The decision that Ed made in filling this principal role was to be a central determinant in the show’s success in the decade ahead, although the extent to which this was true wasn’t clear at the time. The new producer was Bob Precht, Ed’s son-in-law. Having worked as a production assistant on the show since the mid 1950s, he had demonstrated an eye for detail and a set of organizational skills that far surpassed Marlo’s. Bob had produced many of the remote broadcasts in recent years, working closely with Ed on what were some of his father-in-law’s favorite projects. Notably, Precht’s supervision of the Soviet show, handling a crew of eighty during a three-week trip in adverse circumstances, proved him to be a meticulous and tireless administrator.
Whether Bob was ready to step into such a vital job was questioned by some. “Bob had a lot to learn,” recalled Sistie Moffit, an administrative assistant. “And he was coming in with people who had a lot of background and experience. I felt sorry for Bob—we all did.” Certain Sullivan staffers whispered about ill-advised nepotism; some of these murmurs were fueled by fear that Bob would clean house of Marlo loyalists. But Ed’s decision to hire Bob wasn’t nepotism, or at least not purely so. That Precht was his son-in-law had gotten him in the door, but Ed cared too deeply about his show to promote someone to an all-important role merely because he was a relative.
It didn’t hurt that Bob was younger. In the fall of 1960 Ed turned fifty-nine; Marlo was forty-five; Bob was twenty-nine. When Ed began producing the show in 1948 he had been immersed in the Zeitgeist; he not only wrote about all the day’s leading performers in his column, he knew them all personally. But with the passing years he had lost some of that. He had initially missed Elvis, calling him too expensive and unfit for family viewing; only after realizing his mistake did he parlay the rock ’n’ roller to a massive ratings win. It was the kind of trend he wouldn’t have been late to in 1948. And Marlo hadn’t been any more prescient about the Elvis tidal wave. So having a coproducer with a fresh outlook seemed like a good bet—especially when the youthful Jack Kennedy won the presidency that fall, making it feel like the culture had been renewed. Unmistakably, change was in the air.
Ed and Bob formed a partnership far different than that of Ed and Marlo. Or, more accurately, over time they did. Sullivan had no intention of giving up even a small bit of his absolute authority when he promoted his son-in-law. He hired Bob as a sharper and better-organized version of Marlo. But Precht had different ideas. Ed’s daughter Betty had married a man not dissimilar to her father. He would not be the minor tyrant that Ed could be, and he was not prone to Ed’s competitive rages. Yet he could be headstrong, and he was not content with the essentially secondary role that Marlo had played. “I was aggressive,” Precht said. “If I was to do that job, I wanted to really do the job, I didn’t want to just take orders and put the cameras out.”
That was clear as The Ed Sullivan Show began the 1960–61 season, Precht’s first as producer. The show looked and moved differently. It was as if with the turning of a decade it was now a new show, or at least looked like one. During the 1950s the stage sets often appeared token, sometimes assembled hurriedly after Ed booked a news-making act the day before. Bob changed that. He hired Bill Bohnert, a young set designer with an MFA from Yale and an architecture degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Bohnert’s fondness for clean, geometric designs gave the show a mod look in keeping with the 1960s; alternately, he created big, showy sets for musical numbers, and realistically detailed backdrops for Broadway and opera productions.
Additionally, the show’s pacing, previously Ed’s exclusive province, was quickened. To help this along, Precht fired Johnny Wray, the show’s director throughout the 1950s, and replaced him with Tim Kiley, who at age thirty-four was already an established CBS staff director. The effect was dramatic: intros and outros were smoother, and the entire program seemed to flow better. Ed himself would still walk out of the camera’s view unexpectedly, leaving viewers looking at the stage curtain, but most of the other camera angles were better coordinated. In a creative touch, the show sometimes opened with a shot of the evening’s performers walking onstage in an eclectic parade, accompanied by contemporary music.
Marlo had sometimes conducted Saturday rehearsals before the Sunday dress rehearsals, especially for elaborate segments. Under Bob’s direction these Saturday rehearsals became part of the show’s weekly life cycle. His improvements did not come without friction. Some of the longtime staffers resented Precht’s changes and the new producer found himself in full-bore arguments. Ed himself, for a period, became more actively involved in the show’s technical minutiae, much to Bob’s chagrin. But with time the new producer carved out his own turf.
Bob, though willing to be unpopular with the staff when necessary, always used a soft touch with his father-in-law—necessarily, because Ed brooked no rebellion among staffers, related or not. Nonetheless, it’s clear from viewing the shows in the early 1960s that Bob diplomatically devised a method to—somewhat—sharpen Ed’s stage presence. The showman’s introductions could be surprisingly ill-focused; he seemed to know what he wanted to say but could stumble through a handful of sentences getting it out. His comments now tended to be shorter and more to the point, though the old syntax-garbled Ed certainly wasn’t gone. (The fact that he wasn’t suave still didn’t matter to sponsors, who sought to make use of his credibility with viewers. Kodak, as had Lincoln Mercury, had Ed perform the voiceover for dozens of their ads, and he often did an extensive live lead-in before cutting to commercial.)
Bob hoped to make still another change, one that went to the very core of the show: he wanted to have a say in bookings. This, of course, was heresy to Ed. The showman’s sense of talent and his intuitive grasp of his audience had always been the heart of The Ed Sullivan Show. He had given Marlo the rundown over the phone every week. Sure, Ed accepted tips and suggestions from almost anyone, from cab drivers to family members to those he spoke to during his nightclub prowling. He followed the pop charts, fielded calls from talent agents and show business cronies, read the newspapers, and traveled constantly. But all these sources were funneled down to one producer. It was set in stone: all the artistic decisions of The Ed Sullivan Show were made by its namesake.
Yet Bob felt strongly about having input on bookings. He thought about it for weeks before approaching Ed and telling him he wanted to be a producer in the fullest sense of the title. Furthermore, Precht felt the bookings needed some refreshing; using comedian Jack Carter six times in a season was overkill in Bob’s view, however good the comic’s Sullivan imitation. (Carter, who hosted the variety show Cavalcade of Stars in 1949, had for years regularly met Ed for drinks at Danny’s Hideaway.) Bob, with his more youthful and liberal worldview, hoped to renew the Sullivan formula.
It’s a measure of the respect Ed had for Bob that they came to a reconciliation on this issue. Perhaps the fact that Bob was his son-in-law helped tip the balance; the two of them spent holidays together, and went out for dinner together with their wives after the show every week. Ed, who had always been too driven to develop close friendships, had something of a close friend in Bob. At any rate, it was agreed: Bob and Ed would consult about the bookings. Which is to say, Ed retained final veto power. “Ed was the boss,” remembered pop singer Connie Francis, who saw the working relationship between the two men during her twenty-six Sullivan show appearances. “I think Bob Precht had an ‘ES’ carved out on his ulcers.”
If the show’s bookings took no major turn in the 1960–61 season—instead continuing as the perfect mirror of current tastes as they always had—one guest reflected the change of decade more than most. Comedian and political satirist Mort Sahl’s pointed barbs were a major departure from many comics of the era, who still relied on mother-in-law jokes and vaudeville gags. Sahl had offended enough people to receive violent threats for lampooning the 1950s-era House Un-American Activities Committee, the spearhead of McCarthyism and an entity that Ed wholeheartedly suppor
ted. Sahl’s left-leaning version of Will Rogers—style populism made him a favorite on the more cerebral Steve Allen Show, but Ed had never booked him in the 1950s. His appearance on the Sullivan show, the imprimatur of mainstream acceptance, signaled a change in popular tastes.
In one of his Sullivan show performances, Sahl referred to his army stint during the Korean War, saying that there were “no supplies, no ammunition, no gasoline— but you could buy them.” As his morale fell, “One day I said, ‘I don’t know what we’re doing here.’ An officer heard me. He was going to send me back.” That was considered a terrible punishment, Sahl said, “Although oddly, two officers fought over the right to escort me back.” As punishment, the army sent him to a military psychiatric hospital, where they gave him a little ID tag with his photo, which, he quipped, “I could use if I ever wanted to cash a check at a market.”
The acerbic comic appeared five times on the Sullivan show, three times that season. Ed took the show on the road that fall, visiting cities across the United States. During a San Francisco broadcast, Sahl skewered presidential candidates Kennedy and Nixon; on the same bill, opera star Dorothy Kirsten sang an aria from Madame Butterfly in the city’s Japanese Tea Garden and the Dave Brubeck Quartet vamped their jazz classic “Take Five,” which made a recent surprise showing on the pop charts. In December pioneering soul singer Jackie Wilson headlined, flashing his choreographed dance moves and dropping to one knee to croon “To Be Loved”; right after Wilson, Sahl performed, sending up American foreign policy and New York City cops. In June the comic shared the bill with The Limeliters, a folk music group whose ironic wit had been incubated at San Francisco’s progressive nightclub The Hungry i, as had Sahl’s. (Along the same line, Sullivan presented Odetta, a young black female folksinger who would soon record the protest song “No More Auction Block for Me.” Ed booked her for that season’s Christmas show to sing “Shout for Joy” and “Poor Little Jesus.”)
Most of this season’s comics were far from Sahl’s territory, though even Jack Carter was now telling jokes about beatniks. In November, Ed booked a show headlined by comic Jerry Lewis, vaudevillian Sophie Tucker, and singer Connie Francis, who had just released a Jewish-themed album and planned to sing a cut from it, “My Yiddishe Mama.” However, the singer recalled, “Sophie had a fit, because that was ‘her song’ and she insisted I not do it.” Tucker enlisted Jerry Lewis in her complaint, and Lewis agreed: Connie Francis should not be allowed to sing “My Yiddishe Mama”—it was Sophie Tucker’s song. The squabble quickly turned into a minor tempest. “Jerry and Sophie were going to walk off the show, and they were really serious about it,” Francis remembered. The singer offered Ed a compromise, telling him she had eleven other songs she could do. But Ed was adamant, siding with Francis: “She’ll do whatever she wants.” Jerry Lewis and Sophie Tucker gave in, performing as planned, with Lewis doing a routine in which he attempted to teach Ed how to be charismatic, playing the showman’s wooden persona for comic hi jinks.
In February, Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks performed a lighthearted routine, sharing the bill with Henry Fonda, who read two of Lincoln’s speeches, and torch singer Peggy Lee, who smoldered through her 1942 hit “Why Don’t You Do Right?” Later that month Lucille Ball saw top billing, reprising the tune “Wildcat” that she had just performed in her Broadway debut. In that same show Rowan and Martin satirized diet doctors.
Ed, true to form, mixed lowbrow with high art this season. In his broadcast from Chicago he toured both the stockyards and the Chicago Art Institute, presenting jazz clarinetist Benny Goodman playing with the city’s Fine Arts String Quartet. That same show, Charlton Heston read Carl Sandburg’s poem “Chicago” and ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his dummy conversed about Vikings.
There was virtually no straight theater this year, a change from past seasons, though scenes from Broadway musicals were still staged. For a tribute show to Broadway duo Lerner and Lowe, Richard Burton rendered a scene from their Camelot. (Bob Precht had to keep calling Burton’s hotel to ensure he was sober enough to go on.) As usual, there were plenty of film clips: John Wayne appeared to promote The Alamo and Sal Mineo plugged Exodus. Having grown up with vaudeville, Ed booked the genre’s aging stars even though the general public had largely forgotten them; this season the show featured Smith and Dale, who had played the Palace in its heyday, now doing one-liners in their seventies.
One of the oddest moments this season was an appearance by Salvador Dalí, the Spanish Surrealist painter. “Tonight, on our stage, Salvador Dalí figures in what we’re pleased to call an historic moment in art,” Ed said, holding a pistol that shot paint pellets. “Dalí believes that the most unusual patterns in art may be produced by this gun.” Dalí, in a dandyish pinstriped suit that complemented his flamboyantly upturned mustache, fired the paint gun at several large canvases, creating original art before an audience of millions, then signed a canvas with a theatrical flourish.
Salvador Dalí on the Sullivan show, 1961. Sullivan touted the painter’s appearance as “an historic moment in art,” as Dalí shot paint pellets at a canvas for a live television audience. (CBS Photo Archive)
That Ed had begun sharing booking decisions with Bob didn’t mean he had gone soft. Sullivan the lion had occasion to roar in January, when Nat “King” Cole, a favorite of Ed’s who appeared thirteen times, refused to yield to the showman’s song choice. The mellow crooner wanted to perform his new tune, “Illusion.” Ed said no— only established material could be performed on his show, he said. The two came to loggerheads, and, in a highly publicized spat, Ed canceled the singer’s appearance.
“I feel my integrity as an artist has been questioned,” Cole told a reporter after the cancellation. Ed retorted: “We don’t intend to have the show used as a vehicle for plugging a record that’s not even been released.” Having gotten himself into a lather about the issue, Sullivan drove the point home: “We don’t think this is a good song; if we’re wrong we’ll be the first to admit it.”
Up until then the two had enjoyed a perfect partnership. Ed, who took pride in championing black performers, found the ideal entertainer in Cole, whose butterscotch-soft persona made this groundbreaking effort comparatively easier. Cole’s many Sullivan show appearances helped him land The Nat King Cole Show in 1956, the first network variety show hosted by a major black star. (No national sponsor would support the show, reportedly fearing a southern boycott, and several NBC affiliates in the north and south declined to carry it; it was canceled after thirteen months.) After Sullivan and Cole’s spat they never repaired their friendship, and the singer never again appeared on the show. However, after Cole’s death in 1965, Ed booked his widow Maria Cole as she launched a comeback in her singing career.
The Sullivan show’s ratings for the 1960–61 season were strong—Nielsen indicated the show dominated its Sunday time slot. Among some one hundred programs in prime time, the Sullivan show ranked fifteenth, one step down from last season, yet clearly holding a coveted spot. The show was withstanding the Western onslaught, which continued apace: five of the top six programs that season were set in the Old West. But the once highly ranked Western running opposite the Sullivan show, Maverick, was now homesteading outside the top twenty.
As the season began, and the ratings pointed to the year’s success, Ed huddled with his lawyer Arnold Grant and his MCA management team. It was time to renegotiate his compensation package. A few months before, Ed had written a letter to CBS head Bill Paley as a first move in the negotiation process. Pointing out that a recent Sullivan show garnered a remarkable fifty-nine-percent audience share, Ed wrote: “I am looking forward eagerly to the Nielsen report, which should show an even more astounding share of audience.” He also sent along a Canadian ratings report, which, Sullivan noted, “shows your oldest show topping the Canadian market.” In case all the facts and figures didn’t suffice, the showman added a dose of sugar: “I always have held you in affectionate respect and even helped straighten out yo
ur golf game!”
Sullivan didn’t need to do much sweet-talking. “Paley loved Ed Sullivan—he loved hits,” recalled Mike Dann, a CBS programming head in the 1960s. The new contract reflected that affection. Its terms stretched over an astonishing thirty-five years, stipulating various pay levels over that period. Given that Ed signed the agreement at age fifty-nine, the network was in essence agreeing to reward him handsomely until the end of his days. While he continued to produce the show, his salary would be $1 million per year, with increases in the years ahead. When he ceased production or when the show was canceled, the network guaranteed him a minimum of $100,000 per year. In the event the show was canceled in the next two years, CBS would make an additional payout to Sullivan. The program’s production budget was upped to $73,000 per show.
He was, finally, being paid as a superstar. It had taken a long time, in view of the show’s twelve-year run and its dominance during most of those years. It was as if there had been a lingering trace of the original CBS attitude of selling the show “with or without Sullivan.” But his new pay level (which he didn’t release to reporters as he had in 1954) put that era well in the past. Still, in the years ahead Sullivan never stopped intimating that network management didn’t appreciate him, though with his new contract those complaints rang hollow.
As Ed emerged from negotiations, there was talk—for the first time—of using reruns in the summer. It had always been a point of pride for him that the show kept creating fresh programs all year long. He himself took a brief summer vacation, using his “break” to produce on-location segments, but substitute hosts kept the show going. Producing nearly fifty new programs a year had given him a competitive edge against the better-financed Comedy Hour. In mid season, Ed wasn’t willing to answer reporters’ questions about whether he would create new shows all summer, claiming that nothing had been decided. But in the summer of 1961 The Ed Sullivan Show ran six weeks of reruns. Additionally, within a few years Ed began taping a number of shows on Monday nights in front of a studio audience, to allow himself and the staff a rest on certain weeks.
Impresario: The Life and Times of Ed Sullivan Page 39