I have written previously, in this space (and in my book about early television), about theatres in New York City, which, during the period of early TV, were refurbished to accommodate television productions.
The subject of such theatres is not, I think, an insignificant detail, concerning the era.
Early television (and in particular the live aspect of so much of early TV programming) was, really, a unique variant of theatre: theatre which was brought into the home--in the form, for example, of live dramas, musical programs, comedy shows, variety shows.
In my book, I quoted Abel Green and Joe Laurie, Jr. who wrote the 1951 book Show Biz: From Vaude to Video (Doubleday)--meaning, of course, from vaudeville to television; Mr. Green was the longtime editor of the entertainment publication Variety. They wrote of the "closer affinity of video with the stage, rather than with Hollywood..." I also cited a 1951 interview with Helen Hayes, who said, of TV's dramatic programs, that television "has many attributes of the stage, including a very important one which Hollywood lacks--the necessity of a sustained performance."
In 1984, I interviewed Diane Sinclair, who had been a longtime dancer on Broadway. She and partner Ken Spaulding, a dance veteran who had also performed in Broadway shows, became a popular dance team in early television--on the shows of bandleader Kay Kyser, Paul Winchell, Dave Garroway, and others.
In our conversation, Ms. Sinclair compared early TV with the Broadway stage--in that many shows in early television, as on Broadway, were subject to a sense of confinement: shows which were limited to a single, or perhaps a few, sets. In later years, she pointed out, television shows--filmed programs--were able to leave the confines of the studio, and at that point, she felt, TV began to resemble Hollywood, as opposed to Broadway.
And so, let me turn to the subject of theatres which housed various early television programs.
It is of course true that many TV programs, during this period, were broadcast from regular television studios. But the use of Manhattan theatres, by certain shows, no doubt contributed to--or, perhaps, served as a pleasing adjunct to--the ambiance, the theatre-like feeling, of early television.
Diane Sinclair and Ken Spaulding became the dance team on Kay Kyser's program in early 1950. Before joining Mr. Kyser's program, neither Ms. Sinclair or Mr. Spaulding had ever appeared on a television program.
Prior to their first appearance on Mr. Kyser's show, the College of Musical Knowledge--the appearance was, in fact, an audition to become the program's weekly dance team--Ms. Sinclair went to a telecast of the show, which originated at Manhattan's International Theatre, at Columbus Circle. The theatre had been converted by NBC, in 1949, into a television facility, and seated, for its TV shows, some one thousand people.
This was the first time Ms. Sinclair had seen a television program in person. "It was very exciting," she told me in 1984. "It was like seeing a Broadway show."
I know of one comedy and variety TV program, NBC's Four Star Revue (telecast from New York's palatial Center Theatre at Rockefeller Center), which provided Playbill-like programs to audience members, adding to the sense of TV-as-theatre. During its 1950-1951 season, four stars took turns hosting the program (thus the show's title)--Ed Wynn, Danny Thomas, Jimmy Durante, and Jack Carson. (The next year, additional hosts were added, and the program was renamed the All Star Revue.)
For its NBC broadcasts, the Center Theatre--after its 1950 conversion to a television facility--seated some two thousand people.
Here are a couple of images from the four-page program for the Four Star Revue's debut broadcast, in October 1950, with Ed Wynn.
While many programs on the DuMont Television Network were telecast either from the auditorium of Wanamaker's Department Store in Manhattan (the auditorium had been modified for television productions), or from studios at the network's headquarters on Madison Avenue, the network also leased space at two Broadway theatres--the Adelphi, and the Ambassador--for some of its TV productions.
The Morey Amsterdam Show, which became a DuMont program in 1949, was telecast from the Adelphi Theatre, as was Jackie Gleason's Cavalcade of Stars, from 1950 to 1952.
One of the DuMont Network's most prominent programs, Bishop Fulton J. Sheen's Life is Worth Living, was also telecast from the Adelphi Theatre; Bishop Sheen's program made its debut in 1952.
Yet--to the best of my knowledge--most of the early television programs originating from Manhattan theatres were from the comedy, music, variety (and related) realms.
Kay Kyser's TV program--as mentioned above--was broadcast from the International Theatre, at Columbus Circle.
The program--featuring quiz, comedy, music, and dance--had previously been heard for years on radio.
The TV show aired for two seasons: the first season began at the start of December 1949 and continued until late June of 1950. Its second season began the first week of October 1950, and ended at the close of December 1950. My mother, Sue Bennett, was one of the show's featured singers, during both seasons.
Not long after the show ended, Kay Kyser, at forty-five years old, retired from show business; he moved with his family to North Carolina, his home state. He had had a long and exceptionally successful show business career, with his orchestra--on radio, in stage shows, on records, in movies, and then, lastly, on his network television show.
Here is a ticket from the TV show's final broadcast:
Beginning in January, of 1951, my mother began appearing as a guest on various network programs--such as Van Camp's Little Show (after its sponsor, the Stokely-Van Camp food company), a fifteen-minute NBC musical program starring singer and actor John Conte. She sang on the program regularly during 1951. The program was telecast Tuesday and Thursday evenings, from NBC's headquarters at 30 Rockefeller Center, without a studio audience.
Later, in 1951, she became a
regular guest on The Freddy Martin Show, starring Mr. Martin and his orchestra, and featuring vocalist Merv Griffin (the program was also known as The Hazel Bishop Show, after its lipstick sponsor). It was telecast from the Center Theatre.
Below is a ticket from a January, 1951 telecast of The Paul Winchell and Jerry Mahoney Show, on NBC--also known, because of its wristwatch-band sponsor, as The Speidel Show. It starred ventriloquist Winchell; Jerry Mahoney was his sidekick "dummy." The Winchell and Mahoney program, like the Kay Kyser program, originated from the International Theatre; it had begun airing in September of 1950.
As the ticket for the show indicates, part of the program featured a quiz segment, titled "What's My Name?" In February and March of 1951, my mother made two guest appearances on Mr. Winchell's program. Cast members on the show, by this time, included announcer Ted Brown, who also --from the handful of early 1951 kinescopes I have seen of
The Speidel Show--took turns with Mr. Winchell, as M.C. of the show's quiz segments. Mr. Brown had been the announcer for the second season of Kay Kyser's TV program.
Beginning in 1951, the show also featured the dance team of Sinclair & Spaulding, from Mr. Kyser's program.
Here are two images from a 1951 kinescope of The Speidel Show.
The last ticket, here, is for the NBC radio version of the musical program Your Hit Parade; the ticket is from January of 1951, the month before my mother became a Hit Parade cast member. The radio show had aired since 1935.
Both the radio and TV versions of the show, from the fall of 1950 to the beginning of July 1951 (the first season of the TV program),
were broadcast Saturday nights from the Center Theatre. The radio show--employing the same vocal cast as the TV show, and the same orchestra, led by Raymond Scott--aired for a half-hour, beginning at 9 p.m. The Hit Parade TV show then aired from 10:30 to 11;00 p.m.
(At the start of the following radio and TV seasons--1951 to 1952--the radio program and the TV show became separate entities. The radio version--while still broadcast by NBC from the Center Theatre, and still sponsored by Lucky Strike--moved from Saturday to Thursday nights, and starred Guy Lombardo and his orchestra, with Mr. Lombardo's vocalists; the radio show, each week, also featured a guest female singer. The radio show was heard on NBC until the start of 1953, when it went off the air.)
For several weeks, during the 1951-1952 TV season, the Hit Parade moved to NBC's Studio 8-H, at Rockefeller Center (which for many years had been the radio home of NBC's Symphony Orchestra, led by conductor Arturo Toscanini--and years later would become the home of Saturday Night Live). Yet the Hit Parade, for the 1951-1952 season, remained, otherwise, at the Center Theatre.
After a few years at the theatre, the show returned to Studio 8-H and continued its broadcasts there until the end of the 1956-1957 season--at which time the program underwent a cast overhaul, and moved, in the fall of 1957 (for its final NBC season) to an NBC studio in Brooklyn.
As the television-related website "Eyes of a Generation" has noted, the network, at this time, had two Brooklyn studios. One of them, purchased from Warner Brothers in 1951, began television operations in 1954. The second studio, built by NBC, began operating in 1956.
(Images of The Speidel Show, copyright NBCUniversal, Inc.)
