Impresario: The Life and Times of Ed Sullivan

by James Maguire

  While waiting for Elvis’ second appearance that night, the teenagers in the audience had to endure Senor Wences, the Spanish ventriloquist who used his own hand as his dummy, painting it to resemble a face. The audience laughed delightedly as Wences’ hand chirped back at him in quirky Spanish-accented phrases. A Sullivan favorite, Wences appeared twenty-three times over the years.

  When the camera cut to Elvis, for the first time that evening he had left his guitar backstage, so nothing covered his mid section. He acknowledged Ed’s introduction with characteristic politeness: “Thank you very much, Mr. Sullivan.” The Jordanaires began harmonizing a slow ballad, and Elvis started singing “Love Me,” turning toward Ed offstage during a melodic pause: “It’s a new one, Ed,” getting a few laughs for his effort. He stumbled on the lyrics but kept going, to the clear joy of his fans. As he gently swayed they shrieked at most every pause.

  The moment he finished, Ed came on the set. “I want to thank all you youngsters, you made a promise you wouldn’t yell during his songs, and you’re very, very good— you haven’t,” he said. Yet they had screamed, in ways that no previous Sullivan audience ever had. Ed appeared almost too eager to congratulate them on their supposed good behavior, as if by praising wayward children he could encourage improvement.

  He kept the lid on the teenage energy by allowing Elvis only one song this set, forcing the singer’s fans to sit through other acts. Joyce Grenfell, a very proper British comedienne dressed as a grande dame with long white gloves, warbled a novelty tune. Then the full Broadway cast of Frank Loesser’s The Most Happy Fella kicked and twirled across the stage in a series of visually rich musical dance numbers.

  When Elvis came back for his final set, he appeared to be in a lighthearted mood. So too, were his fans. They had behaved, or so they had been told, but they didn’t want to anymore. The singer’s mere appearance provoked screams that suggested a fire had broken out in the theater. He asked, “Ladies and gentlemen, ah, could I have your attention, please?” and he flashed a beguiling smile, suddenly getting near silence. He started to play with the audience, as if its excitement level could be increased. “I’d like to tell you that we’re going to do a sad song for you,” he said with a big grin. “This here song is one of the saddest songs you ever heard … it really tells a story, friends …” He pretended to jumpstart the song several times, teasing the audience with his head fakes, each time eliciting a groan of female anticipation, each time pulling back for a toothy smile, his well-lubricated pompadour glistening in the studio lights.

  And then he did it. Presley catapulted into the rapid-fire growl of “Hound Dog”—the song had hardly ever been rendered this fast. For the first time that evening, viewers got all of Elvis, his hips gone mad, the camera pulling back to show full torso, his whole body a quivering, dancing blur. For a moment he caught himself, clearly shaking his head no, as if to say, I shouldn’t shake like that, and he stood ramrod stiff—which lasted all of four beats, after which the dam broke.

  As the rock beat kept up a foot-tapping rhythm, he swiveled with untrammeled abandon; not only were his hips gyrating, everything about him was gyrating. He was a human zigzag, his lip upturned, his legs akimbo, his head bobbing, unshackled from anything that had come before, dancing and weaving across the stage in immoderate happiness. He wasn’t just singing rock ’n’ roll, he was rock ’n’ roll; this was freedom and joy and sex all wrapped up into a moment of spontaneous beatitude. The girls were out of control, their promises of restraint broken and forgotten, their screams erecting a wall of sound over which Elvis was hardly audible. As he concluded his two-and-half-minute revolution, he breathlessly grinned and waved good-bye: “Until we meet again, may God bless you, like he’s blessed me.” His fans shrieked as if they had been hypnotized. Based on the studio audience’s response, this had to be one of the most successful Sullivan shows ever.

  But it wasn’t. While the evening provided yet another overwhelming ratings victory, far outpacing The Steve Allen Show, a segment of the audience felt more deeply upset than ever. Elvis was hanged in effigy in Nashville, and a group of concerned citizens in St. Louis got together and burned him in effigy. That a segment of Sullivan’s audience was so unhappy presented him with a dilemma. The singer’s contract called for one more appearance. But how was Ed to handle an act that drove ratings into the stratosphere while so profoundly alienating so many of his viewers? He had always produced his show with the belief that there was a single audience, but now, for the first time, there were two very distinct audiences, irreconcilably so. Even for a master showman, rock ’n’ roll was proving to be a difficult beast to handle.

  Yet Sullivan had a solution. For Elvis’ final appearance on January 6, Ed attempted to heal the schism that wouldn’t be healed. Pleasing both the Elvis fans and Elvis haters, if such a minefield could be tiptoed through, required him to present the singer with a strict guiding hand.

  Ed was in good spirits as he opened the show that night. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a big show, a real big shew,” he said, getting a hearty chuckle with his imitation of Sullivan impressionists, “with Elvis Presley headlining tonight.” At the singer’s name the female contingent erupted into a full-throated screech. “You promised,” Ed said, smiling and pointing up at the offenders, earning him another rippling laugh.

  For the first time in his three appearances, Ed presented Elvis first. The singer was dressed in a glittery vest, his moist pompadour letting fly with a few seductively errant strands. Surrounded by the Jordanaires, he opened with a languorous, intimate version of “Love Me Tender,” in which the camera, appropriately, focused on a close facial shot. He stopped only to give a short smile—he had, if possible, grown still more charismatic since his last appearance—before launching into an aching “Heartbreak Hotel.” His shoulders quaked with the opening guitar twangs, and his entire body shimmied with the descending bass line’s plaintive cry. Or rather, it seemed as if his entire body was moving, but the camera’s eye stayed firmly fixed at chest level, so viewers at home had to surmise what the rest of him was doing based on his flurry of shoulder movements.

  As the song whirled to a close, Elvis gave an aw-shucks thanks to his fans for making the next tune his biggest hit of the year—“We really are thankful for all the success you made us have, and everything”—then jumped into a bouncy, mid-tempo “Don’t Be Cruel.” He was having fun, flashing his high-wattage smile, though he wasn’t moving much. At the song’s high point he started working it, spinning into a hip-shaking dance, but again, television viewers couldn’t see it. With this restricted camera angle it became clear—the camera would not show anything beneath his chest. The spontaneous choreography of his infamous pelvis was only implied, not seen. Ed was censoring Elvis. As the third song ended it was clear, too, that the audience had been browbeaten into its best behavior; they were curiously silent except for right after a song. Elvis, to prompt shrieks during songs, was reduced to periodically cupping his hand to his ear, which coaxed short screeches from his more free-spirited fans. But the wall of squeals came only as the singer danced offstage to end his set.

  The show moved on to English ventriloquist Arthur Worsley, whose dummy taunted him. His dummy spoke without moving its lips just as the ventriloquist did, earning hearty audience laughter. Following Worsley was Lonnie Satin, a very stiff black man in a tuxedo who crooned the ballad “I Believe” to polite applause.

  Next up was twenty-three-year-old comic Carol Burnett, who pretended to be various girl singers at Broadway auditions, including the Nose Singer, the Jaw Singer, Miss Big Deal, and Miss Old Timer. Burnett simultaneously worked the camera like a close friend and connected with the studio audience, getting continuous waves of laughter with her wildly flexible facial and vocal contortions.

  Elvis’ second set kicked off with a straight blues romp, “Too Much,” featuring a riffing guitarist and a gyrating Presley. But home viewers didn’t see much of the singer; the camera cut diplomatically to t
he guitarist’s fingertips. Elvis’ swiveling hips fueled a screaming mania in the studio audience, but home viewers were left wondering why, hearing a legion of inflamed studio fans while they got a close-up of guitar picking. For the next tune, the jaunty finger-snapper “When My Blue Moon Turns to Gold Again,” the camera was equally chaste, hovering on Elvis’ face, venturing no lower than chest level. He spun offstage to end his set, after which Sullivan told the screaming girls “rest your larynx”—the singer was coming back.

  Ed brought on boxer Sugar Ray Robinson for a celebrity chat, a common feature on the show. Considered by many experts to be the greatest pugilist in the sport’s history, Robinson wore a bandage over his left eye, having just lost the title to Gene Fullmer four days earlier. Ed chastised him, mostly good-naturedly, for what he called the boxer’s mistakes in his recent bout. “I was talking to Joe Louis the other day and he said he didn’t know what happened to you the other night,” Ed said, telling Sugar Ray he needed some lessons—which Ed proceeded to give. First, he taught Ray to clinch, pinning the boxer’s arms to his side to prevent him from punching; Robinson accepted the tip with a humble smile. To finish his lesson, Ed demonstrated the effective counterpunch: “Just remember what Sullivan tells you—hit him there!” and he sent a mock left jab to Robinson’s mid section.

  Following the boxer was ballerina Nancy Crompton, who twirled in a tutu to a frantic cancan beat, rippling across the stage faster than the camera could follow. Then a rotund Brazilian singer, Leny Eversong, growled and belted out “El Cumbanchero” over a bongo-driven Latin beat. She was succeeded by a four-man German acrobatic team, the Gutees, two of whom were dressed as gorillas; their act was a two-minute melee of zoo animals versus zookeepers.

  In the audience, Ed introduced two sports stars, Don Budge, the first player to win tennis’ Grand Slam, and Jackie Robinson, who had broken baseball’s color line in 1947, and who had recently retired. Ed gave a short speech about the greatness of Robinson’s career and led a second round of applause for him.

  Following this was Bory and Bor, a ballroom dancer in a tuxedo who waltzed with a life-size female mannequin dressed in an elegant evening gown. Accompanied by a wild brassy beat, he flew around the stage with her in his arms, sometimes using the mannequin as support for a leap, sometimes spinning the mannequin as if she was a real woman. His act was brief, no more than ninety seconds, and he whirled so unpredictably the effect was akin to visual chaos. After big applause, Sullivan brought back on Leny Eversong, who belted out “Jezebel” over an orchestral tango. Then Ed introduced two sportswriters in the audience from competing publications, the Daily News’ Gene Ward and the New York Post’s Jimmy Cannon; this was diplomacy on Sullivan’s part—he worked for the Daily News but he wanted good press from the Post.

  Before Ed brought Elvis back out for the evening’s finale, he told viewers how committed the singer was to a charity, Hungarian relief. (Hungarians had attempted to revolt against the Soviet regime in October 1956 and were brutally suppressed.) Elvis was scheduled to perform a benefit for the charity, Ed told the audience, but in the meantime, “because he feels so keenly, he urges us all that immediate relief is needed, so long before his benefit he wants to remind you to send in your checks to your various churches, Red Cross, etc.” The audience had never put “Elvis” and “church” in the same sentence, so Ed was revealing a new dimension to the singer. And, if Elvis was such an avid supporter of the forces battling communism, then he couldn’t be a bad influence.

  The camera cut to Presley and the Jordanaires, looking solemn, who sang an a capella version of the gospel song “Peace in the Valley.” It was a lugubrious rendering, with Elvis’ voice submerged in the supporting harmonies and the singer standing as motionless as a statue. Still, the camera took no chances, shooting him only from the chest up. His fans likely expected some combustible fireworks from his final performance, yet this sober performance threw a damp blanket over the singer’s fire. Never had Elvis been so grave. In the face of such propriety even the singer’s screaming section sounded muted, barely screeching louder than the general applause.

  To wrap up the evening, Ed came on and chatted with Elvis about the singer’s plans. Lest any doubt linger about whether Presley was a subversive force—though after tonight’s neutered showing he threatened no one—Ed summed up his experience with Elvis: “I wanted to say to Elvis Presley and the country, that this is a real decent, fine boy. We want to say we’ve never had a pleasanter experience with a big name on our show, you’re thoroughly alright.” As he often did, he was speaking in code to his audience, letting them know that he himself, the unstinting watchdog, personally approved of the pompadoured singer. In response, Elvis lit up a winsome smile, the girls screeched, then Ed bid the audience good night.

  In the following weeks, Sullivan managed to avoid significant backlash from disgruntled older viewers. His decision to restrict the camera work let these viewers know that their concerns were paramount. He could still be relied upon to safeguard the family living room. It helped, too, that by Elvis’ third appearance the singer was virtually omnipresent. His recordings had held the number one chart spot for twenty-five weeks in 1956, and would hold it for another twenty-five weeks in 1957, a feat never since achieved. So any complaints about the singer’s corrupting influence now had a diffuse target.

  Still, problems loomed. Elvis was only the vanguard. Even a brief glance at the horizon revealed that rock’s infectious energy—plus the baby boom that began right after World War II—was spawning a new generation of musicians. Would they all be this difficult?

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The Globetrotter

  THE STEVE ALLEN SHOW, although it had scooped Sullivan on Elvis, rarely provided a serious ratings challenge to Ed. Allen was immeasurably wittier but lacked Sullivan’s talent as a producer. Yet since they both put on shows every Sunday night at 8 P.M., at times their head-to-head competition took on a vituperative tone. Newspapers portrayed their competition as a feud, but more accurately it was a straightforward ratings battle with some accompanying grousing. After Elvis, Sullivan vowed never again to let Allen get ahead of him with a new act, and he learned to respect Allen’s sense of what was current and compelling.

  In October 1956, just weeks before Elvis’ second Sullivan appearance, word got out that Allen planned a tribute to James Dean. The screen star’s mix of brooding nonconformism and diffident sex appeal had rocketed him to fame after only two major films, Rebel Without a Cause and East of Eden, both released in 1955. Yet Dean, as if guided by his own legend, died in a high-speed car crash in September of that year, at age twenty-four. His last film, Giant, co-starring Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson, was about to be released in the fall of 1956. Allen, hoping to capitalize on the Dean buzz as he had on Elvis, was negotiating to show a preview from Giant, and working on booking Dean’s aunt and uncle, who had raised the actor.

  Sullivan saw an opportunity. With his close relationship with film studios, securing the Giant preview was quick work; he also booked Dean’s aunt and uncle before Allen could. On October 14, Sullivan presented his Dean tribute. (Sharing the bill were ballerina Nancy Crompton, Japanese aerialist Takeo Usui, and a performing monkey named Jinx.) The ratings grab brought howls of protest from Allen, who told reporters he couldn’t believe that it was Ed himself who was “responsible for such tactics”—it must have been a Sullivan staffer. Ed, calling Allen a “crybaby,” retorted, “My show is a one-man operation and he knows it.” Furthermore, he said, “Most of the variety show things started on our show—not that I’m a genius—they just started there. And now I’m being accused of ‘pirating!’ ” Hence their feud, such as it was, began.

  The two showmen had a few more skirmishes. Allen scooped Sullivan in January 1957 by booking Charles Van Doren, the boyishly Brahmin university professor then wowing audiences with his phenomenal success on the quiz show Twenty One. (Van Doren was later disgraced in the resulting quiz show scandal.) That summe
r Allen again cried foul after a stolen booking, this time over Harry Belafonte, the Jamaican-raised actor and singer starring in 1957’s Island in the Sun. In the late spring, Sullivan announced that Belafonte would appear on his show, confounding the Allen staff, who had offered the performer $25,000 to appear first on their show. In June, Ed presented a clip of Belafonte singing “Lead Man Holler” from Island in the Sun—but without the performer himself.

  He didn’t explain the Belafonte no-show, but he did succeed in disrupting Allen’s plans for a ratings win. Allen’s producer, Jules Green, claimed that Sullivan was “cheating the public” by claiming he would present Belafonte without actually booking him. When reporters asked Ed for comment, he replied, “I have no comment to make. I have no comment on either of those punks.” Ed’s feint with the Belafonte booking proved he could out jab the Allen show at will, but in truth Allen’s Nielsen victories were few enough that Ed needn’t have bothered.

  In fact, there was little that offered Sullivan competition in the 1956–57 season. Month after month the show was one of television’s top rated. The program had long been a magnet for performers, offering a good payday as well as major exposure. At this point its ratings were so unchallenged that it offered any performer—no matter how renowned—a big bounce. (With one exception: when Ed called Colonel Tom Parker to book more Elvis appearances and he heard the singer’s new price—$200,000—he promptly hung up.) With his virtually unlimited access to talent, The Ed Sullivan Show became a live canvas that Ed filled however he wanted. Like an artist who starts with a basic knack but grows to enjoy true command over his medium, the showman was now freer and stronger than ever.

  In September he booked Edward G. Robinson to perform a scene from Paddy Chayefsky’s play Middle of the Night on the same show with legendary French vocalist Edith Piaf, who sang “The Poor People of Paris.” A few weeks later he interviewed screen stars Rita Hayworth, Jack Lemmon, and Robert Mitchum on the same bill with French comedian Salvador, followed by the Bokaras acrobats, who cavorted with a teeterboard. In November Bing Crosby bantered with comic Phil Silvers before crooning “True Love,” after which Julie Andrews sang a Broadway medley and Kate Smith belted out “God Bless America.” Later that month Fats Domino—the pioneering rock ’n’ roller had five songs in the Top 40 that year—rollicked through “Blueberry Hill” on the same bill with Conn and Mann, a tap dancing duo from New York’s Copacabana nightclub.