February 1, 1887
Official
registration of Hollywood.
On this
day in 1887, Harvey Wilcox officially registers Hollywood with the Los Angeles
County recorder’s office. Wilcox and his wife, Daeida, had moved to Southern California four years earlier from Topeka, Kansas, where Harvey had made his fortune in real estate.
They bought 160 acres of land in the Cahuenga Valley, located in the foothills
to the west of the city of Los Angeles. A once-sleepy settlement founded in
1781 as El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles de Poricuncula, Los
Angeles was by then expanding rapidly thanks to the completion of the Southern
Pacific Railroad in 1876 (the Santa Fe Railroad would arrive in 1885).Wilcox, who had lost the use of his legs as a child
due to polio, envisioned the land as the perfect site for a utopian-like
community for devout Christians, where they could live a highly moral life free
of vices such as alcohol (Wilcox was a prohibitionist). Daeida Wilcox called
the new community “Hollywood,” borrowing the name from a Chicago friend who told her that was the name of a summer
home she had in the Midwest. Harvey laid out a street map of the settlement,
centered on a main street he called Prospect Avenue (it was later renamed
Hollywood Boulevard). After filing the map with the L.A. County recorder’s
office, Wilcox set about laying out Hollywood’s streets, made of dirt and lined
with pepper trees.As Harvey sold lots, Daeida worked to raise money to
build churches, a school and a library. By 1900, nine years after Harvey
Wilcox’s death, Hollywood had a population of 500, compared with 100,000 people
in Los Angeles at the time. It was connected to L.A. by a single-track
streetcar running down Prospect Avenue; it took two hours to make the
seven-mile trip, and service was infrequent. In 1910, the community of
Hollywood voted to consolidate with Los Angeles due to an inadequate supply of
water. Shortly thereafter, the fledgling motion-picture industry began growing
exponentially, as moviemakers found their ideal setting in the mild, sunny
climate and varied terrain of Southern California. As the years went by, Harvey
Wilcox’s dreams of a sober, conservative religious community faded even further
into the background, as Hollywood became known throughout the world as the
gilded center of an industry built on fantasy, fame and glamour.
February 1, 1937
Garrett Gonzalez Morris is born.
The comedian and actor
from New Orleans,
Louisiana. He was part of the original cast of the sketch comedy program Saturday Night
Live, appearing from 1975 to 1980. In 1986, Morris began playing
a regular occasional character, "Arnold 'Sporty' James," on the NBC
cop drama Hunter,
starring Fred Dryer and Stepfanie Kramer. Morris continually
appeared as "Sporty" on "Hunter" through 1989.In 1994, he was shot in an apparent robbery attempt but went on to make a
full recovery. In a radio interview, he mentioned that the robber who shot him
was eventually incarcerated, and in prison some fans of Morris's who happened
to be inmates there teamed up and beat up the robber in revenge.
Morris starred on Martin
as Martin's first boss Stan. Morris's shooting had caused him to be unable to
continue in the role, and he was written out of the show by having the
character become a national fugitive. The scene
where he is about to undergo plastic surgery was shot on the hospital
bed Morris occupied while recuperating from the 1994 assault.
February 1, 1982
Late Night with David Letterman debuted.
After his morning show on NBC got cancelled in
October 1980 after only 18 weeks on the air, David Letterman was still held in
sufficient regard by the network brass (especially NBC president Fred
Silverman) that upon hearing the 33-year-old comedian is being courted by a
syndication company, NBC gave him a $20,000 per week deal to sit out a year and
guest-host a few times on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show.On 9 November 1981, NBC and
Carson's production company Carson Productions announced the creation of Late
Night with David Letterman, set to premiere in early 1982 in the 12:30 a.m.
time slot Monday through Thursday, with occasional specials every few Fridays,
all aimed at young men. The network wanted to capitalize on catering to young
males, feeling that there was very little late-night programming for that
demographic. The newly announced show thus displaced the Tomorrow Coast to
Coast program hosted by Tom Snyder from the 12:30 slot. NBC initially offered
Snyder to move his show back an hour, but after refusing, he got cancelled. The
final first-run Tomorrow episode aired on December 17, 1981.
The staff responsible for
preparing Late Night consisted of Letterman's girlfriend Merrill Markoe in the
head writing role, in addition to seasoned TV veteran Hal Gurnee directing the
show, Robert Morton and Barry Sand as executive producers, and a group of young
writers - most of them in their early twenties. The plan from the start was to
resurrect the spirit of Letterman's morning show for a late-night audience, one
more likely to plug into his offbeat humor. The show also got a house band,
hiring prominent musician Paul Shaffer to lead the group named The World's Most
Dangerous Band.
Realizing NBC executives
exhibited very little desire in micromanaging various aspects of the show, the
staff felt confident they would be allowed to push outside of the mainstream
talk-show boundaries and thus set about putting together a quirky, absurdest,
and odd program. Snyder's Tomorrow re-runs continued until Thursday, January
28, 1982 and four days later on Monday, February 1, Late Night premiered with a
cold opening featuring Larry "Bud" Melman delivering lines as an
homage to the prologue of Boris Karloff's Frankenstein followed by Letterman
coming out on stage behind a group of female dancers - the peacock girls. After
a brief monologue, the very first comedy segment was a sarcastic tour of the
studio. The first guest Bill Murray came out in confrontational fashion,
throwing jibes and accusations at the host as part of a knowing put-on. He
remained for two more similarly sardonic segments in which he first presented
footage of a Chinese zoo baby panda from as the home video of his newly adopted
pet, before expressing his new found love for aerobics and pulling a crew member
onstage, making her do jumping jacks along with him to Olivia Newton-John's
"Physical". The second comedy piece was a remote titled "The
Shame of the City"; taking a general format of a local news action
segment, it featured Letterman touring several New York locations pointing out
various civic problems with righteous indignation. The second guest was Don
Herbert, TV's "Mr. Wizard", and the show ended with a young comic
named Steve Fessler reciting aloud the script of an obscure Bela Lugosi movie
Bowery at Midnight.
The reviews were mixed - Los
Angeles Times wrote: "Much of Letterman's first week did not jell" -
but more importantly, the show drew 1.5 million viewers, 30% more than had
tuned in for Snyder's Tomorrow.
On the third night, after
baseball great Hank Aaron finished his interview segment with Letterman, a
camera followed him backstage, where TV sporstcaster Al Albert conducted a
post-interview chat with Aaron about how it had gone. Eccentric and awkward,
the show immediately established a sensibility that was clearly different from
The Tonight Show's. Carson, for his part wanted Late Night to have as little
overlap with his show as possible. In fact, most ground rules and restrictions
on what Letterman could or couldn't do didn't come from the network, but from
Carson's production company. Since Late Night followed The Tonight Show,
Letterman couldn't have a sidekick like Ed McMahon, and Paul Shaffer's band
couldn't include a horn section like Doc Severinsen's. What's more, Letterman
was told he couldn't book any of the old-school showbiz guests such as Don
Rickles, Bob Newhart and the like who were fixtures on Johnny's show. Letterman
was also specifically asked by Carson's show not to replicate any of their
signature pieces like "Stump the Band" or "Carnac the
Magnificent". Carson's people also didn't want Letterman doing any topical
jokes in his opening monologue. To make sure restrictions were obeyed, a Carson
representative visited the set several times a week.
At one point later in the
series, Peter Ustinov was a guest on the one-shot "upside down"
episode, during which the televised image was gradually rotated 360 degrees
during the course of the hour; Ustinov appeared midway through and was
photographed upside down in close-up as he spoke while his host only appeared
in long shots.
After the battle for The
Tonight Show, when NBC gave it to comedian Jay Leno, Letterman decided to take
an offer from CBS for a late night talk show to compete with The Tonight Show.
So in 1993, Letterman and his crew moved to CBS and Late Show with David
Letterman was born, beginning on August 30, 1993, although NBC would air
repeats of Late Night until September 10, 1993. Up until this, the three
competing television broadcast networks tried to create talk shows to compete
with the success of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, but all failed. A
total of 1,819 shows were broadcast during its eleven and a half year run (an
episode on January 16, 1991 went unaired due to pre-emption for coverage the
beginning of the Gulf War; the program had already been shot before word came
out of Baghdad that United States airstrikes were beginning).
Late Night originated from
NBC Studio 6A at the RCA (later GE) Building at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York
City. The program ran four nights a week, Monday to Thursday, from the show's
premiere on February 1, 1982 until May 1987. Friday shows were added in June
1987 (NBC previously aired Friday Night Videos in the 12:30 a.m. slot with
occasional Late Night specials and reruns). Starting in September 1991, The
Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson was pushed back from 11:30 p.m. to 11:35
p.m., with Letterman starting at 12:35 a.m., at the request of NBC affiliates
who wanted more advertising time for their profitable late newscasts.
In September 1991, the
A&E Network began airing reruns. The reruns lasted only
until the summer of 1992. This first syndication deal was done against
Letterman's wishes and he frequently made his displeasure known on-air (he felt
having reruns air five nights a week, earlier in the evening and on another
network, diluted the value of the first-run shows). Because of this the
syndication run was ended early and not attempted again until he had left NBC.
In mid-1993, E! Entertainment
Television purchased broadcast rights to Late Night. The network aired complete
shows from various years five days per week from 1993 until 1996. Then Trio
(owned by NBC) picked up reruns and showed them from 2002 until the channel
went off the air in 2005.
A number of programs were
sold by GoodTimes Entertainment in 1992–93. These episodes were stripped of the
series theme, open and close. No DVD release is currently scheduled (GoodTimes
went bankrupt in 2005; the company's assets are now owned by Gaiam, which does
not typically distribute general-interest programming).
Letterman, who had hoped to
get the hosting job of The Tonight Show following Johnny Carson's retirement,
moved to CBS in 1993, when the job was given to Jay Leno. This was done against
the wishes of Carson, who had always seen Letterman as his rightful successor,
according to CBS senior vice president Peter Lassally, a onetime producer for
both men.[1] On April 25, 1993, Lorne Michaels chose Conan O'Brien, who was a
writer for The Simpsons at the time and a former writer for Michaels at
Saturday Night Live, to fill Letterman's old seat directly after The Tonight
Show. O'Brien began hosting a new show in Letterman's old timeslot, taking over
the Late Night name.
When Letterman left, NBC
asserted their intellectual property rights to many of the most popular Late
Night segments. Letterman easily adapted to these restrictions for his CBS
show: the Viewer Mail segment was continued under the name CBS Mailbag, and the
actor playing Larry "Bud" Melman continued his antics under his real
name, Calvert DeForest. Similarly, the in-house band was unable to use the name
"The World's Most Dangerous Band" so they instead called themselves the
CBS Orchestra starring Paul Shaffer. Both "The Late Show" and the
"CBS Orchestra" are also resurrections of older franchises: "The
Late Show" was originally a FOX attempt at a late night talk show, and CBS
Orchestra was also the name of the band that played on CBS Radio Network on
occasion. Like other talk shows, the
show featured at least two or three guests each night, usually including a
comedian or musical guest.
Letterman frequently used
crew members in his comedy bits, so viewers got to know the writers and crew
members of the show. Common contributors included bandleader Paul Shaffer,
Chris Elliott, Calvert DeForest as "Larry 'Bud' Melman," announcer
Bill Wendell, writer Adam Resnick, scenic designer Kathleen Ankers, stage
manager Biff Henderson, producer Robert Morton, director Hal Gurnee, associate
director Peter Fatovich, stage hand Al Maher, camera operator Baily Stortz and
the "production twins," Barbara Gaines and Jude Brennan.
Letterman's show established
a reputation for being unpredictable. A number of celebrities had even stated
that they were afraid of appearing on the show. This reputation was born out of
moments like Letterman's verbal sparring matches with Cher, Shirley MacLaine
and Harvey Pekar.
February 2, 1937
Thomas Bolin
"Tom" Smothers III is born.
Comedian, composer and musician, best known as half of the musical comedy team the Smothers Brothers, alongside his younger brother Dick.February 2, 1947
Farrah Fawcett
is born.
A multiple Golden Globe
and Emmy Award nominee, Fawcett rose to
international fame when she first appeared as private investigator Jill Munroe in the TV series Charlie's Angels in 1976. Fawcett later
appeared off-Broadway to
the approval of critics and in highly rated television movies in roles often
challenging (The Burning Bed,
Nazi
Hunter: The Beate Klarsfeld Story, Poor Little Rich Girl: The Barbara Hutton Story,
Margaret
Bourke-White) and sometimes unsympathetic (Small Sacrifices). Fawcett was also a pop culture figure whose hairstyle was
emulated by millions of young women and whose poster sales broke records,
making her an international sex symbol in the
1970s and 1980s.Fawcett was diagnosed with anal cancer in
2006, and began treatment, including chemotherapy and surgery. Four months
later, on her 60th birthday, the Associated Press wire service reported that Fawcett was, at
that point, cancer free.
Less than four months later, in May 2007, Fawcett brought a small digital
video camera to document a doctor's office visit. There, she was told a malignant polyp
was found in the area where she had been treated for the initial cancer.
Doctors contemplated whether to implant a radiation seeder (which differs from
conventional radiation and is used to treat other types of cancer). Fawcett's
U.S. doctors told her that she would require a colostomy. Instead, Fawcett traveled to
Germany for treatments described variously in the press as "holistic", "aggressive", and
"alternative". There, Dr. Ursula Jacob prescribed a treatment
including surgery to remove the anal tumor, and a course of perfusion and embolization for her liver cancer by
Doctors Claus Kiehling and Thomas Vogl in Germany, and chemotherapy back in
Fawcett's home town of Los Angeles. Although initially the tumors were
regressing, their reappearance a few months later necessitated a new course,
this time including laser ablation
therapy and chemoembolization.
Aided by friend Alana Stewart,
Fawcett documented her battle with the disease.
In early April 2009, Fawcett, back in the United States, was rushed to a
hospital, reportedly unconscious and in critical condition.
Subsequent reports, however, indicated that the severity of her condition was
not as dire as first reported. On April 6, the Associated Press reported that her cancer
had metastasized to her liver. Fawcett had
learned of this development in May 2007 and her subsequent treatments in
Germany had targeted this as well. The report denied that she was unconscious,
and explained that the reason for Fawcett's hospitalization was not her cancer
but a painful abdominal hematoma that had been
the result of a minor procedure, according to the Los Angeles cancer specialist
treating Fawcett, Dr. Lawrence Piro. Her spokesperson emphasized she was not
"at death's door", adding "She remains in good spirits with her
usual sense of humor ... She's been in great shape her whole life and has
an incredible resolve and an incredible resilience." Three days later, on
April 9, Fawcett was released from the hospital, picked up by longtime
companion O'Neal, and, according to her doctor, was "walking and in great
spirits and looking forward to celebrating Easter at home."
A month later, on May 7, Fawcett was reported as being critically ill, with Ryan O'Neal quoted as saying that she now
spends her days at home, on an IV, often
asleep. The Los Angeles Times
reported that Fawcett was in the last stages of her cancer and had the chance
to see her son Redmond in April 2009, although shackled and under supervision,
as he was then incarcerated, Fawcett seemed not to notice. Her 91-year-old
father, James Fawcett, flew out to Los Angeles to visit.
Her doctor, Lawrence Piro, and Fawcett's friend and Angels co-star Kate Jackson—a breast cancer survivor—appeared together on
The Today Show
dispelling tabloid-fueled rumors, including the suggestions that Fawcett had
ever been in a coma, had ever reached 86 pounds, and had
ever given up her fight against the disease or lost the will to live. Jackson
decried such fabrications, saying they "really do hurt a human being and a
person like Farrah". Piro recalled when it became necessary for Fawcett to
undergo treatments that would cause her to lose her hair, acknowledging that
"Farrah probably has the most famous hair in the world", but
acknowledged that it is not a trivial matter for any cancer patient, whose hair
"affects [one's] whole sense of who [they] are". Of the documentary,
Jackson averred that Fawcett "didn't do this to show that 'she' is unique,
she did it to show that we are all unique ... (T)his was ... meant to
be a gift to others to help and inspire them."
The two-hour documentary Farrah's Story, which was filmed by
Fawcett and friend Alana Stewart,
aired on NBC on May 15, 2009. The documentary was
watched by nearly 9 million people in its premiere airing and it was re-aired
on the broadcast network's cable stations MSNBC,
Bravo
and Oxygen.
Fawcett earned her fourth Emmy nomination posthumously on July 16, 2009, as producer
of Farrah's Story.
Fawcett died at approximately 9:28 a.m., on June 25, 2009, in the
intensive care unit of Saint John's
Health Center in Santa Monica,
California, with O'Neal and Stewart by her side.
The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour first aired.
The comedy and variety
show hosted by the Smothers Brothers
aired on CBS from 1967 to 1969. The show started out
as only a slightly "hip" version of the typical comedy-variety show
of its era, but rapidly evolved into a show that extended the boundaries of
what was considered permissible in television satire. While the Smothers
themselves were at the forefront of these efforts, credit also goes to the
roster of writers and regular performers they brought to the show, including Jim Stafford (who served as their head
writer and producer), Steve Martin, Don Novello ("Father Guido
Sarducci"), Rob Reiner
("Mike Stivic"), Presidential candidate Pat Paulsen, Bob Einstein ("Super Dave Osborne",
"Marty Funkhouser",
and "Officer Judy"), Einstein's brother, Albert (who works
professionally as Albert Brooks),
and resident hippie Leigh French ("Share a Little Tea with
Goldie"). The show also introduced audiences to pop singer Jennifer Warnes (originally billed as
Jennifer Warren or simply Jennifer), who was a regular on the series. The
television premiere of Mason Williams'
hit record, Classical Gas,
took place on the show.
The series showcased new musical artists that other
comedy-variety shows rarely gave airtime, due to the nature of their music or
their political affiliations. George Harrison, Joan Baez, Buffalo
Springfield, Cass Elliot, Harry Belafonte, Cream, Donovan, The Doors, Janis Ian, Yank Barry, Jefferson
Airplane, Peter,
Paul and Mary, Spanky
and Our Gang, Steppenwolf, The Who, Simon
and Garfunkel, Ray Charles, The Hello People and even Pete Seeger were showcased during the latter years of the show
despite the advertiser-sensitive nature of their music.
Seeger's appearance was his first appearance on
network television since being blacklisted in the 1950s; it became
controversial because of his song choice: Waist Deep in the Big Muddy, an anti-war song that the network perceived was an
insult to Lyndon
Johnson and his Vietnam War policy. The song was censored on Seeger's first
appearance but permitted on a later appearance.
In 1968, the show broadcast in successive weeks "music videos" (not called that at the time) for The Beatles' popular songs Hey Jude and Revolution. Before a rowdy crowd at the Los Angeles Forum, Jimi Hendrix dedicated I
Don't Live Today to the Smothers
Brothers, as heard on The Jimi Hendrix Box Set.
The performance by The Who in 1967 was another defining moment in the series. As
they often did during that period, The Who destroyed their instruments at the
conclusion of their performance of My Generation, with the usual addition of mild explosives for light
pyrotechnic effect. The piece would end with guitarist Pete Townshend grabbing Tommy's guitar and smashing it. Prior to the
taping, however, a "sloppy" stage hand, at the request of drummer Keith Moon (who allegedly bribed him with a bottle of whiskey),
had overloaded Moon's kick drum with gun powder. When Moon detonated it, the
explosion was so intense that a piece of cymbal shrapnel cut into Moon's arm;
Moon is heard moaning in pain toward the end of the piece. Townshend, who had
been in front of Moon's drums at the time, had his hair singed by the blast; he
is seen putting out sparks in his hair before finishing the sketch with a
visibly shocked Tommy Smothers. Allegedly, the blast contributed heavily to
Townshend's long-term hearing loss.
With the focus of the show having evolved towards a
more youth-oriented one, the show became both popular and controversial for
those same references to youth culture and the issues that both interested and
affected this particular target audience. Three specific targets of satire —
racism, the President of the United States, and the Vietnam War — would wind up defining the show's content for the
remainder of its run, and eventually lead to its demise.
Whereas older audiences were tuning into shows like
the western Bonanza, the
younger generation — ages 15–25 — were watching the Smothers' more socially
relevant humor.
The Brothers soon found themselves in regular
conflicts with CBS' network censors. At the start of the 1968/69 season, the network ordered that the Smothers deliver their
shows finished and ready to air ten days before airdate so that the censors
could edit the shows as necessary. In the season premiere, CBS deleted the
entire segment of Belafonte singing "Lord, Don't Stop the Carnival"
against a backdrop of the havoc during the 1968 Democratic National Convention, along with two lines from a satire of their main
competitor, Bonanza. As the year progressed, battles over content
continued, including a David Steinberg sermon about Moses and
the Burning
Bush.
With some local stations making their own deletions of
controversial skits or comments, the continuing problems over the show reached
a boiling point after CBS showed a rerun on March 9, 1969. The network
explained the decision by stating that because that week's episode did not
arrive in time to be previewed, it would not be shown. In that program, Joan Baez paid tribute to her then-husband–David
Harris–who was entering jail after
refusing military service, while comedian Jackie Mason made a joke about children "playing
doctor." When the show finally did air, two months later, the network
allowed Baez to state that her husband was in prison, but edited out the reason.
Despite the conflict, the show was picked up for the 1969-70 season on March 14, seemingly ending the debate over the
show's status. However, network CEO and President, William S. Paley, abruptly canceled the show on April 4, 1969. The
reason given by CBS was based on the Smothers' refusal to meet the pre-air delivery dates
as specified by the network in order to accommodate review by the local
affiliates before airing. This cancellation led the Brothers to file a
successful breach
of contract suit against the network,
although the suit failed to see the Brothers or their show returned to the air.
Despite this cancellation, the show went on to win the Emmy
Award that year for best writing. The saga of the cancellation of the show is the
subject of a 2002 documentary film, Smothered.
In 1993, the series was repackaged for broadcast on
the E! Network featuring introductions by the Smothers Brothers and
new interview footage by participants in the original series.
February 6, 1917
Zsa Zsa Gabor
is born Sári Gábor.
The
Hungarian-born American actress, who acted in supporting roles in movies, on Broadway, and occasionally on television. Gabor was also a socialite.
February 1, 1887
Official registration of Hollywood.
As Harvey sold lots, Daeida worked to raise money to
build churches, a school and a library. By 1900, nine years after Harvey
Wilcox’s death, Hollywood had a population of 500, compared with 100,000 people
in Los Angeles at the time. It was connected to L.A. by a single-track
streetcar running down Prospect Avenue; it took two hours to make the
seven-mile trip, and service was infrequent. In 1910, the community of
Hollywood voted to consolidate with Los Angeles due to an inadequate supply of
water. Shortly thereafter, the fledgling motion-picture industry began growing
exponentially, as moviemakers found their ideal setting in the mild, sunny
climate and varied terrain of Southern California. As the years went by, Harvey
Wilcox’s dreams of a sober, conservative religious community faded even further
into the background, as Hollywood became known throughout the world as the
gilded center of an industry built on fantasy, fame and glamour.
February 1, 1937
Garrett Gonzalez Morris is born.
The comedian and actor from New Orleans, Louisiana. He was part of the original cast of the sketch comedy program Saturday Night Live, appearing from 1975 to 1980. In 1986, Morris began playing a regular occasional character, "Arnold 'Sporty' James," on the NBC cop drama Hunter, starring Fred Dryer and Stepfanie Kramer. Morris continually appeared as "Sporty" on "Hunter" through 1989.
In 1994, he was shot in an apparent robbery attempt but went on to make a
full recovery. In a radio interview, he mentioned that the robber who shot him
was eventually incarcerated, and in prison some fans of Morris's who happened
to be inmates there teamed up and beat up the robber in revenge.
Morris starred on Martin
as Martin's first boss Stan. Morris's shooting had caused him to be unable to
continue in the role, and he was written out of the show by having the
character become a national fugitive. The scene
where he is about to undergo plastic surgery was shot on the hospital
bed Morris occupied while recuperating from the 1994 assault.
February 1, 1982
Late Night with David Letterman debuted.
After his morning show on NBC got cancelled in October 1980 after only 18 weeks on the air, David Letterman was still held in sufficient regard by the network brass (especially NBC president Fred Silverman) that upon hearing the 33-year-old comedian is being courted by a syndication company, NBC gave him a $20,000 per week deal to sit out a year and guest-host a few times on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show.On 9 November 1981, NBC and Carson's production company Carson Productions announced the creation of Late Night with David Letterman, set to premiere in early 1982 in the 12:30 a.m. time slot Monday through Thursday, with occasional specials every few Fridays, all aimed at young men. The network wanted to capitalize on catering to young males, feeling that there was very little late-night programming for that demographic. The newly announced show thus displaced the Tomorrow Coast to Coast program hosted by Tom Snyder from the 12:30 slot. NBC initially offered Snyder to move his show back an hour, but after refusing, he got cancelled. The final first-run Tomorrow episode aired on December 17, 1981.
The staff responsible for preparing Late Night consisted of Letterman's girlfriend Merrill Markoe in the head writing role, in addition to seasoned TV veteran Hal Gurnee directing the show, Robert Morton and Barry Sand as executive producers, and a group of young writers - most of them in their early twenties. The plan from the start was to resurrect the spirit of Letterman's morning show for a late-night audience, one more likely to plug into his offbeat humor. The show also got a house band, hiring prominent musician Paul Shaffer to lead the group named The World's Most Dangerous Band.
Realizing NBC executives exhibited very little desire in micromanaging various aspects of the show, the staff felt confident they would be allowed to push outside of the mainstream talk-show boundaries and thus set about putting together a quirky, absurdest, and odd program. Snyder's Tomorrow re-runs continued until Thursday, January 28, 1982 and four days later on Monday, February 1, Late Night premiered with a cold opening featuring Larry "Bud" Melman delivering lines as an homage to the prologue of Boris Karloff's Frankenstein followed by Letterman coming out on stage behind a group of female dancers - the peacock girls. After a brief monologue, the very first comedy segment was a sarcastic tour of the studio. The first guest Bill Murray came out in confrontational fashion, throwing jibes and accusations at the host as part of a knowing put-on. He remained for two more similarly sardonic segments in which he first presented footage of a Chinese zoo baby panda from as the home video of his newly adopted pet, before expressing his new found love for aerobics and pulling a crew member onstage, making her do jumping jacks along with him to Olivia Newton-John's "Physical". The second comedy piece was a remote titled "The Shame of the City"; taking a general format of a local news action segment, it featured Letterman touring several New York locations pointing out various civic problems with righteous indignation. The second guest was Don Herbert, TV's "Mr. Wizard", and the show ended with a young comic named Steve Fessler reciting aloud the script of an obscure Bela Lugosi movie Bowery at Midnight.
The reviews were mixed - Los Angeles Times wrote: "Much of Letterman's first week did not jell" - but more importantly, the show drew 1.5 million viewers, 30% more than had tuned in for Snyder's Tomorrow.
On the third night, after baseball great Hank Aaron finished his interview segment with Letterman, a camera followed him backstage, where TV sporstcaster Al Albert conducted a post-interview chat with Aaron about how it had gone. Eccentric and awkward, the show immediately established a sensibility that was clearly different from The Tonight Show's. Carson, for his part wanted Late Night to have as little overlap with his show as possible. In fact, most ground rules and restrictions on what Letterman could or couldn't do didn't come from the network, but from Carson's production company. Since Late Night followed The Tonight Show, Letterman couldn't have a sidekick like Ed McMahon, and Paul Shaffer's band couldn't include a horn section like Doc Severinsen's. What's more, Letterman was told he couldn't book any of the old-school showbiz guests such as Don Rickles, Bob Newhart and the like who were fixtures on Johnny's show. Letterman was also specifically asked by Carson's show not to replicate any of their signature pieces like "Stump the Band" or "Carnac the Magnificent". Carson's people also didn't want Letterman doing any topical jokes in his opening monologue. To make sure restrictions were obeyed, a Carson representative visited the set several times a week.
At one point later in the series, Peter Ustinov was a guest on the one-shot "upside down" episode, during which the televised image was gradually rotated 360 degrees during the course of the hour; Ustinov appeared midway through and was photographed upside down in close-up as he spoke while his host only appeared in long shots.
After the battle for The Tonight Show, when NBC gave it to comedian Jay Leno, Letterman decided to take an offer from CBS for a late night talk show to compete with The Tonight Show. So in 1993, Letterman and his crew moved to CBS and Late Show with David Letterman was born, beginning on August 30, 1993, although NBC would air repeats of Late Night until September 10, 1993. Up until this, the three competing television broadcast networks tried to create talk shows to compete with the success of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, but all failed. A total of 1,819 shows were broadcast during its eleven and a half year run (an episode on January 16, 1991 went unaired due to pre-emption for coverage the beginning of the Gulf War; the program had already been shot before word came out of Baghdad that United States airstrikes were beginning).
Late Night originated from NBC Studio 6A at the RCA (later GE) Building at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City. The program ran four nights a week, Monday to Thursday, from the show's premiere on February 1, 1982 until May 1987. Friday shows were added in June 1987 (NBC previously aired Friday Night Videos in the 12:30 a.m. slot with occasional Late Night specials and reruns). Starting in September 1991, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson was pushed back from 11:30 p.m. to 11:35 p.m., with Letterman starting at 12:35 a.m., at the request of NBC affiliates who wanted more advertising time for their profitable late newscasts.
In September 1991, the A&E Network began airing reruns. The reruns lasted only until the summer of 1992. This first syndication deal was done against Letterman's wishes and he frequently made his displeasure known on-air (he felt having reruns air five nights a week, earlier in the evening and on another network, diluted the value of the first-run shows). Because of this the syndication run was ended early and not attempted again until he had left NBC.
In mid-1993, E! Entertainment Television purchased broadcast rights to Late Night. The network aired complete shows from various years five days per week from 1993 until 1996. Then Trio (owned by NBC) picked up reruns and showed them from 2002 until the channel went off the air in 2005.
A number of programs were sold by GoodTimes Entertainment in 1992–93. These episodes were stripped of the series theme, open and close. No DVD release is currently scheduled (GoodTimes went bankrupt in 2005; the company's assets are now owned by Gaiam, which does not typically distribute general-interest programming).
Letterman, who had hoped to get the hosting job of The Tonight Show following Johnny Carson's retirement, moved to CBS in 1993, when the job was given to Jay Leno. This was done against the wishes of Carson, who had always seen Letterman as his rightful successor, according to CBS senior vice president Peter Lassally, a onetime producer for both men.[1] On April 25, 1993, Lorne Michaels chose Conan O'Brien, who was a writer for The Simpsons at the time and a former writer for Michaels at Saturday Night Live, to fill Letterman's old seat directly after The Tonight Show. O'Brien began hosting a new show in Letterman's old timeslot, taking over the Late Night name.
When Letterman left, NBC asserted their intellectual property rights to many of the most popular Late Night segments. Letterman easily adapted to these restrictions for his CBS show: the Viewer Mail segment was continued under the name CBS Mailbag, and the actor playing Larry "Bud" Melman continued his antics under his real name, Calvert DeForest. Similarly, the in-house band was unable to use the name "The World's Most Dangerous Band" so they instead called themselves the CBS Orchestra starring Paul Shaffer. Both "The Late Show" and the "CBS Orchestra" are also resurrections of older franchises: "The Late Show" was originally a FOX attempt at a late night talk show, and CBS Orchestra was also the name of the band that played on CBS Radio Network on occasion.Like other talk shows, the show featured at least two or three guests each night, usually including a comedian or musical guest.
Letterman frequently used crew members in his comedy bits, so viewers got to know the writers and crew members of the show. Common contributors included bandleader Paul Shaffer, Chris Elliott, Calvert DeForest as "Larry 'Bud' Melman," announcer Bill Wendell, writer Adam Resnick, scenic designer Kathleen Ankers, stage manager Biff Henderson, producer Robert Morton, director Hal Gurnee, associate director Peter Fatovich, stage hand Al Maher, camera operator Baily Stortz and the "production twins," Barbara Gaines and Jude Brennan.
Letterman's show established a reputation for being unpredictable. A number of celebrities had even stated that they were afraid of appearing on the show. This reputation was born out of moments like Letterman's verbal sparring matches with Cher, Shirley MacLaine and Harvey Pekar.
February 2, 1937
Thomas Bolin "Tom" Smothers III is born.
Comedian, composer and musician, best known as half of the musical comedy team the Smothers Brothers, alongside his younger brother Dick.
February 2, 1947
Farrah Fawcett is born.
A multiple Golden Globe and Emmy Award nominee, Fawcett rose to international fame when she first appeared as private investigator Jill Munroe in the TV series Charlie's Angels in 1976. Fawcett later appeared off-Broadway to the approval of critics and in highly rated television movies in roles often challenging (The Burning Bed, Nazi Hunter: The Beate Klarsfeld Story, Poor Little Rich Girl: The Barbara Hutton Story, Margaret Bourke-White) and sometimes unsympathetic (Small Sacrifices). Fawcett was also a pop culture figure whose hairstyle was emulated by millions of young women and whose poster sales broke records, making her an international sex symbol in the 1970s and 1980s.
Fawcett was diagnosed with anal cancer in
2006, and began treatment, including chemotherapy and surgery. Four months
later, on her 60th birthday, the Associated Press wire service reported that Fawcett was, at
that point, cancer free.
Less than four months later, in May 2007, Fawcett brought a small digital
video camera to document a doctor's office visit. There, she was told a malignant polyp
was found in the area where she had been treated for the initial cancer.
Doctors contemplated whether to implant a radiation seeder (which differs from
conventional radiation and is used to treat other types of cancer). Fawcett's
U.S. doctors told her that she would require a colostomy. Instead, Fawcett traveled to
Germany for treatments described variously in the press as "holistic", "aggressive", and
"alternative". There, Dr. Ursula Jacob prescribed a treatment
including surgery to remove the anal tumor, and a course of perfusion and embolization for her liver cancer by
Doctors Claus Kiehling and Thomas Vogl in Germany, and chemotherapy back in
Fawcett's home town of Los Angeles. Although initially the tumors were
regressing, their reappearance a few months later necessitated a new course,
this time including laser ablation
therapy and chemoembolization.
Aided by friend Alana Stewart,
Fawcett documented her battle with the disease.
In early April 2009, Fawcett, back in the United States, was rushed to a
hospital, reportedly unconscious and in critical condition.
Subsequent reports, however, indicated that the severity of her condition was
not as dire as first reported. On April 6, the Associated Press reported that her cancer
had metastasized to her liver. Fawcett had
learned of this development in May 2007 and her subsequent treatments in
Germany had targeted this as well. The report denied that she was unconscious,
and explained that the reason for Fawcett's hospitalization was not her cancer
but a painful abdominal hematoma that had been
the result of a minor procedure, according to the Los Angeles cancer specialist
treating Fawcett, Dr. Lawrence Piro. Her spokesperson emphasized she was not
"at death's door", adding "She remains in good spirits with her
usual sense of humor ... She's been in great shape her whole life and has
an incredible resolve and an incredible resilience." Three days later, on
April 9, Fawcett was released from the hospital, picked up by longtime
companion O'Neal, and, according to her doctor, was "walking and in great
spirits and looking forward to celebrating Easter at home."
A month later, on May 7, Fawcett was reported as being critically ill, with Ryan O'Neal quoted as saying that she now
spends her days at home, on an IV, often
asleep. The Los Angeles Times
reported that Fawcett was in the last stages of her cancer and had the chance
to see her son Redmond in April 2009, although shackled and under supervision,
as he was then incarcerated, Fawcett seemed not to notice. Her 91-year-old
father, James Fawcett, flew out to Los Angeles to visit.
Her doctor, Lawrence Piro, and Fawcett's friend and Angels co-star Kate Jackson—a breast cancer survivor—appeared together on
The Today Show
dispelling tabloid-fueled rumors, including the suggestions that Fawcett had
ever been in a coma, had ever reached 86 pounds, and had
ever given up her fight against the disease or lost the will to live. Jackson
decried such fabrications, saying they "really do hurt a human being and a
person like Farrah". Piro recalled when it became necessary for Fawcett to
undergo treatments that would cause her to lose her hair, acknowledging that
"Farrah probably has the most famous hair in the world", but
acknowledged that it is not a trivial matter for any cancer patient, whose hair
"affects [one's] whole sense of who [they] are". Of the documentary,
Jackson averred that Fawcett "didn't do this to show that 'she' is unique,
she did it to show that we are all unique ... (T)his was ... meant to
be a gift to others to help and inspire them."
The two-hour documentary Farrah's Story, which was filmed by
Fawcett and friend Alana Stewart,
aired on NBC on May 15, 2009. The documentary was
watched by nearly 9 million people in its premiere airing and it was re-aired
on the broadcast network's cable stations MSNBC,
Bravo
and Oxygen.
Fawcett earned her fourth Emmy nomination posthumously on July 16, 2009, as producer
of Farrah's Story.
Fawcett died at approximately 9:28 a.m., on June 25, 2009, in the intensive care unit of Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California, with O'Neal and Stewart by her side.
The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour first aired.
The series showcased new musical artists that other
comedy-variety shows rarely gave airtime, due to the nature of their music or
their political affiliations. George Harrison, Joan Baez, Buffalo
Springfield, Cass Elliot, Harry Belafonte, Cream, Donovan, The Doors, Janis Ian, Yank Barry, Jefferson
Airplane, Peter,
Paul and Mary, Spanky
and Our Gang, Steppenwolf, The Who, Simon
and Garfunkel, Ray Charles, The Hello People and even Pete Seeger were showcased during the latter years of the show
despite the advertiser-sensitive nature of their music.
Seeger's appearance was his first appearance on
network television since being blacklisted in the 1950s; it became
controversial because of his song choice: Waist Deep in the Big Muddy, an anti-war song that the network perceived was an
insult to Lyndon
Johnson and his Vietnam War policy. The song was censored on Seeger's first
appearance but permitted on a later appearance.
In 1968, the show broadcast in successive weeks "music videos" (not called that at the time) for The Beatles' popular songs Hey Jude and Revolution. Before a rowdy crowd at the Los Angeles Forum, Jimi Hendrix dedicated I
Don't Live Today to the Smothers
Brothers, as heard on The Jimi Hendrix Box Set.
The performance by The Who in 1967 was another defining moment in the series. As
they often did during that period, The Who destroyed their instruments at the
conclusion of their performance of My Generation, with the usual addition of mild explosives for light
pyrotechnic effect. The piece would end with guitarist Pete Townshend grabbing Tommy's guitar and smashing it. Prior to the
taping, however, a "sloppy" stage hand, at the request of drummer Keith Moon (who allegedly bribed him with a bottle of whiskey),
had overloaded Moon's kick drum with gun powder. When Moon detonated it, the
explosion was so intense that a piece of cymbal shrapnel cut into Moon's arm;
Moon is heard moaning in pain toward the end of the piece. Townshend, who had
been in front of Moon's drums at the time, had his hair singed by the blast; he
is seen putting out sparks in his hair before finishing the sketch with a
visibly shocked Tommy Smothers. Allegedly, the blast contributed heavily to
Townshend's long-term hearing loss.
With the focus of the show having evolved towards a
more youth-oriented one, the show became both popular and controversial for
those same references to youth culture and the issues that both interested and
affected this particular target audience. Three specific targets of satire —
racism, the President of the United States, and the Vietnam War — would wind up defining the show's content for the
remainder of its run, and eventually lead to its demise.
Whereas older audiences were tuning into shows like
the western Bonanza, the
younger generation — ages 15–25 — were watching the Smothers' more socially
relevant humor.
The Brothers soon found themselves in regular
conflicts with CBS' network censors. At the start of the 1968/69 season, the network ordered that the Smothers deliver their
shows finished and ready to air ten days before airdate so that the censors
could edit the shows as necessary. In the season premiere, CBS deleted the
entire segment of Belafonte singing "Lord, Don't Stop the Carnival"
against a backdrop of the havoc during the 1968 Democratic National Convention, along with two lines from a satire of their main
competitor, Bonanza. As the year progressed, battles over content
continued, including a David Steinberg sermon about Moses and
the Burning
Bush.
With some local stations making their own deletions of
controversial skits or comments, the continuing problems over the show reached
a boiling point after CBS showed a rerun on March 9, 1969. The network
explained the decision by stating that because that week's episode did not
arrive in time to be previewed, it would not be shown. In that program, Joan Baez paid tribute to her then-husband–David
Harris–who was entering jail after
refusing military service, while comedian Jackie Mason made a joke about children "playing
doctor." When the show finally did air, two months later, the network
allowed Baez to state that her husband was in prison, but edited out the reason.
Despite the conflict, the show was picked up for the 1969-70 season on March 14, seemingly ending the debate over the
show's status. However, network CEO and President, William S. Paley, abruptly canceled the show on April 4, 1969. The
reason given by CBS was based on the Smothers' refusal to meet the pre-air delivery dates
as specified by the network in order to accommodate review by the local
affiliates before airing. This cancellation led the Brothers to file a
successful breach
of contract suit against the network,
although the suit failed to see the Brothers or their show returned to the air.
Despite this cancellation, the show went on to win the Emmy
Award that year for best writing. The saga of the cancellation of the show is the
subject of a 2002 documentary film, Smothered.
In 1993, the series was repackaged for broadcast on
the E! Network featuring introductions by the Smothers Brothers and
new interview footage by participants in the original series.
February 6, 1917
Zsa Zsa Gabor is born Sári Gábor.
Stay Tuned
Tony Figueroa
Stay Tuned
