ARTHUR GODFREY & SINGER JANETTE DAVIS WHO AVOIDED ALL OF HIS CAST PURGES.
“HOW AH YA, HOW AH YA?”
At mid-20th Century America, everybody recognized the face and voice of Arthur Godfrey - The Ol’ Redhead - who rose from poverty and near death to become the country’s most popular radio and television personality. Pushed by the powerful CBS promotion machine, every major magazine ran stories about Godfrey’s days in the Navy, Godfrey’s long and painful recovery from a severe auto accident, Godfrey’s sensational ability to sell his sponsors’ products, Godfrey’s patriotism, Godfrey’s exploits as a pilot, Godfrey’s charitable works, Godfrey’s love of animals - and of course, Godfrey’s humility,
And most of it was true.
Arthur Morton Godfrey was born in Manhattan on August 31, 1903, the eldest of five children. The impoverished Godfrey family moved to Hasbruck Heights, New Jersey, in 1915 and Arthur began working after school to help his parents. He dropped out of school at 15 to work full time, drifted from job to job, then lied about his age and joined the Navy at 17. His four years in the Navy, trained as a radio operator, and his subsequent service in the Coast Guard as a radio specialist familiarized Godfrey with the medium. Leaving military service in 1929, he landed a job at WFBR/Baltimore as a staff announcer and as The Warbling Banjoist, then moved a few months later to NBC’s Blue Network affiliate in Washington, D.C., WMAL.
During this period, Godfrey developed a life-long passion for flying. He was driving to a flying lesson at a nearby airfield in 1931 when an oncoming truck lost a left front wheel and smashed head-on into Godfrey’s car, demolishing it. The two men in the truck were thrown clear but Godfrey was crushed in the wreckage. His pelvis was broken in 27 places, his right hip was smashed, his left hip was permanently injured, both kneecaps were smashed and he had a collapsed lung. His chances for survival were dim - at best it was doubtful that he would ever walk again if he did live. Through sheer and painful determination Godfrey overcame all odds and walked back into WMAL months later, albeit with a decided limp. (1)
He also came back to WMAL’s Breakfast Club morning show a different kind of performer. During his long hospitalization Godfrey spent hours listening to the radio and had the epiphany that made him the great communicator he became. He realized that radio was a personal medium but no one was attempting to speak directly to the individual listener.
In their 1963 book, It Sounds Impossible, former CBS executives Sam Slate and Joe Cook describe Godfrey’s return. “…Listeners heard for the first time the casual, unhurried speech…the ruminating, hesitant pace…the purring growl that has since opened the doors to millions of American homes.”
Quoting Godfrey, “Radio is nothing but door-to-door selling. I recalled my experiences as a house-to-house salesman. If the lady of the house had no confidence in me, she wouldn’t even listen to me. I wouldn’t knock on some woman’s door and when she opened it, bellow, ‘Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, this is Arthur Godfrey speaking!’ She’d slam it in my face and phone for the cops!”
But Godfrey’s informal delivery wasn’t what the staid and scripted WMAL wanted. He was fired, left the station with his young wife and began looking for a new job. (2) He represented a revolutionary new kind of radio that could shake up the market for crosstown rival WJSV which was purchased 18 months earlier by CBS. Godfrey was hired and took over WJSV’s early morning Sundial show at 7:15 a.m. on January 15, 1934, beginning a 14 year run on the station.
Godfrey made an immediate impact by adlibbing commercials, kidding sponsors, breaking records with a hammer, taunting station brass and generally making a bad little boy of himself every morning. Listeners couldn’t get enough of WJSV’s new unpredictable morning man who made them laugh by seemingly talking off the top of his red head. More importantly, they were responding to what he was saying and selling - just like he thought they would.
In July, 1939, WJSV ran an ad in the trade press that noted, “In 1938 he handled more than 5,600 announcements on his WJSV morning Sundial show. More than 75% of his accounts were renewals.”
One of Godfrey’s first network jobs for CBS came in 1936 when he served as announcer for Craig Earl’s Professor Quiz, then originated at WJSV in a tryout period on a limited number of affiliates. He lost that job when Earl and the show moved to New York City in 1937. His first “starring” break on the network began on January 24, 1938, when Barbasol Shaving Cream sponsored a 13-week series of 15 minute of Godfrey chatter and songs on Monday and Friday nights. The show registered a meager 3.4 rating - 90th place among 94 prime time programs.
The following January 3, 1939, Carnation Milk sponsored Godfrey in a transcribed mid-morning quarter hour show on Monday-Wednesday-Fridays for 39 weeks over nine Mutual affiliates including WOR/New York City. Godfrey was finally heard in the Big Apple on weekday mornings, but not yet on the station that was his objective - CBS flagship WABC.
Reports began to circulate in early 1941 that NBC was talking to Washington’s dominant radio personality about jumping to its New York City anchor and giving WEAF’s muddled morning hours the continuity, listeners and billings that Godfrey had brought to WJSV. As might be expected, CBS reacted immediately and began to renegotiate Godfrey’s contract.
As a result, beginning on May 5, 1941, Arthur Godfrey was heard in two cities every Monday through Saturday: 5:30 to 6:45 a.m. on WABC/New York City and 6:45 to 9:00 a.m. on WJSV/Washington. (3) His 15-minute transcribed show for Carnation had also been renewed and was broadcast from 33 Mutual stations three times a week, including WOR/New York City at 9:00 a.m.
Author Robert Metz reports in his CBS: Reflections In A Bloodshot Eye that as soon as he was on WCBS, Godfrey began badgering station manager Arthur Hull Hayes and interim CBS President Paul Kesten to, “…give me a network spot, any spot, the worst spot you’ve got.” (4)
In what now seems to be a cruel and (given Godfrey’s temperament) dangerous joke - they took the persistent morning man at his word and assigned him to a network experiment on WCBS: a five-hour all-night disc jockey show that began at 1:00 a.m. on Saturday, November 15, 1941. The experiment lasted only two weeks and Godfrey returned to his normal schedule.
Three months later, CBS gave him the more reasonable timeslot of 11:00 a.m. for a Monday-Wednesday-Friday patriotic quarter-hour, Victory Begins At Home. Beginning on February 23, 1942, the sustaining wartime effort ran a full 13 weeks.
Godfrey’s first exposure to Network Radio’s big time began on October 4, 1942, when he joined the cast of Fred Allen’s Texaco Star Theater on CBS as its announcer. Historians have offered different reasons for his dismissal and replacement on November 29th by veteran announcer Jimmy Wallington, but the November 22, 1942 show makes it obvious that when given a script of commercial copy a d set-up lines for Allen’s jokes, Godfrey was a fish out of water.
By 1944, Godfrey’s local shows in New York City and Washington were sold out with local advertisers paying $80 per spot on WABC and $30 on WJSV. He resumed his campaign for a spot on the network. Meanwhile, on March 20th he began a 13-week series of transcribed 15-minute shows with singer Lillian Lane for Barbasol Shaving broadcast three times a week in 20 major markets.
He was still on the outside fringes of national fame in 1945 when one of his listeners died - not just any listener - but President Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt was familiar with Godfrey’s morning broadcasts on WTOP, (the new call-sign for WJSV), and had helped Godfrey obtain a Navy commission in the early days of World War II despite the physical handicaps that lingered from the near fatal auto accident nearly a decade earlier. (5)
Godfrey was assigned to the CBS team covering Roosevelt’s funeral service in Washington on August 14, 1945. His tearful description of the funeral procession struck the emotions of listeners who related to his sorrow and flooded network affiliates with calls. The response shook network officials into action. They realized that Godfrey couldn’t be denied any longer and made the decision that turned CBS mornings into a gold mine.
Arthur Godfrey Time debuted on April 30, 1945, in the 9:15 a.m. half-hour occupied since 1939 by the prestigious but sustaining American School of The Air. Godfrey’s offering - an unscripted mix of live entertainment and chatter - was an immediate hit with listeners and when the network opened it for sale to advertisers, a commercial success. At the peak of its 27-year run, the mid-morning Arthur Godfrey Time had expanded to 90 minutes, parts or all of it were simulcast on CBS-TV and it recorded double-digit ratings.
The air-check from July 9, 1946 features a cast that very few will find familiar: announcer Joe King, The Jubilaires quartet, singers Marshall Young and Frank Saunders with organist Hank Sylvern’s orchestra. King was eventually replaced by Tony Marvin, The Mariners took over for The Jubilaires, Young and Saunders’ slots were filled by Bill Lawrence and Frank Parker and Sylvern was replaced by Archie Bleyer. The only Little Godfrey who would be with him through the years was singer Janette Davis. (6) At the end of this posted half-hour, Godfrey plugs his new Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts program, making its second broadcast that night on CBS.
Network Radio had been without a talent competition since Major Bowes cancelled his Original Amateur Hour in December, 1944. Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts was one of the first of the CBS “packaged” shows when it debuted at 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday, July 2, 1946, beginning a ten year run on the network. (See CBS Packages Unwrapped.)
With television right around the corner, CBS was taking no chances with its sudden star of 22 weekly hours of local and network radio time. It signed a new five-year contract with Godfrey on July 25, 1946.
The Talent Scouts format was simple. Listeners were asked to nominate acts - professional or amateur - who they thought deserving of exposure to a national audience. Five acts were picked for each show and paid $100 each while their “talent scouts”, interviewed by Godfrey about their “discoveries” received $25 each. Winners were determined by studio applause and rewarded with appearances on Arthur Godfrey Time for the next three days. A broadcast from this period, March 11, 1947, is posted.
Godfrey’s capacity for work was immense but he agreed with physicians that something had to give. So, on July 5, 1947, he trimmed Saturdays from his local broadcast duties. His revised Monday through Friday schedule was 6:00 to 7:45 a.m. on WCBS, (the new call-sign for WABC), 7:45 to 9:10 a.m. on WTOP, then 11:00 to 11:30 a.m. on the full CBS network.
Lever Brothers’ Lipton Tea bought Talent Scouts and brought it to 8:30 Monday nights on July 28, 1947. The show was suddenly smoother and slicker with the number of acts reduced from five to four to make room for the commercials done “Godfrey style” which sometimes were more entertaining than the talent he presented. The audience responded with a 21.9 rating, shooting Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts into a tie for tenth place in the annual rankings. (7)
Changes came fast for Godfrey the following year. On August 30, 1948, Arthur Godfrey Time was expanded on weekday mornings from 30 minutes to an hour. On November 1st he gave up his local programs on WCBS and WTOP. (8) On December 6th Talent Scouts began as a simulcast on CBS Radio & TV - seen on television in New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington. For frosting on the cake, the Monday night radio broadcast of the show jumped to fifth place in the 1948-49 season’s Top 50.
No one was surprised when CBS financial records filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission showed that Arthur Godfrey was the network’s highest paid employee in 1948 at $258,450; He receive another $58,440 in Columbia Records royalties, primarily from his novelty hit, The Too Fat Polka, which was Number 24 on Billboard’s best selling chart for 1948.
Was he worth all that money? C.E. Hooper released its first Network Television popularity survey encompassing 31 cities in June, 1949. Milton Berle’s Texaco Star Theater on NBC-TV ranked first with a 74.4 rating and Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts on CBS-TV was second with 72.0. On radio, Talent Scouts climbed to its highest rank in 1949-50, third place for the season, and the weekday hour-long Arthur Godfrey Time was sold out.
In January, 1950, Godfrey added another nighttime show to his schedule - one that he could listen to on his Virginia farm on Saturday nights. Arthur Godfrey’s Digest was a half-hour compilation of highlights from each week’s Arthur Godfrey Time shows sponsored by Liggett & Myers’ Chesterfield cigarettes. The following month, Time magazine ran a cover story on Godfrey which referred to him a “The One Man Industry.”
A number of Talent Scouts shows from this period remain available today. The first Lipton show of record is from April 4, 1949. The April 18th competition featured a tame monologue by Lenny Bruce and popular singer Richard Hayes made his debut on May 23, 1949. The September 26, 1949 show is notable because The Chordettes made their first of many appearances with Godfrey and Wallace (Wally) Cox performed his Whatta Guy routine.
Winners of the course of the show included Patsy Cline, Tony Bennett, Pat Boone, the McGuire Sisters, Roy Clark, Rosemary Clooney, Steve Lawrence and Connie Francis. But the May 1, 1950 show proved that winning wasn’t always the path to a successful career when Denise Lor lost the competition to operatic singer Robert Marshall. (9)
By mid-July in 1950 the success of Talent Scouts on CBS inspired a glut of 15 talent shows on the networks - eight on radio and seven on television. Meanwhile, Godfrey just kept rolling along - finishing among the Top Five shows in 1950-51.
In 1951-52 Talent Scouts remained fifth in radio popularity and became the Number One show on television while Wednesday’s hour-long Arthur Godfrey & His Friends was Number Six. The Monday night show slipped out of radio’s Top Ten to twelfth place in 1952-53, but Talent Scouts and Friends were a solid second and third on television behind the CBS runaway hit, I Love Lucy.
By the end of Network Radio’s Golden Age in 1953, Arthur Godfrey’s radio and television shows on CBS accounted for twelve percent of the network’s earnings. Had Godfrey’s story ended there it would have been the perfect conclusion to his rags to riches saga. But it didn’t….
As is still the case, the press was poised to turn on the famous it helped to create. Trade magazine Broadcasting signaled that readiness when it editorialized about Godfrey’s immense popularity after he underwent successful hip replacement surgery in May, 1953: “…It‘s only a matter of time before the second syllable in Godfrey will be forgotten”.
Godfrey played into the hands of his critics when he returned from convalescence and angrily citing, “sub-standard talent,” available for his Talent Scouts show of August 13th, staged an impromptu program featuring Janette Davis, Frank Parker and the McGuire Sisters from his other shows.
Then he made headlines in October by firing singer Julius LaRosa from his cast. LaRosa, a 23-year old Navy veteran, had been hired by Godfrey on the air two years earlier. Exposure in the CBS shows had catapulted LaRosa to fame with best-selling records on Archie Bleyer’s Cadence label and personal appearances that were paying him double his $1,000 weekly checks from Godfrey.
LaRosa’s reluctance to attend dancing lessons and television rehearsals in the autumn of 1953 was annoying enough, but his hiring an agent against strict orders was infuriating to Godfrey. The breaking point came when LaRosa’s lawyers sent a letter to Godfrey demanding that all future communications between the star and his singer be done through them.
It’s reported that Godfrey consulted with CBS President Frank Stanton on October 15th about the best way to handle LaRosa’s humiliating insubordination. After consulting with network lawyers, Stanton said, “Well, you hired him on the air, so….”
The result was in the broadcast of Arthur Godfrey Time from October 19, 1953. It’s a classic case of killing someone with kindness. Unfortunately, LaRosa’s agents and lawyers made gist of the dismissal for the waiting tabloids in which the “innocent” singer forgave Godfrey but said, “…he isn’t a very nice man.” Godfrey responded by saying that LaRosa had, “…lost his humility.”
The press, particularly syndicated columnists John Crosby and Dorothy Killgallen, took LaRosa’s side and painted Godfrey to be an arrogant autocrat who ruled his fiefdom of Friends with an iron fist. Although there may have been more than some truth to the accusations, Godfrey’s critics conveniently overlooked that turnovers in Network Radio were common and LaRosa replaced Bill Lawrence who replaced Marshall Young. They also forgot the fact that Godfrey was fiercely loyal to those who were loyal to him - his longtime personal secretary Margaret (Mug) Richardson and singer Janette Davis, for example.
Godfrey took another public relations hit the following January 7, 1954, when he was accused of “buzzing” the Teterboro, New Jersey, airport when taking off to Miami in his DC-3 plane. Godfrey said the incident was unavoidable and apologized, but nevertheless lost his pilot’s license for six months. Again, the tabloids had a field day at his expense.
Arthur Godfrey & His Friends was the first of his shows to leave the air in June, 1957, returning for eight months as the 30-minute Arthur Godfrey Show from September, 1958 until April, 1959. Then it was discovered that years of smoking - both before and after his long association with Liggett & Myers' Chesterfield cigarettes - had probably contributed to a massive cancerous growth in one of his lungs.
The lung was removed in a risky operation. Godfrey began a regimen of radiation therapy and once again - like his accident recovery in 1931 and his successful hip replacement in 1953 - he beat the odds and survived, becoming an outspoken critic of smoking.
Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts stayed in the air until January 1, 1958. Arthur Godfrey Time remained a morning fixture on CBS Radio until April 30, 1972, ending a run of exactly 27 years.
From his happier years in Network Radio’s Golden Age we close with his Arthur Godfrey Time broadcast of June 12, 1950 sponsored by Chesterfield cigarettes - almost 33 years before his death on March 16, 1983 at age 79 from emphysema and pneumonia.
(1) Godfrey underwent pioneering hip replacement surgery 22 years later. During his four month recuperation he hosted broadcasts of Arthur Godfrey Time from the studio that CBS built for him at his Virginia farm.
(2) Godfrey met his wife of 44 years at WMAL - Texas-born Mary Bourke a 25 year old secretary at the station. The two were married on February 24, 1938, and had three children: Richard, Michael and Patricia. The Godfrey’s kept their family life very private and Mary remained on their 2,000 acre ranch in Leesburg, Virginia, where he commuted by air to spend most weekends.
(3) The hours would shift around as time went on and Godfrey dropped his Saturday broadcasts in 1947, but he remained the quintessential morning man in New York City and Washington until November 1, 1948. When he left his local shows were broadcast from 6:00 to 7:45 a.m. on WCBS and 7:45 to 9:10 a.m. on WTOP.
(4) CBS executive Paul Kesten was made interim CEO of the network during Bill Paley’s service in World War II as a Colonel on General Dwight Eisenhower’s staff specializing in psychological warfare.
(5) WJSV had become WTOP - “On top of your dial at 1500 kilocycles” - in the spring of 1943. Roosevelt was reported to have told a naval official, “If he can walk give him the commission. I can’t walk and I’m the Commander-In-Chief!”
(6) Trombonist Leo McGarity was with Godfrey for 27 years, playing the opening bars to Godfrey’s theme, Carmen Lombardo’s Seems Like Old Times. Godfrey would then slip in, whistling or crooning a line or two before greeting the listener with a friendly, “How ah ya, how ah ya, how ah ya?” or, “Hello, hello, hello…”
(7) Installing Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts at 8:30 on Monday nights as a lead-in to Lever Brothers’ Lux Radio Theater, is credited with helping Lux become the first dramatic program to become a season’s Number One program. Lever locked up a solid two hours of top rated CBS prime time by following Lux Radio Theater with newcomer My Friend Irma, another CBS packaged program that jumped into the Annual Top Ten.
(8) Jack Sterling, Program Director of CBS-owned WBBM/Chicago, replaced Godfrey at WCBS/New York City and remained the station’s early morning host for 18 years. Eddie Gallaher expanded his role on Godfrey’s Sundial show at Washington’s WTOP and became the area’s leading radio personality for the next 20 years.
(9) Arthur Godfrey’s Digest, first sponsored by Liggett & Myers’ Chesterfield cigarettes, was moved to the CBS Sunday afternoon schedule at 4:30 in October where it remained as a spot carrier for participating advertisers until 1953. It was cancelled temporarily only to pop up again in January, 1954 as a full hour of Friday nights at 9:00 where it remained until September 30, 1958.
(10) The Chordettes a capella quartet - Jinny Osborn, Janet Ertel, Carol Bushman and Dorothy Shwartz - joined the troupe of Little Godfreys shorty after their Talent Scouts appearance and remained on his shows for four years. They also recorded a number of hit records including the million selling Mr. Sandman. Wally Cox went on to star in the NBC-TV sitcom, Mr. Peepers. Richard Hayes became a successful pop vocalist and Denise Lor joined the cast of Garry Moore’s popular daytime variety show on CBS-TV.
(11) The publicity vaulted Julius LaRosa into instant stardom beginning with a dozen appearances on Ed Sullivan’s Toast of The Town on CBS-TV, ranked 17th in the 1953-54 Nielsen ratings. He went on to a successful stage and recording career. LaRosa died in 2016 at age 86.
Copyright © 2020, Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com
At mid-20th Century America, everybody recognized the face and voice of Arthur Godfrey - The Ol’ Redhead - who rose from poverty and near death to become the country’s most popular radio and television personality. Pushed by the powerful CBS promotion machine, every major magazine ran stories about Godfrey’s days in the Navy, Godfrey’s long and painful recovery from a severe auto accident, Godfrey’s sensational ability to sell his sponsors’ products, Godfrey’s patriotism, Godfrey’s exploits as a pilot, Godfrey’s charitable works, Godfrey’s love of animals - and of course, Godfrey’s humility,
And most of it was true.
Arthur Morton Godfrey was born in Manhattan on August 31, 1903, the eldest of five children. The impoverished Godfrey family moved to Hasbruck Heights, New Jersey, in 1915 and Arthur began working after school to help his parents. He dropped out of school at 15 to work full time, drifted from job to job, then lied about his age and joined the Navy at 17. His four years in the Navy, trained as a radio operator, and his subsequent service in the Coast Guard as a radio specialist familiarized Godfrey with the medium. Leaving military service in 1929, he landed a job at WFBR/Baltimore as a staff announcer and as The Warbling Banjoist, then moved a few months later to NBC’s Blue Network affiliate in Washington, D.C., WMAL.
During this period, Godfrey developed a life-long passion for flying. He was driving to a flying lesson at a nearby airfield in 1931 when an oncoming truck lost a left front wheel and smashed head-on into Godfrey’s car, demolishing it. The two men in the truck were thrown clear but Godfrey was crushed in the wreckage. His pelvis was broken in 27 places, his right hip was smashed, his left hip was permanently injured, both kneecaps were smashed and he had a collapsed lung. His chances for survival were dim - at best it was doubtful that he would ever walk again if he did live. Through sheer and painful determination Godfrey overcame all odds and walked back into WMAL months later, albeit with a decided limp. (1)
He also came back to WMAL’s Breakfast Club morning show a different kind of performer. During his long hospitalization Godfrey spent hours listening to the radio and had the epiphany that made him the great communicator he became. He realized that radio was a personal medium but no one was attempting to speak directly to the individual listener.
In their 1963 book, It Sounds Impossible, former CBS executives Sam Slate and Joe Cook describe Godfrey’s return. “…Listeners heard for the first time the casual, unhurried speech…the ruminating, hesitant pace…the purring growl that has since opened the doors to millions of American homes.”
Quoting Godfrey, “Radio is nothing but door-to-door selling. I recalled my experiences as a house-to-house salesman. If the lady of the house had no confidence in me, she wouldn’t even listen to me. I wouldn’t knock on some woman’s door and when she opened it, bellow, ‘Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, this is Arthur Godfrey speaking!’ She’d slam it in my face and phone for the cops!”
But Godfrey’s informal delivery wasn’t what the staid and scripted WMAL wanted. He was fired, left the station with his young wife and began looking for a new job. (2) He represented a revolutionary new kind of radio that could shake up the market for crosstown rival WJSV which was purchased 18 months earlier by CBS. Godfrey was hired and took over WJSV’s early morning Sundial show at 7:15 a.m. on January 15, 1934, beginning a 14 year run on the station.
Godfrey made an immediate impact by adlibbing commercials, kidding sponsors, breaking records with a hammer, taunting station brass and generally making a bad little boy of himself every morning. Listeners couldn’t get enough of WJSV’s new unpredictable morning man who made them laugh by seemingly talking off the top of his red head. More importantly, they were responding to what he was saying and selling - just like he thought they would.
In July, 1939, WJSV ran an ad in the trade press that noted, “In 1938 he handled more than 5,600 announcements on his WJSV morning Sundial show. More than 75% of his accounts were renewals.”
One of Godfrey’s first network jobs for CBS came in 1936 when he served as announcer for Craig Earl’s Professor Quiz, then originated at WJSV in a tryout period on a limited number of affiliates. He lost that job when Earl and the show moved to New York City in 1937. His first “starring” break on the network began on January 24, 1938, when Barbasol Shaving Cream sponsored a 13-week series of 15 minute of Godfrey chatter and songs on Monday and Friday nights. The show registered a meager 3.4 rating - 90th place among 94 prime time programs.
The following January 3, 1939, Carnation Milk sponsored Godfrey in a transcribed mid-morning quarter hour show on Monday-Wednesday-Fridays for 39 weeks over nine Mutual affiliates including WOR/New York City. Godfrey was finally heard in the Big Apple on weekday mornings, but not yet on the station that was his objective - CBS flagship WABC.
Reports began to circulate in early 1941 that NBC was talking to Washington’s dominant radio personality about jumping to its New York City anchor and giving WEAF’s muddled morning hours the continuity, listeners and billings that Godfrey had brought to WJSV. As might be expected, CBS reacted immediately and began to renegotiate Godfrey’s contract.
As a result, beginning on May 5, 1941, Arthur Godfrey was heard in two cities every Monday through Saturday: 5:30 to 6:45 a.m. on WABC/New York City and 6:45 to 9:00 a.m. on WJSV/Washington. (3) His 15-minute transcribed show for Carnation had also been renewed and was broadcast from 33 Mutual stations three times a week, including WOR/New York City at 9:00 a.m.
Author Robert Metz reports in his CBS: Reflections In A Bloodshot Eye that as soon as he was on WCBS, Godfrey began badgering station manager Arthur Hull Hayes and interim CBS President Paul Kesten to, “…give me a network spot, any spot, the worst spot you’ve got.” (4)
In what now seems to be a cruel and (given Godfrey’s temperament) dangerous joke - they took the persistent morning man at his word and assigned him to a network experiment on WCBS: a five-hour all-night disc jockey show that began at 1:00 a.m. on Saturday, November 15, 1941. The experiment lasted only two weeks and Godfrey returned to his normal schedule.
Three months later, CBS gave him the more reasonable timeslot of 11:00 a.m. for a Monday-Wednesday-Friday patriotic quarter-hour, Victory Begins At Home. Beginning on February 23, 1942, the sustaining wartime effort ran a full 13 weeks.
Godfrey’s first exposure to Network Radio’s big time began on October 4, 1942, when he joined the cast of Fred Allen’s Texaco Star Theater on CBS as its announcer. Historians have offered different reasons for his dismissal and replacement on November 29th by veteran announcer Jimmy Wallington, but the November 22, 1942 show makes it obvious that when given a script of commercial copy a d set-up lines for Allen’s jokes, Godfrey was a fish out of water.
By 1944, Godfrey’s local shows in New York City and Washington were sold out with local advertisers paying $80 per spot on WABC and $30 on WJSV. He resumed his campaign for a spot on the network. Meanwhile, on March 20th he began a 13-week series of transcribed 15-minute shows with singer Lillian Lane for Barbasol Shaving broadcast three times a week in 20 major markets.
He was still on the outside fringes of national fame in 1945 when one of his listeners died - not just any listener - but President Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt was familiar with Godfrey’s morning broadcasts on WTOP, (the new call-sign for WJSV), and had helped Godfrey obtain a Navy commission in the early days of World War II despite the physical handicaps that lingered from the near fatal auto accident nearly a decade earlier. (5)
Godfrey was assigned to the CBS team covering Roosevelt’s funeral service in Washington on August 14, 1945. His tearful description of the funeral procession struck the emotions of listeners who related to his sorrow and flooded network affiliates with calls. The response shook network officials into action. They realized that Godfrey couldn’t be denied any longer and made the decision that turned CBS mornings into a gold mine.
Arthur Godfrey Time debuted on April 30, 1945, in the 9:15 a.m. half-hour occupied since 1939 by the prestigious but sustaining American School of The Air. Godfrey’s offering - an unscripted mix of live entertainment and chatter - was an immediate hit with listeners and when the network opened it for sale to advertisers, a commercial success. At the peak of its 27-year run, the mid-morning Arthur Godfrey Time had expanded to 90 minutes, parts or all of it were simulcast on CBS-TV and it recorded double-digit ratings.
The air-check from July 9, 1946 features a cast that very few will find familiar: announcer Joe King, The Jubilaires quartet, singers Marshall Young and Frank Saunders with organist Hank Sylvern’s orchestra. King was eventually replaced by Tony Marvin, The Mariners took over for The Jubilaires, Young and Saunders’ slots were filled by Bill Lawrence and Frank Parker and Sylvern was replaced by Archie Bleyer. The only Little Godfrey who would be with him through the years was singer Janette Davis. (6) At the end of this posted half-hour, Godfrey plugs his new Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts program, making its second broadcast that night on CBS.
Network Radio had been without a talent competition since Major Bowes cancelled his Original Amateur Hour in December, 1944. Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts was one of the first of the CBS “packaged” shows when it debuted at 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday, July 2, 1946, beginning a ten year run on the network. (See CBS Packages Unwrapped.)
With television right around the corner, CBS was taking no chances with its sudden star of 22 weekly hours of local and network radio time. It signed a new five-year contract with Godfrey on July 25, 1946.
The Talent Scouts format was simple. Listeners were asked to nominate acts - professional or amateur - who they thought deserving of exposure to a national audience. Five acts were picked for each show and paid $100 each while their “talent scouts”, interviewed by Godfrey about their “discoveries” received $25 each. Winners were determined by studio applause and rewarded with appearances on Arthur Godfrey Time for the next three days. A broadcast from this period, March 11, 1947, is posted.
Godfrey’s capacity for work was immense but he agreed with physicians that something had to give. So, on July 5, 1947, he trimmed Saturdays from his local broadcast duties. His revised Monday through Friday schedule was 6:00 to 7:45 a.m. on WCBS, (the new call-sign for WABC), 7:45 to 9:10 a.m. on WTOP, then 11:00 to 11:30 a.m. on the full CBS network.
Lever Brothers’ Lipton Tea bought Talent Scouts and brought it to 8:30 Monday nights on July 28, 1947. The show was suddenly smoother and slicker with the number of acts reduced from five to four to make room for the commercials done “Godfrey style” which sometimes were more entertaining than the talent he presented. The audience responded with a 21.9 rating, shooting Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts into a tie for tenth place in the annual rankings. (7)
Changes came fast for Godfrey the following year. On August 30, 1948, Arthur Godfrey Time was expanded on weekday mornings from 30 minutes to an hour. On November 1st he gave up his local programs on WCBS and WTOP. (8) On December 6th Talent Scouts began as a simulcast on CBS Radio & TV - seen on television in New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington. For frosting on the cake, the Monday night radio broadcast of the show jumped to fifth place in the 1948-49 season’s Top 50.
No one was surprised when CBS financial records filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission showed that Arthur Godfrey was the network’s highest paid employee in 1948 at $258,450; He receive another $58,440 in Columbia Records royalties, primarily from his novelty hit, The Too Fat Polka, which was Number 24 on Billboard’s best selling chart for 1948.
Was he worth all that money? C.E. Hooper released its first Network Television popularity survey encompassing 31 cities in June, 1949. Milton Berle’s Texaco Star Theater on NBC-TV ranked first with a 74.4 rating and Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts on CBS-TV was second with 72.0. On radio, Talent Scouts climbed to its highest rank in 1949-50, third place for the season, and the weekday hour-long Arthur Godfrey Time was sold out.
In January, 1950, Godfrey added another nighttime show to his schedule - one that he could listen to on his Virginia farm on Saturday nights. Arthur Godfrey’s Digest was a half-hour compilation of highlights from each week’s Arthur Godfrey Time shows sponsored by Liggett & Myers’ Chesterfield cigarettes. The following month, Time magazine ran a cover story on Godfrey which referred to him a “The One Man Industry.”
A number of Talent Scouts shows from this period remain available today. The first Lipton show of record is from April 4, 1949. The April 18th competition featured a tame monologue by Lenny Bruce and popular singer Richard Hayes made his debut on May 23, 1949. The September 26, 1949 show is notable because The Chordettes made their first of many appearances with Godfrey and Wallace (Wally) Cox performed his Whatta Guy routine.
Winners of the course of the show included Patsy Cline, Tony Bennett, Pat Boone, the McGuire Sisters, Roy Clark, Rosemary Clooney, Steve Lawrence and Connie Francis. But the May 1, 1950 show proved that winning wasn’t always the path to a successful career when Denise Lor lost the competition to operatic singer Robert Marshall. (9)
By mid-July in 1950 the success of Talent Scouts on CBS inspired a glut of 15 talent shows on the networks - eight on radio and seven on television. Meanwhile, Godfrey just kept rolling along - finishing among the Top Five shows in 1950-51.
In 1951-52 Talent Scouts remained fifth in radio popularity and became the Number One show on television while Wednesday’s hour-long Arthur Godfrey & His Friends was Number Six. The Monday night show slipped out of radio’s Top Ten to twelfth place in 1952-53, but Talent Scouts and Friends were a solid second and third on television behind the CBS runaway hit, I Love Lucy.
By the end of Network Radio’s Golden Age in 1953, Arthur Godfrey’s radio and television shows on CBS accounted for twelve percent of the network’s earnings. Had Godfrey’s story ended there it would have been the perfect conclusion to his rags to riches saga. But it didn’t….
As is still the case, the press was poised to turn on the famous it helped to create. Trade magazine Broadcasting signaled that readiness when it editorialized about Godfrey’s immense popularity after he underwent successful hip replacement surgery in May, 1953: “…It‘s only a matter of time before the second syllable in Godfrey will be forgotten”.
Godfrey played into the hands of his critics when he returned from convalescence and angrily citing, “sub-standard talent,” available for his Talent Scouts show of August 13th, staged an impromptu program featuring Janette Davis, Frank Parker and the McGuire Sisters from his other shows.
Then he made headlines in October by firing singer Julius LaRosa from his cast. LaRosa, a 23-year old Navy veteran, had been hired by Godfrey on the air two years earlier. Exposure in the CBS shows had catapulted LaRosa to fame with best-selling records on Archie Bleyer’s Cadence label and personal appearances that were paying him double his $1,000 weekly checks from Godfrey.
LaRosa’s reluctance to attend dancing lessons and television rehearsals in the autumn of 1953 was annoying enough, but his hiring an agent against strict orders was infuriating to Godfrey. The breaking point came when LaRosa’s lawyers sent a letter to Godfrey demanding that all future communications between the star and his singer be done through them.
It’s reported that Godfrey consulted with CBS President Frank Stanton on October 15th about the best way to handle LaRosa’s humiliating insubordination. After consulting with network lawyers, Stanton said, “Well, you hired him on the air, so….”
The result was in the broadcast of Arthur Godfrey Time from October 19, 1953. It’s a classic case of killing someone with kindness. Unfortunately, LaRosa’s agents and lawyers made gist of the dismissal for the waiting tabloids in which the “innocent” singer forgave Godfrey but said, “…he isn’t a very nice man.” Godfrey responded by saying that LaRosa had, “…lost his humility.”
The press, particularly syndicated columnists John Crosby and Dorothy Killgallen, took LaRosa’s side and painted Godfrey to be an arrogant autocrat who ruled his fiefdom of Friends with an iron fist. Although there may have been more than some truth to the accusations, Godfrey’s critics conveniently overlooked that turnovers in Network Radio were common and LaRosa replaced Bill Lawrence who replaced Marshall Young. They also forgot the fact that Godfrey was fiercely loyal to those who were loyal to him - his longtime personal secretary Margaret (Mug) Richardson and singer Janette Davis, for example.
Godfrey took another public relations hit the following January 7, 1954, when he was accused of “buzzing” the Teterboro, New Jersey, airport when taking off to Miami in his DC-3 plane. Godfrey said the incident was unavoidable and apologized, but nevertheless lost his pilot’s license for six months. Again, the tabloids had a field day at his expense.
Arthur Godfrey & His Friends was the first of his shows to leave the air in June, 1957, returning for eight months as the 30-minute Arthur Godfrey Show from September, 1958 until April, 1959. Then it was discovered that years of smoking - both before and after his long association with Liggett & Myers' Chesterfield cigarettes - had probably contributed to a massive cancerous growth in one of his lungs.
The lung was removed in a risky operation. Godfrey began a regimen of radiation therapy and once again - like his accident recovery in 1931 and his successful hip replacement in 1953 - he beat the odds and survived, becoming an outspoken critic of smoking.
Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts stayed in the air until January 1, 1958. Arthur Godfrey Time remained a morning fixture on CBS Radio until April 30, 1972, ending a run of exactly 27 years.
From his happier years in Network Radio’s Golden Age we close with his Arthur Godfrey Time broadcast of June 12, 1950 sponsored by Chesterfield cigarettes - almost 33 years before his death on March 16, 1983 at age 79 from emphysema and pneumonia.
(1) Godfrey underwent pioneering hip replacement surgery 22 years later. During his four month recuperation he hosted broadcasts of Arthur Godfrey Time from the studio that CBS built for him at his Virginia farm.
(2) Godfrey met his wife of 44 years at WMAL - Texas-born Mary Bourke a 25 year old secretary at the station. The two were married on February 24, 1938, and had three children: Richard, Michael and Patricia. The Godfrey’s kept their family life very private and Mary remained on their 2,000 acre ranch in Leesburg, Virginia, where he commuted by air to spend most weekends.
(3) The hours would shift around as time went on and Godfrey dropped his Saturday broadcasts in 1947, but he remained the quintessential morning man in New York City and Washington until November 1, 1948. When he left his local shows were broadcast from 6:00 to 7:45 a.m. on WCBS and 7:45 to 9:10 a.m. on WTOP.
(4) CBS executive Paul Kesten was made interim CEO of the network during Bill Paley’s service in World War II as a Colonel on General Dwight Eisenhower’s staff specializing in psychological warfare.
(5) WJSV had become WTOP - “On top of your dial at 1500 kilocycles” - in the spring of 1943. Roosevelt was reported to have told a naval official, “If he can walk give him the commission. I can’t walk and I’m the Commander-In-Chief!”
(6) Trombonist Leo McGarity was with Godfrey for 27 years, playing the opening bars to Godfrey’s theme, Carmen Lombardo’s Seems Like Old Times. Godfrey would then slip in, whistling or crooning a line or two before greeting the listener with a friendly, “How ah ya, how ah ya, how ah ya?” or, “Hello, hello, hello…”
(7) Installing Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts at 8:30 on Monday nights as a lead-in to Lever Brothers’ Lux Radio Theater, is credited with helping Lux become the first dramatic program to become a season’s Number One program. Lever locked up a solid two hours of top rated CBS prime time by following Lux Radio Theater with newcomer My Friend Irma, another CBS packaged program that jumped into the Annual Top Ten.
(8) Jack Sterling, Program Director of CBS-owned WBBM/Chicago, replaced Godfrey at WCBS/New York City and remained the station’s early morning host for 18 years. Eddie Gallaher expanded his role on Godfrey’s Sundial show at Washington’s WTOP and became the area’s leading radio personality for the next 20 years.
(9) Arthur Godfrey’s Digest, first sponsored by Liggett & Myers’ Chesterfield cigarettes, was moved to the CBS Sunday afternoon schedule at 4:30 in October where it remained as a spot carrier for participating advertisers until 1953. It was cancelled temporarily only to pop up again in January, 1954 as a full hour of Friday nights at 9:00 where it remained until September 30, 1958.
(10) The Chordettes a capella quartet - Jinny Osborn, Janet Ertel, Carol Bushman and Dorothy Shwartz - joined the troupe of Little Godfreys shorty after their Talent Scouts appearance and remained on his shows for four years. They also recorded a number of hit records including the million selling Mr. Sandman. Wally Cox went on to star in the NBC-TV sitcom, Mr. Peepers. Richard Hayes became a successful pop vocalist and Denise Lor joined the cast of Garry Moore’s popular daytime variety show on CBS-TV.
(11) The publicity vaulted Julius LaRosa into instant stardom beginning with a dozen appearances on Ed Sullivan’s Toast of The Town on CBS-TV, ranked 17th in the 1953-54 Nielsen ratings. He went on to a successful stage and recording career. LaRosa died in 2016 at age 86.
Copyright © 2020, Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com
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