding and racing harness horses.

In 1979, Jay Silverheels was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Silverheels was present when the star was dedicated, and according to coverage in The New York Times (7-21-1979), Silverheels wept.

Jay Silverheels’ Riding Days Were Over

Jay Silverheels suffered a stroke in 1976 and was incapacitated from it to some extent. When New Year’s Day of 1977 approached, Clayton Moore realized that times were changing. Traditionally Clayton Moore and Jay rode in the Pasadena’s Tournament of Roses Parade each New Year’s Day.  Clay, of course rode a white horse called Silver; Silverheels was always on a horse that resembled his show horse, Scout.

That year, Clayton knew that Jay would not be able to ride.  To commemorate his long-time friend, Clayton Moore rode a paint-colored horse that year in Silverheels’ honor.

Jay Silverheels died in 1980.

After his death, Silverheels was inducted into the Great Western Performers of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in 1993—the first and only Native American to achieve that honor until 2013 when actor Wes Studi was accepted for the honor.

Hattie McDaniel, the first African American to win an Oscar was similarly criticized for playing stereotypical parts .But like Jay Silverheels, she opened the door for others. That was just the way it had to be done.

• Moms was a first; no previous stand-up female comedian preceded Mabley
• First woman comedian to be featured at the Apollo Theater (1930s); she went on to appear there more times than any other performer.
• Oldest person to have a song on the Top 40 Billboard chart. Her recording of “Abraham, Martin and John” reached #35 in 1969.

Jackie “Moms” Mabley (1894-1975) was a trailblazer in every sense of the word—there were no female standup comedians that preceded her—yet, despite a 50-year career in show business, she might have fallen into oblivion had it not been for two women who resurrected her story.

The first woman to step forward to explore Mabley’s story was Clarice Taylor, an actress who played Bill Cosby’s mother on The Bill Cosby Show. One day at lunch with friends, Taylor realized no one knew who Moms Mabley was, so in the early 1980s, she began working with Harlem-born playwright Ben Caldwell to create a play about Moms’s life that went on to be a big hit off-Broadway.

More recently, Whoopi Goldberg took an interest in what Mabley has meant to African-American performers. Goldberg directed Whoopi Goldberg presents Moms Mabley (2013). To Whoopi, it was Moms ability to tell a great story.

Childhood

From Clarice Taylor’s research, we now know the story of what Moms Mabley never shared about her childhood.  Born in Brevard, North Carolina, Loretta Mary Aiken—who was to become Jackie “Moms” Mabley—was a great-granddaughter of a slave and part of a very large family of 16 children, who experienced much sadness and trauma.

Their father owned several businesses and also volunteered as a community fireman; he was killed in an explosion when Mabley was only 11. Within just a few years, her mother was on her way home from church on Christmas Day and was hit and killed by a truck. Mabley was also the victim of two separate incidents of sexual assault; each resulted in a pregnancy.  It was arranged for both children to adopted.

Getting Away

At 14 she left home, joining a minstrel show on what was called the “chitlins” circuit—the collection of stages around the country that employed black entertainers during segregation. She met a fellow performer named Jack Mabley whom she dated for a time. Her relationship with him led to the idea of adopting the name Jackie Mabley.  Though the relationship didn’t last, the name, Jackie Mabley, did; Moms came later as she became a mentor those who followed her career.

In 1921 she was spotted by a song-and-dance team who connected her with a better agent. As a result, she was soon performing at some of the Harlem Renaissance theaters including the Cotton Club.  With this move, she also found herself performing before or after people like Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and Cab Calloway.

In the 1930s, she appeared on Broadway in Fast and Furious and was cast in one of Paul Robeson’s “race” films,” Emperor Jones (1933).  (At a time when commercial films provided demeaning roles for blacks, race films were independently produced movies with black performers that tackled the difficult race issues of the day.)

Stand-Up Act

As a standup performer, Mabley wore a housedress and a floppy cap, and many of her routines were X-rated in the style of a “dirty old lady.” One of her running gags had to do with her preference for young men over older men. Offstage, however, she was very glamorous and was open about her preference for women.

By the mid-1930s she had been invited to appear at the Apollo Theater. She was the first comedian to appear there and went on to lead the number of performances for any single act working the Apollo.  At the height of her career, she was earning $10,000 per week there.

Mabley knew just how to play an audience: “I can keep laughter in a certain range, building higher and higher ’til when I tell the last joke, they’re all laughing like mad.”

Though she was an extraordinary performer and very popular among African-Americans, she was not well-known to white audiences until the 1960s.

Comedy Albums

Starting in the late 1950s comedy albums became wildly popular.  Mabley recorded her first in 1960, The Funniest Woman in the World. That recording went gold, which set Mabley up to make another 19 comedy albums.

Between the comedy albums and new interest in African-Americans because of the civil rights movement, producers for national shows began to take an interest in Mabley. Her first appearance on national television was in 1967, and she went on to appear on The Flip Wilson Show, The Ed Sullivan Show and was guest of Merv Griffin and Johnny Carson.  She was a frequent guest on The Smothers Brothers Show.  With her growing popularity from the comedy albums, she was invited to performed at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center.

Mabley’s Humor

Moms Mabley, like the best comedians, used humor to expose hard and uncomfortable truths about society. Because she incorporated race-related stories in her act, Mabley is considered one of the pioneers of social satire.

An example of how she wove in digs against bigotry lies in this story she told about driving in the South:

“I was on my way down to Miami…I mean They-ami. I was ridin’ along in my Cadillac, you know, goin’ through one of them little towns in South Carolina. Pass through a red light. One of them big cops come runnin’ over to me, say, ‘Hey woman, don’t you know you went through a red light?’ I say, ‘Yeah I know I went through a red light.’ ‘Well, what did you do that for?’ I said, ‘Cause I seen all you white folks goin’ on the green light…I thought the red light was for us!'”

While humor was her strength, she makes an emotional connection with the audience that can be demonstrated via her recording of “Abraham, Martin and John,” the song that reached #35 on the Billboard chart in 1969 (making her the oldest person, age 75, to ever have a hit song in the Top 40).  The song was written in 1968 by Dick Holler as a tribute to the memory of four assassinated Americans: Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy. Her performance of it remains deeply touching.

Later Life

David Parks, son of Gordon Parks, has memories of Moms Mabley being part of the Parkway Gardens (Greenburgh) section of Westchester where Parks, Cab Calloway and Eddie Heywood, and singer Hazel Scott all lived. According to David Parks, Moms loved having him come down to be fed when he was a young boy. “And could she cook!” David reminisced in a 2013 interview with me about life in Westchester with his family.

Mabley was filming Amazing Grace, a film in which she had a starring role, when she had a heart attack (1974). She was able to complete the movie but she died in May 1975.

At her funeral comedian Dick Gregory said, “Had she been white, she’d have been known fifty years ago.”

• First African American to have a regular role on a nationwide radio–and then television–program
• Though the character of Rochester was a valet, Anderson, working with Jack Benny, developed the role so that Rochester’s status makes him more of an equal to Benny

Eddie Anderson was born in Oakland, California, to parents who had been performers. His father had been in minstrel shows, and his mother was a circus tightrope walker until an accident removed her from the business. According to Anderson, the family had come from slavery and escaped the South via the Underground Railroad.

To help earn money for the family, young Eddie sold newspapers on the streets of San Francisco. The newsboys competed for sales by hailing customers as loudly as possible, and over time, Anderson permanently damaged his vocal cords.
Though he started in vaudeville at age 14 as part of a song-and-dance act, it was his raspy voice that made him distinctly recognizable to listeners on radio.

His first appearance on The Jack Benny Show on radio was in 1937 as a Pullman porter. His appearance was intended as a one-time part, but the producers used him a couple of more times—once as a waiter and another time as a fellow who has an altercation with Benny. The audiences wrote to the show, expressing their pleasure in hearing this gravelly-voiced actor. As a result. Eddie Anderson was offered the part of Jack’s valet; a character named Rochester van Jones. This was the first time a black performer had achieved a recurring role on a radio program.

In the late 1930s and ‘40s, Anderson and Benny appeared in films such as Man About Town (1939), Buck Benny Rides Again (1940) and Love Thy Neighbor (1940). Anderson also had parts in films that did not include Benny ranging from Gone with the Wind (1939) to Stormy Weather (1943). Over his lifetime, Anderson appeared in some 60 films.

The Jack Benny Show

The humor and energy between Jack Benny and Eddie Anderson led to the development of a 20-year collaboration that delighted radio, television, and film audiences.
The men’s relationship was solid on air and off. Jack Benny refused to tolerate poor treatment of Anderson. In 1943 the company arrived in St. Joseph, Missouri, where they planned to do one of their radio shows. Anderson and his wife were denied a hotel room, and only at Benny’s urging did the hotel management find the Andersons a room.

Another time in New York, a Southern couple complained about a black man staying in the hotel so the manager approached Anderson suggesting he find a room elsewhere. The show’s producer told the manager Anderson would leave the hotel the next day. The next morning all 44 members of the cast and crew checked out with Anderson and moved to another hotel.

During World War II, Benny often remarked on-air about African American contributions to the war effort. In 1948 after the show re-used a script from the early 1940s that contained issues that were racial stereotypes, Benny was displeased and ordered his writers to refrain from any sort of racial stereotype or slur. Rochester was to be considered an integral part of the show, and as his role evolved it became typical for Rochester to cut through Benny’s pomposity with comments like, “What’s that, Boss?”). African Americans warmed to the character and appreciated that Anderson had broken a barrier—he was a black man playing the role of a black man; not a white man playing the role in black face.

Here is a classic scene with Rochester carrying the humor of the scene:

Anderson’s Success

Anderson was well-paid for his work. In 1942, he was earning $100,000 per year and was the highest paid black actor in Hollywood at that time. He lived carefully but he wanted a home built by African-American architect Paul Williams, so he commissioned that home on what is now Rochester Circle in in the “Sugar Hill” section of Los Angeles (near Central Avenue and West Adams). The house still stands today.

Likely because they felt generally disenfranchised, the African-Americans in the neighborhood held mock elections, and in 1940, Eddie Anderson ran for Mayor of Central Avenue. Anderson was elected to this fabricated post, but he used the experience to speak out on real racial issues that were of concern to the community.

Anderson believed strongly that African Americans should be given the opportunity to fly for the military. He visited the Tuskegee Airfield and met with pilots there, and he owned a flight-related business, the Pacific Parachute Company that made parachutes for the Army and Navy during World War II.

He also tried but failed to get funding from others to help him build a casino in Las Vegas that would welcome African Americans. However when the Moulin Rouge Hotel opened in 1955 and promised to serve both blacks and whites, Anderson was at the opening as a special guest.

He loved horse-racing and began purchasing a few horses. The best-known horse he owned, Burnt Cork, ran in the 1943 Kentucky Derby, making him the first African American owner of a horse in the Kentucky Derby. He and his wife went to Louisville for the race but because of segregation, they had to view the race from the home of Mae Street Kidd, an African American Kentucky politician.

Eddie Anderson died on February 28th 1977, in Los Angeles, California, leaving provisions for a foundation. His son, Eddie, Jr., followed his father’s request to convert the Rochester mansion into a treatment center offering mental health and substance abuse services. Those services have moved elsewhere, and the house is now a bed-and-breakfast for artists.

Also see “Allen Hoskins, Played Farina in Our Gang.”

Part of the pleasure of watching events like the Super Bowl or the Olympics is the fact that we can share the experience with others. We compare notes with family members as well as people at work, and today we additionally share what we’ve observed by forwarding news articles and video clips via e-mail, posting on facebook, or tweeting event photos and news.

From sharing the pleasure of witnessing Tracy Porter’s 74-yard touchdown that sealed the Saints’ Super Bowl victory to watching in horror at the luge athlete’s horrific end, we feel part of the action because we witnessed it. Despite the increasing time people are spending on all types of other electronic devices, television viewership of these major events is at an all-time high. This speaks volumes about people’s desire to share in major happenings.

In the Beginning it was Radio
Up until 90 years ago, the only way to share an experience was to attend it. In the early 1920s, the growth of radio broadcasting changed all that. Early programming ranged from the reading of children’s stories on air to concerts and soap operas. (Many of television’s long-running soap operas began in the early days of radio.)

An early pioneer in radio news was a general manager at Time magazine, Roy Edward Larsen, who introduced a quiz program, Pop Question, in 1928. Soon Larsen had arranged the release of ten-minute news casts of an announcer reading selected stories from the pages of the magazine.

Citizens were used to getting their news via print, and radio executives determined that merely reading the news on radio was too boring, so they invented a “value-added” aspect to the news. They created ten-minute dramatizations about significant events of the day. Like any other dramatic production, scripts were written; actors were cast and chosen to as to who sounded like current newsmakers, ranging from Adolf Hitler to Bruno Hauptmann (tried and executed for the 1932 Lindbergh kidnapping). Appropriate sound effects were also mixed in.

The first dramatized news program was called NewsActing, but Time magazine, the company that produced the program, soon changed the title to March of Time. The program was enormously expensive to produce, so in 1932, Time announced they were discontinuing the program. There was a huge outcry from the public, enough to convince Time to continue producing the show and the Columbia Broadcasting System to pick it up. March of Time continued to air until 1939.

The Power to Thrill–and to Terrify
From the excitement of witnessing man’s first step on the moon to the historic moment of Barack Obama being sworn in as president, the media has the power to uplift but it also has the power to horrify its audience. Few people will forget the images and the emotions of watching the planes hit the World Trade Center on 9-11, and while there is no doubt that our experiences are intensified by the visual, radio, too, brought disaster into the home in a way that was terrifying.

Orson Welles and his Mercury Theatre inadvertently stirred these emotions with their dramatization of H.G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds.” Welles wanted to create a more viable story for listeners, so he changed the location of the story from Victorian England to the present day; the occurrences were described as happening just outside New York City. (The fact that radio audiences were accustomed to “dramatized news” places what happened next in a whole new light.)

People all over the country tuned in to the program, which aired on October 30, 1938. At the beginning of the program and four times within the hour, the fictionalized nature of the program was announced, but too few people heard. Some of the audience may have tuned in late, or perhaps audience members just became so agitated that they couldn’t absorb what was being said.

Many people grabbed some belongings and ran out of their homes; many more called the police, the newspapers and anyone they could think of to find out what to do. So believable was the reporting about a crash of something–perhaps a meteorite–near Grovers Mill, New Jersey that geologists at Princeton set out to verify this. (If they had stayed by their radio, they would have been even more panicked as the “meteorite” lands, and a Martian emerges.)

Patrons in a New York theatre began to empty out onto the street to go home. In a day with no text messaging and no cell phones, how did they hear the news? Several wives were left at home and happened to hear the broadcast. They telephoned the theatre and had their husbands’ paged. (That’s how word got out in pre-cell phone days.)

Like 9-11, the terror the people in the area felt was accompanied by offers of help from elsewhere in the nation. One gentleman roared into the telephone: “My God, where can I volunteer my services? We’ve got to stop this awful thing.” (New York Times, 10-31-1938)

A New Style Emerges
The panic caused by the “War of the Worlds” was just one more piece in what was becoming a natural progression away from dramatized newscasts. The defining event that brought about a new reporting style was an eyewitness account of another major disaster.

The Hindenburg, a huge passenger airship that was built to make round trips from Europe to the United States, had departed Frankfurt and was expected to dock near Lakehurst, New Jersey on May 6, 1937. Herbert Morrison, a radio newscaster who was at the landing field, planned to describe the event and put the report on WLS radio in Chicago the next day. His dramatic and very emotional response to the horror he witnessed eventually ushered in a new style of reporting.

Morrison’s report, watch below. This clip includes video but it is the audio that grips the attention.

By 1940, the dramatized versions of the news were coming to a close. News executives saw the need–and the possibilities offered by–a news reporter in the field whose reports could be enhanced by “actualities,” taped clips of interviews from the scene. Americans tuned in to listen to breaking news from Europe, and they heard from news reporters like Edward R. Murrow (1908-1965) about major battles and the bombing of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii just moments after the actual events. 

Radio broadcasts, of course, were not limited to news. From sports like boxing and baseball and entertainment programs like the adventures of The Green Hornet, a masked crime fighter, and Burns and Allen, the comedy duo who had started in vaudeville, radio opened us to the wonder of the shared entertainment experience.

As you watch the Olympics and compare notes with other people about what you’ve seen, think about how it all began, with families gathering in the living room around the radio, listening to election results, concerts, and the all-American favorite–dramatized stories.

Mass media expanded their world–and ours–for the rest of time.

My newsletter this month highlights another popular radio program, Jack Armstrong, All American Boy. To receive a free copy of the newsletter, e-mail kate@americacomesalive.com with “radio” in the subject line.