Impresario: The Life and Times of Ed Sullivan

by James Maguire

  Agents and performers weren’t alone in resisting this power shift. Surrendering control didn’t come naturally to Ed, and he sparred with Bob on a regular basis, chiefly over the direction of the show’s bookings. At one point they argued over a puppet act from Italy, which Ed enjoyed and wanted to dedicate an entire hour to. Bob felt the act was mediocre. “I did everything I could to persuade Ed not to do this.… But this was another example of his will, persevering and dominating, so we shot the hour.” When Ed introduced it, he told the audience that if they liked it, they should write in to say so. “Now, of course, tons of mail came in,” Precht recalled, with a laugh. “People loved Ed and loved the show, it was like he could do no wrong, so he had a lot of people saying how wonderful these puppets were, and how wonderful this hour was. So now I’m gritting my teeth.” The evening, however, wasn’t a ratings success—yet Ed still wanted to prove his point to Bob. “Finally, after all this mail had accumulated, bags and bags and bags, he had all the mail put on the stage floor, in a big pile. And he said to the audience, ‘Bob Precht and I want to thank you for this great response.’ Talk about having your nose rubbed in it—he really did it.”

  Among the bookings Precht and Sullivan argued about were those of older performers. Ed was a soft touch for old vaudevillians and aging athletes. His sentimental fondness for both meant that he booked boxers or baseball players far past their prime, or ancient Palace veterans, regardless of their audience appeal. He had done this since the show’s inception and would continue to do so. As talent coordinator Vince Calandra recalled, Ed booked old vaudevillians because he wanted to ensure they got the minimum yearly salary required by the actors union to maintain their retirement benefits. (Not that his patience with vaudevillians was limitless. After he cut Sophie Tucker from two numbers to one and she started to get upset, he said, “Shut your mouth and get back up onstage and do one number, or you’re off the show.”)

  As late as 1970, Ed introduced Jack Dempsey from the audience, and Dempsey had lost the heavyweight title in 1927. (Ed often went to the boxer’s Broadway restaurant for lunch, talking with Jack for hours about old times.) But as the show increased its emphasis on acts aimed at younger viewers, and set designer Bill Bohnert’s sleek, geometric sets started sporting the bright paisley flowers that typified the 1960s, these 1930s-era guests felt increasingly out of place. It was Precht who kept this urge of his father-in-law’s in check, always pushing the show toward the contemporary.

  In 1966 Ed appeared in a movie with Sister Luc-Gabrielle, a musical performer whose Sullivan show appearance helped vault her to stardom. Starring Debbie Reynolds and Ricardo Montalban, The Singing Nun told the story of the Belgian nun’s rise to fame, fueled by her real-life 1963 number one hit “Dominique,” a lilting folk song which earned her a Grammy and a 1964 booking on the Sullivan show. As in Bye Bye Birdie, this Warner Bros. release used a Sullivan show appearance to signify the pinnacle of success.

  The film’s theme is the struggle between the sanctity of a religious life and the temptations of the secular world. Sister Luc-Gabrielle, called Sister Ann in the film, experiences budding fame as a singer—a record pressing is an unintentional hit—after which she faces the new challenges of worldly success. As her burgeoning celebrity calls into question her commitment to her religious vocation, she wonders which path she’ll take: will she remain committed to her spiritual calling? At one point, looking out at the secular life, Sister Ann visits a local rock ’n’ roll club, a trip she finds distressing—the fast music and the dancing teens are deeply unpleasant for her. Still, her direction in life remains unclear.

  Ed, playing himself, portrays a character whose meaning is twofold. No one could be more respectful toward the nuns, yet he still represents worldly success. He travels to Belgium to request that Sister Ann perform on his show, but first he must face the stern Mother Superior, who disdains the secular life. Although Ed’s assistant assures her his program is a “very clean, family-type show,” she denies his request. Ed, wallowing in piousness, requests just one thing: could he at least meet Sister Ann before he goes home?

  Upon meeting the young nun, who’s still scrubbing floors while her record climbs the charts, Ed repeats his offer directly to her: would she come to New York to perform?

  Sister Ann: New York …?

  Mother Superior: Of course I told him no.

  Ed: I regret that Mother, because our Cardinal in New York has proposed perhaps we’d get something for your order that is badly needed.

  Priest: We could have used a jeep, Mr. Sullivan, particularly when we reopen in Africa.

  Ed: I was thinking of several jeeps, Father.

  Priest: Several jeeps!

  Mother Superior: One is all we will need, Mr. Sullivan.

  And with that, Ed, having used material goods to prompt change at the nunnery, presents Sister Ann to America. (In real life, the Mother Superior requested two jeeps after hearing of the size of Sullivan’s audience.) Sister Ann’s performance on the Sullivan show becomes the movie’s fulcrum point. She has now bitten the apple, and is thrown into a period of extreme moral doubt. In the end, however, she is seen in Africa ministering to the needy, having reaffirmed her commitment to her religious choice.

  While critics panned the film as cloying and saccharine it did well at the box office, and also inspired the TV sitcom The Flying Nun, which ran for three years. (Ironically, the real singing nun faced similar choices. She decided to leave the convent after the film’s release, yet despite a sustained publicity blitz never had another hit. In 1985, after years of battling Belgian authorities over back taxes, she committed suicide with her lesbian companion.)

  Ed didn’t invite the Singing Nun back on the show to promote the film, as he had Dick Van Dyke after the 1963 release of Bye Bye Birdie. Sullivan and Precht had other priorities as they launched the 1966–67 season: namely, keeping the show fresh while continuing to appeal to older viewers. Opening the season was the Rolling Stones performing “Paint It Black,” on a bill in which Louis Armstrong blew through “Cabaret” and Joan Rivers did stand-up. For Rivers, the Sullivan show was a major opportunity, though the thirty-three-year-old comic was booked only after a Sullivan gaff.

  The week before, as the showman was listing the following week’s lineup, he had meant to say Johnny Rivers, the pop singer, yet he slipped and said Joanie Rivers. Once Ed had announced that she would appear he felt obligated. “I was booked for the next Sunday,” Rivers remembered. Ed so enjoyed her performance that over the next few years he invited her nineteen more times, a series of appearances that Rivers relished. She particularly enjoyed Sullivan’s ritual around wardrobe. “They always took you and got you your clothes at Bergdorf’s or Bonwit Teller, and they were always fitted to you. After the performance—it was like a little ritual—either Bob Precht would come in, or the wardrobe lady, and say ‘Mr. Sullivan would like you to have your dress.’ Then you would send a thank-you note. It was one way that you knew he liked you.”

  On the day of her debut appearance, Ed made a special demand on that evening’s rock ’n’ roll headliner. “I was in the dressing room next to the Rolling Stones, and I remember he insisted they get their hair washed—and he was right. And they got their hair washed.”

  Additional shampoo was the least of what confronted the Stones for their Sullivan guest shots, recalled production assistant Jim Russek. For one of their appearances, simply getting the group into the theater proved dangerous. The band had been warned not to leave the theater between dress rehearsal and showtime, but they disregarded this advice. As they returned, such a huge crowd of fans awaited them at the stage door that the band’s limousine hurriedly drove around the block toward an alternate entrance—which unfortunately had a glass door. The band jumped out to try to make it into the theater, “but the fans figured it out, so they got there at the same time,” Russek said. “There was such a crush that the window broke and they squeezed themselves through. Three of the guys got in prett
y quickly, but [guitarist] Brian Jones was last, and I had to help pull him through.”

  The Stones, undaunted by hair washing requests or crazed fans, returned in January for a set that included both sides of their new single, “Let’s Spend the Night Together” and “Ruby Tuesday.” Many radio stations were refusing to play what they saw as the overtly sexual “Let’s Spend the Night Together,” so they aired only the B side, making “Ruby Tuesday” a number one hit by March. Ed, wanting the ratings boost from both new songs, demanded that the Stones alter the lyric to the controversial song to “Let’s spend some time together.”

  The band balked, but Ed issued his standard ultimatum: “Either the song goes, or you go.” The Stones reluctantly acceded. By the time the group played the song for dress rehearsal, the directive had been stressed to lead singer Mick Jagger repeatedly, to the point where he was getting angry. When the CBS Standards and Practices representative arrived, he needed to witness Jagger being told to change the lyric, but he didn’t want to approach the band himself. So the task was given to talent coordinator Vince Calandra, who dutifully walked up onstage and told the singer, once again, that he needed to change the lyric. “Fuck off, mate,” Jagger said, as Calandra recalled. During the broadcast, the Stones singer performed as requested but briefly rolled his eyes upward to theatrically mime his protest.

  As was now expected, Sullivan again this season presented all the latest bands in the suddenly exploding pop-rock scene. The Mamas and the Papas harmonized on “California Dreamin’ ” and the Lovin’ Spoonful, performing in front of a spinning kaleidoscope backdrop, sang “Do You Believe in Magic.” Paul Revere and the Raiders romped through “Kicks,” the Turtles rendered their number one hit “Happy Together,” and the Young Rascals performed “Lonely Too Long.” Many of the groups from the last few years returned, most notably the Beatles, who offered a taped performance of “Penny Lane” and the psychedelic “Strawberry Fields Forever.”

  Although rock ’n’ roll was now a central element in the show, it had reached a saturation point. Sullivan and Precht would not allow the new sound to take up yet more program time. If anything, the two producers retreated somewhat from rock in 1966–67, usually booking no more than one band in an evening. This left ample time for traditional acts. Over the course of the season, Jack Benny did stand-up, Henny Youngman tossed out one-liners, and sketch comedy team Wayne and Schuster made three of their fifty-eight appearances. The Woody Herman Orchestra accompanied velvety vocalist Mel Tormé on “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.” Bandleader Xavier Cugat, who was a strolling violinist at the Casa Lopez nightclub the night that Ed met Sylvia there, jumped through “Tequila.” The U.S. Marine Silent Drill Team displayed their precision maneuvers, as did the show’s never-ending stream of jugglers, contortionists, and acrobats. The Sullivan show, or so it seemed, could balance its offering for all audiences just as it always had.

  The program’s emphasis on high art had lessened greatly—it was not a ratings winner. With rock ’n’ roll now taking up a hefty percentage of airtime, something had to be cut, and the stage plays and classical musicians so frequent in the 1950s fell victim. Still, there continued to be at least a token nod to fine art. In December, the Berlin Mozart Choir performed, and a month later dancers Edward Villella and Patricia McBride of the New York City Ballet performed a pas de deux from Asafieff’s Flames of Paris. Ballerina Sandra Balesti floated through a solo, though her accompaniment was a Rodgers and Hammerstein medley.

  From a ratings standpoint, the updated Sullivan show remained a hardy perennial. As the 1966–67 season ended—Sullivan’s nineteenth year on the air—The Ed Sullivan Show was television’s thirteenth-ranked program, and continued to win its time slot. It was the longest-running prime-time show, and its ratings verified it was as much an institution as a television show.

  Mellow. That was a word that had never been used to describe Ed Sullivan. In the reams of newsprint that the New York press had churned out about the showman since the late 1940s, never once had that descriptive been employed. However, as the mid 1960s turned toward the late 1960s, Ed demonstrated that even Irish whiskey could lose its edge.

  “I remember once I came in to talk with him and he was taking a nap—and I thought, that’s crazy,” recalled comic Joan Rivers, a regular in this period. The naps between dress rehearsal and broadcast—which never happened in earlier years—had become a weekly occurrence. The personal secretaries who worked with him in these years all remembered him as a kind, gentle man who rarely raised his voice, though they had heard tales of the Sullivan temper. “He was always very nice to me,” recalled Barbara Gallagher, a production assistant who worked closely with Ed in the mid to late 1960s. “He would tease me—‘Hey legs, how you doing?’ ” She knew he ran a “tight ship” in previous years, yet now “he became more docile, more introspective.” The show seemed to bustle around him, as the veteran crew went about its work like a well-tuned machine, guided by Bob Precht.

  Chatting with Joan Rivers, 1966. “If he put his arm around you, you knew you had made it,” recalled Rivers. “The power he had was enormous.” (CBS Photo Archive)

  Vinna Foote, a production assistant in the late 1960s, remembered Ed calling her to join him at the neighborhood restaurant he ate at before airtime, ostensibly to make last-minute changes. But he had no changes to make. “A couple times he had me come over, he just wanted me to have a drink with him.” She declined the drink, but sat and talked with him as he had his customary preshow Dubonnet liquor with Sweet ‘n Low. “He never chased me around or anything—he was lonely, he was a lonely person.”

  Ed’s forgetfulness and mental confusion were becoming more pronounced. “You knew there was a really sharp guy at home somewhere, but he wasn’t showing it as much,” recalled production assistant Jim Russek. “Because he wasn’t as in the loop as much as he was in earlier years, that was frustrating to him, and he was capable of lashing out at people when he felt out of control.” One Sunday evening, Ed came down from his nap about an hour before showtime, mistakenly thinking it was just minutes before broadcast. “He started screaming, ‘Where the hell is everybody?—We’ve got a show to do!—Why am I the only one standing here?’ ” After a few moments of yelling, Russek explained to him, “Sir, it’s quarter to seven.” After the show Ed and the staff had a laugh about it.

  In June 1967, he considered plastic surgery; his baggy eyes were beginning to give him a haggard look. He set up an appointment and went to the doctor’s office, sitting in the waiting room. After a while he got up and took a walk, then decided to skip surgery. Ed would be Ed, unvarnished as always.

  That same June, in an interview with Ladies Home Journal, he had kind words for, of all people, Walter Winchell. Walter “invented the Broadway column and wrote it better than anybody else,” Ed said. He conceded something that had long bedeviled him in earlier decades: “Any columnist had to run in his shadow. Me included.… No matter which way I turned, there was Winchell in my way.” Ed even offered an olive branch: “Winchell and I haven’t spoken to each other in years. But I wish we’d continue to be friends.” His assessment of Winchell’s earlier power was accurate, yet the younger Ed Sullivan had been loathe to acknowledge it. Never in his many years of snarling at Walter had he admitted he was envious of the hugely famous columnist.

  Several weeks later the former archrivals both happened to be having dinner at Dinty Moore’s restaurant. Ed was dining with Sylvia; Winchell was dining with Dorothy Moore, the executive secretary of the Runyon Fund, a cancer research fund he founded after the death of writer Damon Runyon. Walter, by 1967, had hit bottom. His influential radio show was long gone and his column’s distribution had dwindled to the vanishing point. (In desperation, he began visiting the El Morocco nightclub and handing out mimeographed copies of his column.) Perhaps due to his lessened circumstances, Ed’s kind comments in Ladies Home Journal meant all the more to him. Seeing Ed across the room, Walter got up and said hello. He greeted
Sullivan warmly and Ed reciprocated. Suddenly, they were chums. The decades spent cursing at each other, glaring at one another at the Stork, faded away. Walter invited Ed to join the board of the Runyon Fund, which Ed accepted. The two made a date to meet later that week for cocktails at El Morocco. Either by coincidence or invitation, onetime Graphic columnist Louis Sobol also showed up at the nightclub. The trio had a photo snapped: three smiling newspapermen, three old friends.

  From left, Jackie Gleason, Gene Kelly, Sullivan. When Sullivan visited the set of Jackie Gleason’s TV show in January 1967, the three men goofed through an impromptu tap dance. In the late 1940s, Sullivan introduced Jackie Gleason to the television audience. (Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)

  In Sullivan’s September 10 broadcast, he introduced Winchell from the audience. Ed, momentarily confused, referred to Walter as a sports star, an introduction meant for football hero Frank Gifford, also in the audience. He then found his place in the cue cards and touted Walter as the “daddy of the Broadway columnists.” (In that same show, featuring the rock group the Young Rascals, the girls in the audience screamed so much that Ed yelled, with a smile, “Quiet or I’ll thrash you!” proving he hadn’t turned into complete butterscotch.)

  A year later the Friars honored Sullivan for his twentieth year on the air; at the ceremony Walter sat up on the dais with Ed. In his speech, Winchell spoke glowingly of his former rival: “As we both grew older, we found that we were citizens of a kingdom more beautiful than Camelot. Not a never-never land, but a very real and magic place called Broadway. Ed Sullivan is as much a part of Broadway as Times Square, Dinty Moore’s, Toots Shor’s, Lindy’s, Max’s Stage Deli, Variety.…” As the evening concluded, Ed shook Walter’s hand and said, “Walter, don’t ever let thirty-five years separate us again.”