August
3, 1941
Martha Helen Stewart (née Kostyra) was born.
Business magnate, television host, author and magazine
publisher. As founder of Martha
Stewart Living Omnimedia, she has gained success through a variety
of business ventures, encompassing publishing, broadcasting, and merchandising.
Stewart's syndicated
talk show, Martha,
is broadcast throughout the world, she has written numerous bestselling books,
and she is the publisher of Martha Stewart
Living magazine.In 2001, Stewart was named the third most
powerful woman in America by Ladies Home
Journal. In 2004, she was convicted of lying to investigators
about a stock sale and served five months in prison. Stewart began a strong
comeback campaign in 2005, with her company returning to profitability in 2006.
August
5, 1956
Maureen Denise McCormick was born.
Actress, reality show
participant, and recording artist. She is best known as a child actor who played Marcia
Brady in the television series
The Brady Bunch from 1969 to 1974.
August
5, 1956
On
August 5, 1957, TV's American Bandstand began broadcasting nationally
Television,
rock and roll and teenagers. In the late 1950s, when television and rock and
roll were new and when the biggest generation in American history was just
about to enter its teens, it took a bit of originality to see the potential
power in this now-obvious combination. The man who saw that potential more
clearly than any other was a 26-year-old native of upstate New York named Dick Clark, who transformed himself and a local Philadelphia television program
into two of the most culturally significant forces of the early rock-and-roll
era.
Baby
Boomers
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The
show that evolved into "American Bandstand" began on Philadelphia’s
WFIL-TV in 1952, a few years before the popular ascension of rock and roll.
Hosted by local radio personality Bob Horn, the original "Bandstand" "nevertheless
established much of the basic format of its later incarnation. In the first
year after Dick Clark took over as host in the summer of 1956, Bandstand
remained a popular local hit, but it took Clark’s ambition to help it break
out. When the ABC television network polled its affiliates in 1957 for
suggestions to fill its 3:30 p.m. time slot, Clark pushed hard for Bandstand,
which network executives picked up and scheduled for an August 5, 1957
premiere.
Renamed
"American Bandstand," the newly national program featured a number of
new elements that became part of its trademark, including the high school
gym-like bleachers and the famous segment in which teenage studio guests rated
the newest records on a scale from 25 to 98 and offered such criticisms as
“It’s got a good beat, and you can dance to it.” But the heart of
"American Bandstand" always remained the sound of the day’s most
popular music combined with the sight of the show’s unpolished teen “regulars”
dancing and showing off the latest fashions in clothing and hairstyles.
"American Bandstand" aired five days a
week in live national broadcast until 1963, when the show moved west to Los
Angeles and began a 24-year run as a taped weekly program with Dick Clark as
host.
August 6, 1911
Lucille Ball was born.
She became one of America's most beloved comic
actresses, is born near Jamestown, New York. Her father, an electrician, died
when Ball was two. By age 15, Ball had decided to attend drama school and
become an actress. However, the shy, skinny teenager received little
encouragement and was rejected at least four times from Broadway chorus lines
before finally becoming a chorus girl in 1926. In 1933, she was hired as the
Chesterfield cigarette girl and was featured in all the company's advertisements.
Attracting attention with her Chesterfield ads, she finally began playing bit
parts in Hollywood movies in 1933. By the late 1930s, the starlet had graduated
to comic supporting roles. In 1940, she met Cuban bandleader Desi Arnaz while
shooting Too Many Girls. The couple married the following year.Ball
continued to land movie roles that didn't fully showcase her talent.
Frustrated, she turned to radio and starred as a ditzy wife in My Favorite
Husband from 1948 to 1951. CBS decided to launch the popular series on the
relatively new medium of TV. Lucy insisted Desi be cast as her husband in the
TV version, though the network executives argued that no one would believe the
couple were married. Desi and Lucy performed before live audiences and filmed a
pilot, convincing network executives that audiences responded well to their
act, and CBS cast Desi for the show.
I Love Lucy became one of the
most popular TV situation comedies in history, ranking in the top three shows
for six years and turning the couple's production company, Desilu, into a
multimillion-dollar business. Ball became president of the company in 1960,
after she and Desi divorced. She also starred in several other "Lucy"
shows, including The Lucy Show, which debuted in 1962 and ran for six
seasons, and Here's Lucy, in which she starred with her two children
until the show was cancelled in 1974. A later show, Life with Lucy,
featuring Lucy as a grandmother, was cancelled after only eight episodes. Ball
worked little in the last years of her life. She died of congestive heart
failure in 1989, at the age of 78.
August 8, 1956
The Dumont network made its final
telecast.
The DuMont
Television Network was one of the world's pioneer commercial television networks,
rivalling NBC and CBS for
the distinction of being first overall in the USA. It began operation in the
United States in 1946. It was owned byDuMont Laboratories,
a television equipment and set manufacturer. The network was hindered by the
prohibitive cost of broadcasting,
by regulations imposed by the Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) which restricted the company's growth,
and even by the company's partner, Paramount Pictures.
Despite several innovations in broadcasting and the creation of one of
television's biggest stars of the 1950s (Jackie
Gleason), the network never found itself on solid
financial ground. Forced to expand on UHF channels during an
era when UHF was not yet a standard feature on television sets, DuMont fought
an uphill battle for program clearances outside of their three
owned-and-operated stations in New York, Washington and Pittsburgh, finally
ending network operations in 1956. DuMont's last broadcast, a boxing match,
aired on August 6, 1956.
DuMont's latter-day
obscurity, caused mainly by the destruction
of its extensive program archive by the 1970s, has
prompted TV historian David Weinstein to refer to it as the "Forgotten
Network" or "Network Is Long Gone". A few popular
DuMont programs, such as Cavalcade of Stars and Emmy
Award winner Life Is Worth Living, appear in
television retrospectives or are
mentioned briefly in books about U.S. television history.
August
3, 1941
Martha Helen Stewart (née Kostyra) was born.
Business magnate, television host, author and magazine publisher. As founder of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, she has gained success through a variety of business ventures, encompassing publishing, broadcasting, and merchandising. Stewart's syndicated talk show, Martha, is broadcast throughout the world, she has written numerous bestselling books, and she is the publisher of Martha Stewart Living magazine.In 2001, Stewart was named the third most
powerful woman in America by Ladies Home
Journal. In 2004, she was convicted of lying to investigators
about a stock sale and served five months in prison. Stewart began a strong
comeback campaign in 2005, with her company returning to profitability in 2006.
August 5, 1956
Maureen Denise McCormick was born.
August
5, 1956
On August 5, 1957, TV's American Bandstand began broadcasting nationally
Baby
Boomers
Loaded:
0%
Progress:
0%
The
show that evolved into "American Bandstand" began on Philadelphia’s
WFIL-TV in 1952, a few years before the popular ascension of rock and roll.
Hosted by local radio personality Bob Horn, the original "Bandstand" "nevertheless
established much of the basic format of its later incarnation. In the first
year after Dick Clark took over as host in the summer of 1956, Bandstand
remained a popular local hit, but it took Clark’s ambition to help it break
out. When the ABC television network polled its affiliates in 1957 for
suggestions to fill its 3:30 p.m. time slot, Clark pushed hard for Bandstand,
which network executives picked up and scheduled for an August 5, 1957
premiere.
Renamed
"American Bandstand," the newly national program featured a number of
new elements that became part of its trademark, including the high school
gym-like bleachers and the famous segment in which teenage studio guests rated
the newest records on a scale from 25 to 98 and offered such criticisms as
“It’s got a good beat, and you can dance to it.” But the heart of
"American Bandstand" always remained the sound of the day’s most
popular music combined with the sight of the show’s unpolished teen “regulars”
dancing and showing off the latest fashions in clothing and hairstyles.
"American Bandstand" aired five days a
week in live national broadcast until 1963, when the show moved west to Los
Angeles and began a 24-year run as a taped weekly program with Dick Clark as
host.
August 6, 1911
Lucille Ball was born.
She became one of America's most beloved comic actresses, is born near Jamestown, New York. Her father, an electrician, died when Ball was two. By age 15, Ball had decided to attend drama school and become an actress. However, the shy, skinny teenager received little encouragement and was rejected at least four times from Broadway chorus lines before finally becoming a chorus girl in 1926. In 1933, she was hired as the Chesterfield cigarette girl and was featured in all the company's advertisements. Attracting attention with her Chesterfield ads, she finally began playing bit parts in Hollywood movies in 1933. By the late 1930s, the starlet had graduated to comic supporting roles. In 1940, she met Cuban bandleader Desi Arnaz while shooting Too Many Girls. The couple married the following year.Ball
continued to land movie roles that didn't fully showcase her talent.
Frustrated, she turned to radio and starred as a ditzy wife in My Favorite
Husband from 1948 to 1951. CBS decided to launch the popular series on the
relatively new medium of TV. Lucy insisted Desi be cast as her husband in the
TV version, though the network executives argued that no one would believe the
couple were married. Desi and Lucy performed before live audiences and filmed a
pilot, convincing network executives that audiences responded well to their
act, and CBS cast Desi for the show.
I Love Lucy became one of the
most popular TV situation comedies in history, ranking in the top three shows
for six years and turning the couple's production company, Desilu, into a
multimillion-dollar business. Ball became president of the company in 1960,
after she and Desi divorced. She also starred in several other "Lucy"
shows, including The Lucy Show, which debuted in 1962 and ran for six
seasons, and Here's Lucy, in which she starred with her two children
until the show was cancelled in 1974. A later show, Life with Lucy,
featuring Lucy as a grandmother, was cancelled after only eight episodes. Ball
worked little in the last years of her life. She died of congestive heart
failure in 1989, at the age of 78.
August 8, 1956
The Dumont network made its final
telecast.
DuMont's latter-day
obscurity, caused mainly by the destruction
of its extensive program archive by the 1970s, has
prompted TV historian David Weinstein to refer to it as the "Forgotten
Network" or "Network Is Long Gone". A few popular
DuMont programs, such as Cavalcade of Stars and Emmy
Award winner Life Is Worth Living, appear in
television retrospectives or are
mentioned briefly in books about U.S. television history.
