Ben Grauer

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Ben Grauer with Kukla the puppet
Ben Grauer with Kukla the puppet

Benjamin Franklin Grauer (June 2, 1908 – May 31, 1977) was an American radio and TV personality, following a career as a child actor in the 1920s, both in film and on Broadway. He started his career in David Warfield's re-creation of The Return of Peter Grimm. Among his early credits were roles in films directed by D.W. Griffith.

Grauer was born in Staten Island, New York. After graduating from Townsend Harris High School, he received his B.A. from the City College of New York in 1930.

Grauer started in radio as an actor, but soon became part of the broadcasting staff at the National Broadcasting Company. He was the main announcer for the NBC Symphony Broadcasts on radio and TV from 1937 till 1954. Arturo Toscanini said he was his favorite announcer. Grauer's other close personal associations in broadcasting included Walter Winchell and Eleanor Roosevelt.

Starting in 1932, Grauer covered the Olympic Games, presidential inaugurations, and international events. He married interior designer Melanie Kahane in 1954 and retired from NBC in 1973. Ben Grauer is best remembered as the NBC radio and TV host of the annual New Year's Eve broadcasts live from Times Square. His voice, calling, "Here It Is," begins Harry Shearer's Le Show. For decades, these broadcasts were part of the NBC Tonight Show, where he worked not only with Johnny Carson, but his predecessors. During his 40-year broadcast career, he hosted over half a dozen TV programs on NBC including game shows, quiz shows, concerts and news programs. His career at NBC ended in 1973, from which he went to CBS, joining Guy Lombardo's broadcasts until both Grauer's and Lombardo's deaths in 1977.

In the decade before his death, Grauer also collected material for a projected history of prices and pricing, with special attention to book prices. He was active in several professional journalistic organizations as well as the Grolier Club. Grauer always had a great interest in the graphic arts, he even printed his own Christmas cards.

The headstone of Ben Grauer in Westchester Hills Cemetery
The headstone of Ben Grauer in Westchester Hills Cemetery
The grave marker of Ben Grauer
The grave marker of Ben Grauer

Ben Grauer died of a heart attack in New York City in 1977 at the age of sixty-eight. He is interred in Westchester Hills Cemetery in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.

Contents

[edit] Filmography

Including early career as child actor:

  • His Woman (1919)
  • Mad Woman (1919)
  • The Idol Dancer (1920) .... as Native Boy (film directed by D.W. Griffith)
  • Annabel Lee (1921) .... David Martin, as a child
  • The Town That Forgot God (1922) .... as a boy
  • My Friend the Devil (1922) .... George Dryden, as a boy
  • Gaslight Follies (1945) .... Narrator, 'Stars of Yesterday'
  • Fight of the Wild Stallions (1947) .... Narrator
  • Kon-Tiki (1950) (voice) .... Narrator

[edit] Radio and TV Years

Perhaps Ben Grauer's greatest fame lies in his legendary 40-year career in radio. In 1930, the then 22-year-old Benjamin Franklin Grauer joined the staff at NBC. He quickly rose through the ranks, to become a senior commentator and reporter. He was the designated announcer for the popular 1940s Walter Winchell's Jergens Journal. Perhaps, most importantly, he was selected by Arturo Toscanini to become the voice of the NBC Symphony Orchestra (Grauer took over in 1940 and remained until it was disbanded in June 1954).

Grauer did both the Toscanini Radio and TV broadcasts. Several years after the death of Toscanini, Ben Grauer, together with the composer Don Gillis (who produced the NBC broadcasts from 1947-1954), created the Peabody Award-winning radio series Toscanini, the Man Behind the Legend. It began in 1963 and continued through the centennial of Toscanini's birth in 1967. This series ran for nearly two decades on NBC and then other radio stations until the early 1980s.

During his distinguished radio career Grauer covered nearly every major historic event, including the Morro Castle fire, the Paris Peace Conference, and the US occupation of Japan. Millions remember Ben Grauer for his NBC broadcast coverage of the New Year's celebrations on both radio and TV. Between 1951 and 1969 Grauer covered these events eleven times live from New York's Times Square.

He continued covering New Year's Eve for Guy Lombardo's New Year's Eve specials on CBS in the 1970s, with his last appearance on Dec. 31, 1976, the year before both he and Lombardo died.

Ben Grauer provided the commentary for NBC's first television special, the opening in 1939 of the New York World's Fair.

In 1948 Grauer, together with John Cameron Swayze provided the first live TV coverage of the national political conventions. In 1956 NBC began broadcasting some of their shows in living color and in 1957 the animated Peacock logo made its debut. It was Grauer who first spoke the now famous words, "the following program is brought to you in living color on NBC," behind the Peacock graphic. Between all these heady tasks, Grauer also found the time to host many popular radio and TV programs, including:

[edit] Radio credits

  • Pot o' Gold (1939-41) Considered the first "interactive" broadcast program. A popular game show hosted by Grauer. Horace Heidt and his Musical Knights played while Grauer asked listeners questions on the phone. It was this program that introduced the famous phrase: "Stop the Music".
  • Atlantic Spotlight (1940s) Grauer would chat across the Atlantic Ocean with BBC announcer in London.
  • Battle of the Sexes (1938) NBC quiz.
  • Information, Please! (1938-52) NBC quiz show
  • Sleep No More (1956-57) NBC Radio drama
  • What Would You Have Done? NBC Radio drama

[edit] TV credits

[edit] External links