Bern Bennett

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bern Bennett (born October 19, 1921) is an American radio and television announcer. For nearly sixty years, beginning in 1944, he was a staff announcer at CBS. In the 1940s and 1950s he was closely associated with Bud Collyer, as announcer on three Collyer-hosted game shows: "Winner Take All", "Beat the Clock", and "To Tell the Truth". In 1957, Bennett was the subject of a contest on "Clock" in which viewers were asked to "Draw the Masked Announcer" (meaning draw what they thought Bennett looked like); Bennett, who was never seen on-camera, made an appearance with the winner, Edward Darnell of Columbus, Indiana, who had been flown to New York to be a contestant on "Clock". Collyer often kidded Bennett about the tendency for his voice to break when introducing "America's number-one clock watcher... BUD COLLYER," and his voice breaking on the word "Collyer." Bennett was announcer on "Clock" until it moved from CBS to ABC in 1958.

Bennett also served as fill-in announcer on such shows as "The Ed Sullivan Show" and "What's My Line?"

In 1960, Bennett was transferred to Los Angeles, where he was heard as announcer on such shows as "The Danny Kaye Show", "Your Surprise Package", the Tournament of Roses Parade, and, most notably, the soap operas "The Young and the Restless" and "The Bold and the Beautiful". He also announced for the short lived soap, The Clear Horizon. He subbed for a week for Match Game for its regular announcer Johnny Olson. He also appeared on other networks: as the voice of a television announcer in an episode of "The Flintstones" (ABC) titled "Fred Flintstone: Before and After"; on "The Facts of Life" (NBC) in an on-camera appearance; and as a "central subject" on the 1991 NBC version of "To Tell the Truth".

Bennett is now retired.

[edit] Sources

• The Encyclopedia of TV Game Shows, Volume 3, by David Schwartz, Steve Ryan, and Fred Wostbrock.