Arthur Godfrey

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In this CBS publicity photo of Arthur Godfrey Time, vocalist Patti Clayton is seen at the far right and Godfrey sits in the foreground.
In this CBS publicity photo of Arthur Godfrey Time, vocalist Patti Clayton is seen at the far right and Godfrey sits in the foreground.

Arthur Morton Godfrey (August 31, 1903 – March 16, 1983) was an American radio and television broadcaster and entertainer.

Arthur Godfrey was born in New York City in 1903. His mother, Kathryn Morton Godfrey, was from a well-to-do New York family which disapproved of her marriage to an older Englishman, Arthur Hanbury Godfrey. His father was a sportswriter and considered an expert on surrey and hackney horses, but the advent of the automobile devastated the family's finances. By 1915, when Arthur was 12, the family had moved to Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey. Arthur, the eldest of five children, tried to help them survive by working before and after school, but at age 14 left home to ease the financial burden on the family. By 15 he was a civilian typist at Camp Merritt, New Jersey and enlisted in the Navy (by lying about his age) two years later.

Godfrey's father was something of a "free thinker" by the standards of the era. He didn't disdain organized religion but insisted his children explore all faiths before deciding for themselves which to embrace. Their childhood friends included Catholic, Jewish and every flavor of Protestant playmates. The senior Godfrey was friends with the Vanderbilts, but was as likely to spend his time talking with the shoeshine man or the hotdog vendor about issues of the day. In their book, "Genius in the Family" (G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1962), the youngest two children, Dorothy Jean and Kathy Godfrey, reported the angriest they ever saw their father was when a man on the ferry declared that the Ku Klux Klan was a civic organization vital to the good of the community. They rode the ferry back and forth three times, with their father arguing with the man that the Klan was a bunch of "Blasted, bigoted fools, led 'round by the nose!"

Godfrey's mother was a gifted artist and composer whose aspirations to fame were laid aside to take care of her family. Her creativity came in handy during hard times, which were turned into adventures of playacting and music, usually by candlelight when the electricity was shut off. The one household item that was never sold or turned into firewood was the piano, and she believed at least some of her children would succeed in show business. In her later years some of her compositions were performed by symphony orchestras in Canada, which earned her a mention in Time. In 1957, at the age of 78, her sauciness made her a big hit with the audience when she appeared on Groucho Marx's quiz show You Bet Your Life.

Arthur Godfrey served in the United States Navy from 1920 to 1924 as a radio operator on naval destroyers, but returned home to care for the family after his father's death. Additional radio training came during Godfrey's service in the Coast Guard from 1927 to 1930. It was during a Coast Guard stint in Baltimore that he appeared on a local talent show and became popular enough to land his own brief weekly program.

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[edit] Radio

On leaving the Coast Guard, Godfrey became a radio announcer for the Baltimore station WFBR and moved the short distance to Washington, D.C. to become a staff announcer for NBC-owned station WRC the same year and remained there until 1934. He was already an avid flyer. In 1933, Godfrey nearly died following a violent car crash outside Washington that left him hospitalized for months. During that time, he decided to listen closely to the radio and realized that the stiff, formal announcers could not connect with the average radio listener, as the announcers spoke in stentorian tones, as if giving a formal speech to a crowd and not communicating as to one person. Godfrey vowed that when he returned to the airwaves he would affect a relaxed, informal style as if he were talking to just one person. He also used that style to do his own commercials and became a regional star.

In addition to announcing, Godfrey sang and played the ukulele. In 1934 he became a freelance entertainer, but eventually based himself on a daily show titled Arthur Godfrey's Sun Dial on CBS-owned station WJSV (now WTOP) in Washington. He knew President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who listened to his Washington program, and through Roosevelt's intercession, he received a commission in the U.S. Naval Reserve before World War II. Godfrey eventually moved his base to CBS' New York City station, then known as WABC (now WCBS), and was heard on both WJSV and WABC for a time. In the autumn of 1943, he also became the announcer for Fred Allen's Texaco Star Theater show on the CBS network, but a personality conflict between Allen and Godfrey led to his early release from the show after only six weeks.

He provided a first-hand account of Roosevelt's funeral, broadcast live over CBS in April, 1945 and later preserved in the Edward R. Murrow and Fred W. Friendly record series, I Can Hear it Now. When describing the new President's car in the procession --"God bless him, Harry Truman", Godfrey broke down in tears and cued the listeners back to the studio. The entire nation was moved by his emotional outburst.

This led to his joining the CBS Radio Network in his own right, where he was given his own daily program, Arthur Godfrey Time, a Monday-Friday morning radio show that featured his monologues, interviews with various stars, music from his own in-house combo and regular vocalists. Godfrey's monologues and discussions were all totally unscripted, and went wherever he chose. That radio program was supplemented by Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts, a radio program featuring rising young performers.

Godfrey was also an avid Amateur Radio (Ham) Operator with the station call sign K4LIB.

[edit] Television

In 1948 Arthur Godfrey Time began to be simultaneously broadcast on radio and television. The radio version ran three hours; the TV version an hour, expanded to an hour and a half. Godfrey's skills as a commercial pitchman brought him a number of loyal sponsors, including Lipton Tea, Frigidaire, Pillsbury cake mixes and Chesterfield cigarettes.

He found that one way to enhance his pitches was to extemporize his commercials, poking fun at the sponsors (while never disrespecting the products themselves), the sponsors' company executives, and advertising agency types who wrote the scripted commercials that he regularly ignored and, if he read them at all, ridiculed them. To the surprise of the advertising agencies and sponsors, Godfrey's kidding of the commercials and products frequently enhanced the sales of those products. His popularity and ability to sell brought a windfall to CBS, accounting for a significant percentage of their corporate profits.

In 1949 Arthur Godfrey and his Friends, a weekly variety show, began on CBS TV in prime time.

His affable personality on the radio combined warmth, heart, and occasional bits of double entendre repartee. They earned Godfrey adulation from fans who felt that despite his considerable wealth, he was really "one of them", his personality that of a friendly next-door-neighbor. His ability to sell products, insisting he would not promote any in which he did not personally believe, gave him a level of trust from his audience, a belief that "if Godfrey said it, it must be so." When he quit smoking after his 1953 hip surgery, he spoke out against smoking on the air, merely shrugged off Chesterfield's departure as a regular sponsor as he knew that other sponsors would fill their position.

Eventually Godfrey added a weekend "best-of" program culled from the week's Arthur Godfrey Time, known as Arthur Godfrey Digest. He began to veer away from interviewing stars in favor of a small group of regular performers that became known as the "Little Godfreys." Many of these artists were relatively obscure, but were given colossal national exposure, some of them former Talent Scouts winners including The McGuire Sisters, the Chordettes, Hawaiian vocalist Haleloke, veteran Irish tenor Frank Parker, Marian Marlowe and Julius LaRosa, who was in the Navy when Godfrey, doing his annual Naval reserve duty, discovered the young singer and offered him a job upon his discharge.

LaRosa joined the cast in 1951 and became a favorite with Godfrey's immense audience, who also saw him on the prime-time weekly show Arthur Godfrey and his Friends. Godfrey also had a regular announcer-foil on the show: Tony Marvin. Godfrey preferred his performers not to use personal managers or agents, but often had his staff represent the artists if they were doing personal appearances.

In his own way, Godfrey was a social pioneer. One of the "Little Godfrey" acts were the Mariners, an integrated vocal quartet of white and African-American Coast Guard veterans. When the act appeared on his TV show, Southern CBS affiliates and racist Southern politicians complained of their participating in dance sequences with white women. Godfrey responded caustically, decrying the racism and refusing to remove them from the cast.

Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts performers included Lenny Bruce, Don Adams, Tony Bennett, Patsy Cline, Pat Boone, opera singer Marilyn Horne, Roy Clark, and Irish vocalist Carmel Quinn. Later, he promoted "Little Godfrey" Janette Davis to a management position as the show's talent coordinator. One notable performer rejected for the show was Elvis Presley. Following his appearances on the Louisiana Hayride, Presley traveled to New York for an unsuccessful Talent Scouts audition in April 1955.

Godfrey's immense popularity and the trust placed in him by audiences was noticed not just by advertisers but by his friend U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower, who asked him to record a number of public service announcements to be played on American television in the case of nuclear war. It was thought that viewers would be reassured by Godfrey's grandfatherly tone and folksy manner. The existence of the PSA tapes was confirmed in 2004 by former CBS president Frank Stanton in an exchange with a writer with the website CONELRAD.

[edit] Aviation

Godfrey (left) with NACA pilot George Cooper and Ames Director Smith DeFrance
Godfrey (left) with NACA pilot George Cooper and Ames Director Smith DeFrance

Godfrey learned to fly in the 1930s while doing radio in the Washington, DC area, starting out with gliders, then learning to fly airplanes. He was badly injured on his way to a flying lesson one afternoon in 1931 when a truck, coming the other way, lost its left front wheel and hit him head on. Godfrey spent months recuperating, and the injury would keep him from flying on active duty during WWII. He served as a reserve officer in the U.S. Navy in a public affairs role during the war.

Godfrey used his pervasive fame to advocate a strong anti-Communist stance and to pitch for enhanced strategic air power in the Cold War atmosphere. In addition to his advocacy for civil rights, he became a strong promoter of his middle-class fans vacationing in Hawaii and Miami Beach, formerly enclaves for the wealthy. He made a TV movie in 1953 taking the controls of an Eastern Airlines Constellation airliner and flying to Miami, thus showing how safe airline travel had become. As a reserve officer, he used his public position to cajole the Navy into qualifying him as a Naval Aviator, and played that against the Air Force, who successfully recruited him into their reserve. At one time during the 1950's, Godfrey had flown every active aircraft in the military inventory at one time or another.

His continued unpaid shilling for Eastern Airlines earned him the undying gratitude of good friend Eddie Rickenbacker, the WWI flying ace who was the President of the airline. He was such a good friend of the airline that Rickenbacker took a retiring DC-3, fitted it out with an executive interior and DC-4 engines, and presented it to Godfrey, who then used it to commute to the studios in New York City from his huge Leesburg, Virginia farm every Sunday night. Such a quid pro quo would nowadays bring charges of conflict of interest, but in the context of the early 1950s, nothing was said.

The new DC-3 was so powerful (and noisy) that the Town of Leesburg ended up moving their airport. The original Leesburg airport, which Godfrey owned and referred to affectionately as "The Old Cow Pasture" on his show, was less than a mile from the center of town, and residents had come to expect rattling windows and crashing dishes every Sunday evening and Friday afternoon.

In 1960, Godfrey proposed building a new airport by selling the old field, and donating a portion of the sale to a local group. Since Godfrey funded the majority of the airport, it is now known as Leesburg Executive Airport at Godfrey Field. He also was known for flying a Navion, a smaller single-engined airplane, as well as a Lockheed Jetstar, and in later years a Beech Baron.

In January 1954, Godfrey buzzed the control tower of Teterboro Airport in his Douglas DC-3. His license was suspended for six months. Godfrey claimed the windy conditions that day required him to turn immediately after takeoff, but in fact he was peeved with the tower because they wouldn't give him the runway he asked for. A similar event occurred while he flew near Chicago in 1956, though no sanctions were imposed. These incidents, in the wake of the controversies that swirled around Godfrey after his firing of Julius LaRosa, only further underscored the differences between his private and public persona.

Godfrey had been in pain since the 1931 car crash which damaged his hip. In 1953, he underwent pioneering hip replacement surgery in Boston using an early plastic artificial hip joint. The operation was successful and he returned to the show to the delight of his vast audience. CBS was so concerned about losing his audience that during his recovery, he broadcast live from his Beacon Hill estate near Leesburg, the signal carried by microwave towers built on the property. It is believed that this was the first time that CBS conducted a 'remote' broadcast.

[edit] Behind the scenes

Behind Godfrey's on-air warmth was a cold, controlling personality. He insisted that his "Little Godfreys" attend dance and singing classes, believing all should be versatile performers whether or not they possessed the aptitude for those disciplines. In staff meetings with the cast and his staff, he could be abusive and intimidating. In spite of his ability to bring in profits, CBS executives who respected Godfrey professionally were not personally fond of him since he often baited them on and off the air.

Godfrey's attitude was controlling prior to his hip surgery, but upon his return, he added more air time to his morning shows, and became critical of a number of aspects of the shows. One night, he substituted a shortened, hastily-arranged version of his Wednesday night variety show in place of the scheduled "Talent Scouts" presentation, feeling none of the talent up to standards. He also began casting a critical eye on others in the cast, particularly LaRosa, whose popularity continued to grow.

[edit] The LaRosa incident

Like many men of his generation, Julius LaRosa thought dance lessons somewhat effeminate -- and chafed when Godfrey ordered dance lessons for his entire performing crew. CBS historian Robert Metz, in CBS: Reflections in a Bloodshot Eye, suggested that Godfrey instituted the practice because his own physical limitations made him sensitive to the need for coordination on camera. "Godfrey," Metz wrote, "was concerned about his cast in his paternalistic way."

Godfrey and LaRosa had a dispute over the missed dance lessons, when LaRosa missed a lesson due to a family emergency. He claimed he'd advised Godfrey, but was nonetheless barred from the show for a day in retaliation, via a notice placed on a cast bulletin board. At that point, LaRosa retained topnotch manager Tommy Rockwell to renegotiate Godfrey's contract with him or, failing that, to receive an outright release, but these talks had yet to occur. LaRosa also cut a hit single with Godfrey's musical director Archie Bleyer, E Cumpari, the best-selling hit of LaRosa's musical career. LaRosa admitted the record's success had made him a little cocky, but after discovering LaRosa had hired a manager, Godfrey immediately consulted with CBS President Dr. Frank Stanton---who noted that Godfrey had hired LaRosa on-air and suggested firing him on-air. Whether Stanton intended this to occur after Godfrey talking with LaRosa and his managers about the singer's future on the show, or whether Stanton suggested Godfrey fire LaRosa on air with no warning remains lost to history.

On October 19, 1953, after lavishing praise on LaRosa in introducing the singer's performance of "I'll Take Manhattan", Godfrey thanked him, then announced that this was LaRosa's "swan song" with the show. LaRosa, who had to be told what the phrase "swan song" meant, was dumbfounded, since he had not been informed beforehand of his departure and apparently any contract renegotiations had yet to happen. Stanton later admitted the idea may have been "a mistake." In perhaps a further illumination of the ego that Godfrey had formerly kept hidden enough, radio historian Gerald Nachman, in Raised on Radio, claims that what really miffed Godfrey about his now-former protege was that LaRosa's fan mail had come to outnumber Godfrey's. It's likely that a combination of these factors led to Godfrey's decision to discharge LaRosa. It is not likely Godfrey expected the public outcry that ensued.

In any event, the LaRosa incident opened an era of controversy that swirled around Godfrey and, little by little, dismantled his just-folks image. LaRosa was beloved enough by Godfrey's fans that they saved their harsh criticism for Godfrey himself. After a press conference was held by LaRosa and his agent, Godfrey further complicated the matter by hosting a press conference of his own where he responded that LaRosa had lost his "humility". The charge, given Godfrey's sudden baring of his own ego beneath the facade of warmth, brought more mockery from the public and press. Almost instantly, Godfrey and the phrase "no humility" became the butt of many comedians' jokes.

[edit] The firings continue

Godfrey would fire others among his regulars, including bandleader Archie Bleyer, within days of LaRosa's public execution. Bleyer had formed his own label, Cadence Records, which recorded LaRosa and, eventually, the Chordettes, another Godfrey discovery. Godfrey was also angered that Bleyer had produced a spoken word record by Godfrey's Chicago counterpart Don McNeill, host of The Breakfast Club, which had been Godfrey's direct competition on the NBC Blue Network and ABC since Godfrey's days at WJSV. Despite the McNeill show's far more modest following, Godfrey was unduly offended, even paranoiac, at what he felt was disloyalty on Bleyer's part. Bleyer simply shrugged off the dismissal and focused on Cadence, which went on to even greater fame in later years with classic hit records by the Everly Brothers and Andy Williams.

Occasionally, he snapped at cast members on the air. A significant number of other "Little Godfreys", including the Mariners and Haleloke, were dismissed from 1953 to 1959, none given any reason. A number of other performers, most notably Pat Boone and for a very brief period, Patsy Cline, served as "Little Godfreys."

Godfrey's problems with the media and public feuds with newspaper columnists such as Jack O'Brian and newspaperman turned CBS variety show host Ed Sullivan were duly documented by the media, which began running critical exposé articles on him full of scandal, linking him to several female "Little Godfreys". Godfrey's anger at Sullivan stemmed from the variety show impresario's featuring of fired "Little Godfreys" including LaRosa and others, on his Sunday night show.

As the media turned on Godfrey, two films,The Great Man (1956) starring Jose Ferrer, who also directed and produced, and Elia Kazan's classic A Face in the Crowd (1957) starring Andy Griffith and Patricia Neal, were inspired by Godfrey's increasingly controversial career. The Great Man, adapted from a novel by TV writer Al Morgan, centered on a tribute broadcast for Herb Fuller, a Godfrey-like figure killed in a car crash whose genial public demeanor concealed a dissolute phony. "Face" creator Budd Schulberg maintains his story was actually inspired by hearing that Will Rogers, Sr., was far from the man of the people he claimed to be. Nonetheless, certain elements of the film, including its protagonist Lonesome Rhodes (played by Andy Griffith) spoofing commercials on a Memphis TV show, were clearly Godfrey-inspired.

Recordings also mocked Godfrey's controversial side. Following the LaRosa episode, Ruth Wallis, renowned for her double-entendre tunes, recorded "Dear Mr. Godfrey," a country tune that implored him to "hire me and fire me and make a star of me". Satirist Stan Freberg recorded "That's Right, Arthur," a barbed spoof of Godfrey's show, depicting the star as a rambling, self-absorbed motormouth and his longtime announcer (Tony Marvin, portrayed by voice actor Daws Butler) as a yes-man, responding "That's right, Arthur" to every vapid Godfrey pronouncement. Fearing legal problems, Freberg's label, Capitol Records, would not release it, to Freberg's frustration. The recording finally appeared on a 1990s Freberg box set.

Godfrey appeared on every major magazine cover including Life, Look, Time, and over a dozenTV Guide covers. He was also the first man to ever make the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine.

Despite his faux pas, Godfrey still commanded a strong presence and a loyal fan base. Talent Scouts lasted until 1958.

[edit] Later in life

In 1959, Godfrey began suffering chest pains. Closer examination by physicians revealed a mass in his chest that could possibly be lung cancer. In 1959, Godfrey left Arthur Godfrey Time and Arthur Godfrey and His Friends after revealing his illness.

Surgeons discovered cancer in one lung that spread to his aorta. One lung was removed. Yet despite the disease's discouragingly high mortality in that era, it became clear after radiation treatments that Godfrey had beaten the substantial odds against him. He returned to the air on a prime-time special, and resumed the daily Arthur Godfrey Time morning show but only on radio. He continued the show, reverting to a format featuring guest stars, such as pianist Max Morath and Irish vocalist Carmel Quinn with a live combo of first-rate Manhattan musicians, until 1972 when the show ended.

Godfrey by then was a colonel in the US Air Force Reserve and still an active pilot.

He made three movies: Four For Texas (1963), The Glass Bottom Boat (1966), and Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows (1968). He briefly co-hosted Candid Camera with creator Allen Funt but that relationship, like so many others, ended acrimoniously. Godfrey also made various guest appearances. He and Lucille Ball, the two most famous redheads of their time, co-hosted the CBS special 50 Years of Television (1978).

In retirement, Godfrey wanted to find ways back onto a regular TV schedule. He appeared in a 1920's pop style performance on the rock band Moby Grape's second album, and despite his political conservatism became a powerful environmentalist who identified with the youth culture that irreverently opposed the "establishment", as he felt he had done during his peak years. He was a master at dressage and made charity appearances at horse shows. He made commercials for the detergent Axion, only to clash with the manufacturer when he found that the product contained phosphates, implicated in water pollution.

During one appearance on The Dick Cavett Show, Godfrey commented that the United States needed the supersonic transport "about as much as we need another bag of those clunkers from the Moon". That statement is considered to have effectively ended SST interest in the U.S.A., leaving it to Britain and France. (Cavett claims today that Godfrey's statement also earned tax audits from the Richard Nixon-era Internal Revenue Service for the show's entire production staff.)

Despite an intense desire to remain in the public eye, Godfrey's presence ebbed considerably over the next ten years, notwithstanding an HBO special and an appearance on a PBS salute to the 1950s. A 1981 attempt to reconcile him with LaRosa for a TV reunion special bringing together Godfrey and a number of the "Little Godfreys" collapsed when, at an initially amicable meeting, Godfrey reasserted that LaRosa wanted out of his contract and asked why he hadn't explained that instead of insisting he was fired without warning. When LaRosa began reminding him of the dance lesson controversy, Godfrey, then in his late seventies, exploded and the meeting ended in shambles.

Godfrey was married to the former Mary Bourke from 1938 until his death in 1983. They had three children. Emphysema, resulting from the radiation treatments for Godfrey's cancer, became a problem in the early 1980s and he died of the disease in New York City on March 16, 1983, aged 79. Godfrey is buried at Union Cemetery in Leesburg, Virginia, not far from his farm in Waterford, Virginia.

[edit] Awards

[edit] External links

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