Sullivan’s plans began to backfire on him within the week. His sponsor, Ford, began to grumble about not wanting to be associated with Bergman, and letters from viewers poured in protesting her planned appearance. No small part of his success was his audience’s belief in him as their filter; they trusted him as a kind of Minister of Culture. While Ed could pick and choose from almost anything to entertain his viewers, from poet Carl Sandburg to the Barnum & Bailey Circus, his viewers expected him to be a prudent moralist in his choices. Was he now betraying their trust?
A still-thornier problem was posed by Bergman herself. On location in London, she told reporters that she had never agreed to go on Sullivan’s program. She acknowledged that a clip of Anastasia would be previewed on his show, yet “there was never any question of me going to the States with him.” When Ed returned from London and reporters asked him about the discrepancy, he again said that Twentieth Century Fox had been responsible for the announcement. But the studio declined comment.
Ed was now in a public relations conundrum. Some viewers were upset at the proposed appearance, while others were disgruntled at having been promised a glimpse of the controversial actress only to have it withdrawn. And everyone—including the battalion of reporters now following the story—wondered what was going on. He had to find a way to explain, amid escalating negative publicity, why the star would not appear despite his recent and very clear statement that she would.
The solution he chose reflected his anger at Bergman. She could have made an appearance yet instead had publicly embarrassed him. For her part, she likely remembered that he had joined the chorus labeling her a pariah when she announced her intention to have a child with Rossellini. As Ed had then written in his column, “The Ingrid Bergman–Rossellini baby will be baptized because in such a case, the Catholic Church holds that the sins of the parents cannot victimize the child, born out of wedlock.…” Despite his column’s judgmental excoriation of Bergman, Ed apparently assumed that since he was promoting her film, the studio would strong-arm her into an appearance. But the actress was not to be coerced.
When Ed went on the air on the night of July 29, the public awaited an explanation. Instead, he portrayed the situation as an issue to be decided by the viewers themselves. At the very end of the show he addressed the matter: “Now I know that she’s a controversial figure, so it’s entirely up to you. If you want her on our show, I wish you’d drop me a note and let me know to that effect. And if you don’t, if you think it shouldn’t be done, you also let me know that, too. Because I say it’s your decision and I’d like to get your verdict on it.” He told viewers that Bergman had “seven and a half years of time for penance,” and it was up to them to decide if that was enough.
Sullivan regretted his comments the moment he made them. He was offstage no more than a few seconds when, spotting talent coordinator Jack Babb, he exclaimed, “Why the hell did I say that?” With his intimate knowledge of his audience he knew that viewer mail would vote against having the actress on; in theory this would relieve him of the need to present her. Newsweek reported, presumably based on figures from Sullivan staffers, that mail was running 5,826 for, 6,433 against. But of course the vote meant nothing; Bergman certainly wouldn’t appear after Ed asked viewers to vote on the quality of her morality. His attempt to deflect attention from his own mistake was, at best, clumsy, and at worst, pharisaical.
Not since the show’s debut were reviewers so united in their attitude toward him—and so vociferous. New York Post columnist Leonard Lyons called Sullivan’s handling of the issue “tasteless and shocking.” New York Journal-American critic Jack O’Brian—always Sullivan’s toughest critic—printed a long statement by a Catholic priest who had “never seen anything like it,” and who noted that an individual’s morality could never by judged by public opinion. The New York Times’ J.P. Shanley pointed out that Sullivan had made no reference to Bergman’s morality when he initially announced her appearance, writing, “it would seem the producer’s approach to the subject has changed significantly.” Los Angeles Mirror-News columnist Hal Humphrey, after censuring the showman, snorted, “Incidentally, when is Ed Sullivan up for reelection?”
For once, Ed had no response to the hail of criticism. He knew he had bungled the Bergman affair. In the face of the fusillade of negative publicity he decided to cancel the preview of Anastasia.
Contributing to his awkward handling of the incident was his tendency to keep his own counsel in running the show. Director Johnny Wray supervised camera angles, but he had no veto over Ed’s on-air comments; likewise Marlo Lewis, like much of the staff, sometimes heard things from Ed for the first time when the showman told the television audience. The Sullivan show was run by exactly one person. And Ed, despite great affability in social situations, maintained a reserve between himself and those around him, handling issues as he saw fit. In this case that led to a serious stumble. “Ingrid never forgave me for what I had done,” he told an interviewer in the late 1960s. “And she was right.”
In the short term, if Ed wished to divert attention from the Bergman contretemps, he would succeed. Within the week an event happened in his life that effectively erased the incident from the headlines.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Elvis
ED’S DAUGHTER BETTY REMEMBERED HER CHILDHOOD YEARS in Hollywood with great fondness. Her happy memories drew her back to California; in her teenage years she made summer visits, staying with a friend. After graduating from Miss Hewitt’s School in New York, she attended the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), where she majored in English. It was there, in 1949, that she met Robert Precht, a tall, good-looking classmate majoring in international relations. A romance bloomed, and although Bob transferred to U.C. Berkeley they continued to see each other.
During one of Ed and Sylvia’s trips to Los Angeles to visit Betty, she invited her boyfriend to meet her parents, with mixed results. The foursome had dinner at Chasen’s, a Beverly Hills restaurant known for its red leather booths and frequent celebrity appearances. At first the dinner went smoothly, the group chatting amiably, but things grew tense when the conversation turned to politics. Bob, an infrequent television viewer who had grown up in California, was only vaguely aware of Ed’s background. Thoughtful and articulate, he spoke at length about his antipathy toward the anticommunist fervor engulfing the nation. Specifically, he was upset that teachers were forced to sign loyalty oaths, and he detested what he thought of as the witch hunt of Richard Nixon, then a young senator allied with Joseph McCarthy. “I was a hot-headed college student,” Precht remembered. Ed, who was then actively promoting Red Channels, cut in with an angry retort: “Well, if you’re that upset, why the hell don’t you stop talking about it and do something?” An awkward silence fell over the table, with Bob at a loss for words and Betty and Sylvia clearly embarrassed. Recalled Precht: “He put me in place with that line.”
From that difficult start, however, the Sullivan family began to accept Bob. When Ed and Sylvia visited Betty during their summer vacations they spent more time with him. Betty temporarily left her sorority house to stay with her parents at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and Bob often met them at the hotel for dinner (though he was careful to park his beat-up 1938 Chevrolet a few blocks away to avoid presenting it to the hotel’s valet staff). On the surface, Ed, having come of age in the rough-and-tumble of 1920s-era New York newspapers, came from a world far different from that of Precht, who grew up in middle class surroundings in San Diego. Yet Ed saw something in Precht, perhaps his strength of character or native intelligence, perhaps an ambition not dissimilar to his own. When Betty and Bob got married, shortly after Betty’s graduation in 1952, Ed wrote her a note blessing the union: “Betty Dearest: This is the most wonderful day in your lives and the life of your mother and me. You are two fine kids, your love is based on mutual respect for each other’s rights, and it will be a happy marriage.… Our deep love now reaches out to embrace Bob.… God love you both and
protect you and grant you just as much happiness as He has granted your mother and daddy. With all my love, Daddy.”
Bob, having completed a tour of duty in the Navy during the Korean War, studied Russian and worked in the Navy’s security division in Washington, D.C. In the mid 1950s he and Betty made frequent visits up to New York to visit Betty’s parents, which created an opportunity for Precht. Ed’s connections opened the door to the new field of television, which Bob found glamorous and potentially lucrative. “It was very tempting,” he recalled, and all the more so because the couple now had two young children.
In 1956 he made the career change. With his interest in current events, Bob hoped for a position in the news division, but Sullivan’s influence opened no doors there. So Ed asked Marlo Lewis to hire him as a production assistant. Since Lewis had branched out, working on other CBS programs as well as the Sullivan show, Bob apprenticed with several shows, including a soap opera, children’s programs, and the courtroom drama The Verdict Is Yours. Precht also began working on the Sullivan show, sometimes working directly with Ed to help assemble the weekly program. Despite his lack of experience in show business, the son-in-law demonstrated a competency and professionalism that quickly proved his value beyond his family connection. When Ed took the show on one of its many location broadcasts, Bob was usually there as assistant producer.
For the show on August 5, 1956, Bob accompanied Ed to McGuire Air Force Base in Trenton, New Jersey, for a remote broadcast. After the show the Air Force flew them back to the Bridgeport, Connecticut airport, where they were picked up by Ralph Cacace, a handyman-caretaker at Sullivan’s estate in Southbury. With a little luck, Bob and Ed hoped to be home not long after eleven o’clock.
Around midnight, Betty and Sylvia began to wonder why they were running so late, Sylvia hoping out loud that nothing was seriously wrong, Betty speculating that the plane was probably late getting in. By the time the clock inched past one in the morning, the two were seriously worried, too concerned to sleep. With little to say, they waited, Betty half resting on the couch. She felt intuitively that this was more than a routine schedule delay. The minutes stretched out in the quiet house, the heavy silence broken only by the solemn ticking of a nautical clock on the fireplace mantle.
When the phone rang shortly after two A.M. Betty felt the breath rush out of her body. Ed and Bob had been in a serious car accident and their condition was unknown, said the police department caller. A squad car was dispatched to rush Sylvia and Betty to the hospital. As the two raced across Connecticut in the back seat of a police car, Sylvia sobbed in great heaves as Betty held onto her. Betty also held onto a reassuring thought: her husband and father must be alive and conscious, otherwise who would have given the police their phone number? The police driver pulled into a hospital emergency entrance, only to realize he had made a terrible mistake: it was the wrong hospital. Betty hurriedly got out and called the correct hospital, holding her breath while the nurse provided details about Ed and Bob’s conditions. They were seriously injured—but they were alive. As the car sped to the right hospital, Sylvia had something of a breakdown, nearing total hysteria.
Ed had been driving Bob and Ralph Cacace in his new Lincoln along the narrow twists and turns of Naugatuck Valley Road. They were only about twelve miles from home when the driver of a 1953 Pontiac, heading the opposite direction, fell asleep at the wheel; he was a twenty-two-year-old X-ray technician headed home after a late shift. Swerving suddenly into the oncoming lane, his car collided head-on with Sullivan’s. Ed was knocked unconscious and—some of the details remain unclear— apparently thrown from the car.
When he regained a bleary half-awareness he was lying by the side of the road on a piece of tarpaulin, sirens blaring in the distance and a light shining in his eyes. His chest, to the extent he felt it, seemed to be caved in, and he tasted blood in his mouth. A young girl in a party dress held his hand, seemingly unconcerned that Sullivan’s blood was staining her outfit; her name was Sue Miles and she lived nearby. A man whom he would never meet held Ed’s head in his lap. The light shining in Ed’s eyes came from a flashlight held by a doctor’s assistant. “Hey, doc, come here quick, this one’s Ed Sullivan,” he said. “I don’t know who he is,” the doctor replied. “After a wreck like this they all look alike.”
The ambulance crew worked on extricating Bob and Cacace from the car, which was totaled. Sullivan, laboring to breathe, gave the girl his number and told her to phone Sylvia and Betty. “Tell them it’s nothing serious,” he gasped as she hurried off. The size and heft of the Lincoln had saved them, otherwise they likely would have died in the crash. Sullivan had a fractured rib and a mass of cuts and bruises all over his body. Bob, riding in the front seat, had a broken arm and ankle and deep facial cuts. Cacace suffered chest injuries and a skull fracture. The other driver sustained a fractured hip and jaw. The news was bad, yet considering the nature of the collision it could have been worse. Sylvia and Betty maintained an anxious day-and-night vigil, but were buoyed by the news that Bob and Ed were expected to recover fully. When Marlo Lewis visited, he was horrified by the sight of Ed lying under an oxygen tent looking “frail and concave, like a scarecrow with the stuffing ripped out.” Sonny Werblin assigned two of his talent agents to the hospital to ensure that Ed’s needs were taken care of.
The crash was a national news item, though there was confusion about how serious it was. Ed made light of it, telling reporters he expected to be home soon and would resume his broadcast the following Sunday; a near-death experience wasn’t going to keep him off the air. But his physician quickly vetoed that idea and original press reports were corrected: the show would go on with a substitute host. On Wednesday came the announcement that he would go home after a couple more days; that, too, was soon amended. Due to complications of his bronchial condition—probably exacerbated by his pack-a-day cigarette habit—he required additional hospital time. Ed was released on August 13, seven days after being admitted, and taken to his Southbury home for an expected three- to four-weeks’ rest.
But the accident traumatized his system more than he realized. On August 21 he was re-admitted to the hospital for what his doctors referred to as lung congestion; only after a six-day stay did he return to his Southbury estate to convalesce. Resting, however, soon made him tense and unhappy, and he resumed booking the show as guest hosts—Kirk Douglas, Red Skelton, Charles Laughton—took his place. A few years earlier he had undergone minor stomach surgery for his ulcer, and, defying doctor’s orders and Sylvia’s protests, had missed only one show; when he had resumed hosting ten days later he needed to collapse into a chair between introducing acts. Now he attempted to do the same, lobbying for a return though his condition called for rest.
Through it all the show’s regular watchers produced a titanic outpouring of affection. The show normally received box loads of weekly mail, yet now some 36,000 letters arrived voicing concern for the showman. Having inhabited viewers’ living rooms for so many Sundays, many audience members saw him as a family member. After the program each week much of the studio audience wouldn’t leave, instead approaching the stage and asking a steady stream of questions about Ed’s condition. Priests and nuns wrote to say they included him constantly in their prayers. National newspapers kept up a running report on his condition; The New York Times ran nearly weekly updates during his five-week absence.
Even Frank Sinatra, his recent feud with Sullivan apparently forgotten, made a get-well phone call to the showman in mid August, telling the New York Post “I love Ed and I know he loves me.” Eager to make his affection public, within the week Sinatra appeared gratis on the Sullivan show during a program guest hosted by Red Skelton. (He claimed, though, that laryngitis prevented him from singing, so after Skelton read a tribute to him written by Ed, and the singer plugged his new movie, he still had time to dash across town and make an appearance on NBC’s 8 P.M. show.)
Ed returned to his show in mid September, though whether he was well eno
ugh to do so was arguable. Onscreen he appeared wan and had obviously lost weight. To compare the shows before and after the accident is to see that something vital had been taken from him. Into his early fifties he had retained the glow of his Port Chester athleticism, aided by his love of golf and his many days spent outside at the racetracks. He had been a handsome man, ruddy, projecting a confident masculine glow. If there was a single moment when he most markedly began to lose his youthful vigor, it was with the physical trauma of the head-on collision. The crash was the catalyst that accelerated the aging process.
Not that he acknowledged this in the immediate aftermath. In the months ahead he jumped right back into his old schedule, if anything moving into higher gear as he envisioned broadcasts from ever more exotic locations, requiring more travel and more logistical headaches. His only concession was to stop driving; from then on he took taxis, and his friend Joe Moore picked him up for Sunday’s rehearsal. Otherwise he remained in fighting shape, and as always was ready to take on all comers.
The tabloid Exposed, which printed gossipy half-invented articles about celebrities, reported on the car crash in a piece entitled “Why Ed Sullivan Needs Bodyguard.” According to Exposed, Ralph Cacace, Ed’s Southbury caretaker who was in the car that night, was actually his full-time bodyguard. (That Cacace never accompanied Sullivan in New York, where he spent most of his time, wasn’t reported in the article.) The showman needed such a protector, the tabloid claimed, because he had become so hated by so many:
Impresario: The Life and Times of Ed Sullivan Page 32