{"id":27509,"date":"2014-02-04T06:26:47","date_gmt":"2014-02-04T11:26:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eyesofageneration.com\/?p=27509"},"modified":"2021-03-28T11:06:31","modified_gmt":"2021-03-28T15:06:31","slug":"the-god-of-sunday-night-remembering-the-ed-sullivan-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/?p=27509","title":{"rendered":"Anniversary Count Down\u20265 Days"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Beatles 50th Sullivan Anniversary Count Down&#8230;5 Days<\/p>\n<p>There was only thing the Ed Sullivan staff and crew knew for sure&#8230;they were on at 8 and off at 9! Everything else&#8230;well, it was up to Ed! I&#8217;ve talked to about half a dozen people that worked on the Sullivan show, and aside from the opening line above, they will all tell you that Ed did not really understand television&#8230;even after all those years on it. Sullivan was an newspaper man and to him, a change just meant editing his column and resetting the typeoliner. He was notorious for rearranging the show even while it was on the air. At the last minute, he would ask acts to stretch out a song or ask comedians to cut one of their routines in half. On stage &#8220;keep him on the paper&#8221; was the secret instruction to staff and crew&#8230;it meant two things. First, it meant keep him from making changes to the final line up sheet, and second, it meant (like a puppy) keep him on stage in his corner as he was bad about wandering off. As a newspaper man, he worked alone and never with a team and he really never understood &#8220;team work&#8221;. The rule was, to get along with Ed, it&#8217;s best to stay out of his way. He had a very short temper and could cuss a blue streak calling you every name in the book, and fired many people on the spot. Below is what I think is the most interesting article I&#8217;ve ever read on Sullivan. It&#8217;s a 1997 piece in &#8220;Vanity Fair&#8221; by Nick Tosches. Enjoy!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/hollywood\/features\/1997\/07\/ed-sullivan-199707\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">http:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/hollywood\/features\/1997\/07\/ed-sullivan-199707<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/hollywood\/features\/1997\/07\/ed-sullivan-199707\"><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"The God of Sunday Night: Remembering The Ed Sullivan Show\" src=\"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/The-God-of-Sunday-Night-Remembering-The-Ed-Sullivan-Show.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/hollywood\/features\/1997\/07\/ed-sullivan-199707\">The God of Sunday Night: Remembering The Ed Sullivan Show<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo be seen with Sullivan Sunday night was to be a star Monday morning. To be called over to shake Ed\u2019s hand was to connect with the Brightest Lights in the Big Room. Still, he was a guy the smarties liked to razz, a Broadway Nixon with sweat streaming down his forehead.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><main id=\"main-content\" class=\"page__main-content page__main-content--standard\" tabindex=\"-1\"><\/p>\n<article class=\"article main-content\">\n<div class=\"lede-background\">\n<header class=\"content-header content-header--align-left content-header--media-small content-header--position-above article__content-header content-header__caption-style--default content-header--publish-date-bottom\" data-event-boundary=\"click\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;pattern&quot;:&quot;ContentHeader&quot;}\" data-include-experiments=\"true\">\n<div class=\"content-header__container content-header__container-theme-standard\">\n<div class=\"content-header__row content-header__title-block\" data-event-boundary=\"click\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;pattern&quot;:&quot;TitleBlock&quot;}\" data-include-experiments=\"true\">\n<h1 class=\"content-header__row content-header__hed\" data-testid=\"ContentHeaderHed\"><em>THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW,<\/em>\u00a0RECONSIDERED<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"content-header__row content-header__accreditation content-header__accreditation-without-dek\">\n<div class=\"content-header__row content-header__byline\">\n<div class=\"content-header__byline__content\">\n<div class=\"sc-iBPRYJ sc-jtHMlw eLRJRO bylines content-header__bylines\" data-testid=\"BylinesWrapper\">\n<p class=\"sc-eWVKcp hdoedk byline bylines__byline\" data-testid=\"BylineWrapper\"><span class=\"sc-iBPRYJ sc-fubCfw sc-eWvPJL eLRJRO frumPo juwltH byline__preamble\">BY\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"sc-dwcuIR jktQCG\"><span class=\"sc-iGctRS eAYGPG byline__name\" data-testid=\"BylineName\"><a class=\"sc-iBPRYJ sc-fubCfw sc-pFZIQ sc-irlOZD eLRJRO inxRsm kWpoyW jWBoTv byline__name-link button\" href=\"https:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/contributor\/nick-tosches\">NICK TOSCHE<span class=\"sc-kUbhmq jEqguw link__last-letter-spacing\">S<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><time class=\"content-header__publish-date\" data-testid=\"ContentHeaderPublishDate\">JULY 5, 1997<\/time><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"lead-asset lead-asset--landscape content-header__lead-asset lead-asset--width-small lede-asset--inverted-background\" data-testid=\"ContentHeaderLeadAsset\">\n<figure class=\"lead-asset__content\">\n<div class=\"lead-asset__content__media lead-asset__content__photo\"><span class=\"responsive-asset lead-asset__media\"><picture class=\"lead-asset__media responsive-image\"><source srcset=\"https:\/\/media.vanityfair.com\/photos\/54cbfe1c1ca1cf0a23acfb5b\/master\/w_1024%2Cc_limit\/image.jpg 1024w\" media=\"(max-width: 767px)\" sizes=\"100vw\" \/><source srcset=\"https:\/\/media.vanityfair.com\/photos\/54cbfe1c1ca1cf0a23acfb5b\/master\/w_2560%2Cc_limit\/image.jpg 2560w\" media=\"(min-width: 768px)\" sizes=\"100vw\" \/><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__image\" src=\"https:\/\/media.vanityfair.com\/photos\/54cbfe1c1ca1cf0a23acfb5b\/master\/w_2560%2Cc_limit\/image.jpg\" alt=\"Image may contain Human Person Advertisement Poster Collage Tie Accessories Accessory Text Coat Suit and Clothing\" \/><\/picture><\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"sc-gGTGfU hHPwub persistent-aside persistent-aside--align-left\">\n<div class=\"sc-dkAroR hlikQV sticky-box article__social-share\">\n<div class=\"sc-jifIRw lkksMp sticky-box__primary\">\n<div class=\"social-icons social-icons--has-background social-icons--share social-icons--bg\" data-event-boundary=\"click\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;pattern&quot;:&quot;SocialIcons&quot;}\" data-include-experiments=\"true\">\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul class=\"social-icons__list\">\n<li class=\"social-icons__list-item social-icons__list-item--facebook social-icons__list-item--has-background thin\"><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"sc-iBPRYJ sc-iktFzd eLRJRO gcWkpJ\" role=\"tooltip\" data-event-boundary=\"click\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;pattern&quot;:&quot;g&quot;}\" data-include-experiments=\"true\">\n<div class=\"sc-giIncl hGirzf\" role=\"presentation\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><span style=\"font-size: inherit;\">Joe E. Lewis, whose wit outlived his liver, put it best: Ed Sullivan was a man who could brighten a room simply by leaving it. What Sullivan did, Fred Allen claimed, could be done by a pointer dog\u2014if meat were rubbed on the performers. But don\u2019t mind the peanut gallery: reliable Ed, as stiff and graceless as an undertaker, stood stage center for nearly a quartercentury as the master of ceremonies of cathode-ray civilization.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"content-background\" data-attribute-verso-pattern=\"article-body\">\n<div class=\"\" data-event-boundary=\"click\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;pattern&quot;:&quot;ChunkedArticleContent&quot;}\" data-in-view=\"{&quot;pattern&quot;:&quot;ChunkedArticleContent&quot;}\" data-include-experiments=\"true\">\n<div class=\"article__chunks\">\n<div class=\"grid grid-margins grid-items-2 grid-layout--adrail narrow wide-adrail\">\n<div class=\"grid--item body body__container article__body grid-layout__content\">\n<p>At first glance, there is no explaining this flat-lipped, rather charmless creature, the antithesis of the glib, confessional, and slickly professional smilers who would follow his lead on talk shows, game shows, beauty pageants, and other familiar formats. Down-to-earth Ed was a dose of sensible glitter, a solid salesman, an uncle drafted unexpectedly to serve the good cause of entertainment. Says Alan King, who appeared on his show 37 times, \u201cWhen I was rolling with Ed, everybody said, \u2018Can you explain Ed Sullivan?\u2019 I said, \u2018I don\u2019t know\u00a0<em>what<\/em>\u00a0he does, but he seems to do it better than anybody else.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Yet no better than Mr. and Mrs. Ordinary American could imagine doing it themselves. Maybe that explains why, between 1948 and 1971, like nothing and no one before or since, Ed Sullivan was a really big show, maybe the biggest in television history. He was the God of Sunday Night, the man who brought old-timers their last fond glimpses of vaudeville, and who gave teenyboppers their first excited look at the Beatles. Transcending class distinctions, embracing and accommodating all generations, Ed\u2019s taste was America\u2019s too\u2014from plate spinners to patriots reciting, mezzo-sopranos to mouse puppets, Mrs. Miller to soft-shoe, pas de deux, comics kvetching, and beauties with balloons braving flying arrows. Sullivan was no slouch at understanding just whom we wanted there in our living rooms right up next to the dogs and the kids\u2014and what we wanted, he provided pronto, be it lion tamers or Sinatra,\u00a0<em>Pagliacci<\/em>\u00a0or the Moscow Circus, a one-legged tap dancer or the Doors.<\/p>\n<div class=\"sc-cVkrFx hzPuOC\" data-event-boundary=\"click\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;pattern&quot;:&quot;p&quot;}\" data-include-experiments=\"true\"><\/div>\n<p class=\"paywall\">To be seen with Sullivan Sunday night was to be a star Monday morning. To be called over to shake Ed\u2019s hand was to connect with the Brightest Lights in the Big Room. Still, he was a guy the smarties liked to razz, a Broadway Nixon with sweat streaming down his forehead. Maybe it was his inadequacies that endeared him to a nation wary of smoothies and swindlers. Maybe it was the fact that he kept his distance, that he tensed up when people got close. As we did then.<\/p>\n<div class=\"ad ad--in-content\">\n<div class=\"ad__slot ad__slot--in-content\" data-node-id=\"zs2fwb\"><span style=\"font-size: inherit;\">\u201cThe choice of Ed Sullivan as master of ceremonies seems ill-advised,\u201d wrote Jack Gould of <\/span><em style=\"font-size: inherit;\">The New York Times<\/em><span style=\"font-size: inherit;\">\u00a0in the summer of 1948, after the second broadcast of the series. John Crosby of the\u00a0<\/span><em style=\"font-size: inherit;\">New York Herald Tribune<\/em><span style=\"font-size: inherit;\">\u00a0was less circumspect. Under the headline \u201cWhy? Why? Why?\u201d he wrote, \u201cOne of the small but vexing questions confronting anyone in this area with a television set is \u2018Why is Ed Sullivan on it every Sunday night?\u2019 \u201d<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"has-dropcap paywall\">In those early days, because of his golem-like manner, there arose among viewers the mistaken belief that he had a metal plate in his head. \u201cI received hundreds of letters congratulating me on my courage in continuing despite such a handicap,\u201d Sullivan recalled. Others applauded his triumph over Bell\u2019s palsy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Maladroit and malaprop, his faux pas were legion but familiar. They became American family jokes, and were the kind of embarrassing slip your pop might make at the Kiwanis club. Irving Berlin, who would outlive Sullivan, was referred to as \u201cthe late Irving Berlin\u201d; clarinetist Benny Goodman was a \u201ctrumpeter.\u201d Roberta Sherwood was Roberta Peters, Barbra Streisand became Barbra Streisland (off-camera). A group of Samoans were presented as \u201cSamoans from Samoa,\u201d while a group of native New Zealanders became \u201cthe fierce Maori tribe from New England.\u201d Robert Merrill was greeted with the words \u201cI\u2019d like to prevent Robert Merrill.\u201d Dolores Gray was welcomed as \u201cone of the fine singing stars of Broadway now starving at the Alvin Theatre.\u201d A closing plug for a drive to fight tuberculosis emerged as \u201cGood night and help stamp out TV.\u201d One week, when his sponsor Kent cigarettes was under fire for advertising to minors, and the company\u2019s advertising agency\u2014Lennen and Newell\u2014had carefully placed its commercials in segments appealing to older audiences, Sullivan prefaced vaudeville trouper Blossom Seeley\u2019s appearance with \u201cBefore all of you young people can see a veteran in action, here\u2019s a word from Kent cigarettes.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"sc-jSgupP eVYAHa consumer-marketing-unit consumer-marketing-unit--article-mid-content\" role=\"presentation\" aria-hidden=\"false\">\n<div class=\"consumer-marketing-unit__slot consumer-marketing-unit__slot--article-mid-content consumer-marketing-unit__slot--in-content\"><span style=\"font-size: inherit;\">Jack Carter told me of a night when Sullivan, indulging his custom of recognizing distinguished audience members, asked a paraplegic to please stand and take a bow. Somehow most characteristic was Sullivan\u2019s urging, \u201cLet\u2019s hear it for the Lord\u2019s Prayer,\u201d upon forgetting the name of singer Sergio Franchi on the 1965 Christmas show.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"has-dropcap paywall\">Television was, from inception in its electric womb, such an incubus of the masses that many regarded it as civilization\u2019s end. The very word repulsed T. S. Eliot, who declared it \u201cugly,\u201d its welding of Greek and Latin roots a mark of \u201cill-breeding.\u201d The thing itself, he warned in 1950, was a \u201chabitual form of entertainment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Jack Carter blows him away: \u201cTelevision,\u201d he tells me, \u201cwas the box they buried show business in.\u201d Fitting, then, that its first and foremost ringmaster came across more like a pallbearer than a showman. Yet, paradoxically, he also ushered into the world new generations of razzmatazz. Featuring acts from Durante to Wayne and Shuster, a pair of Canadian comics (could there possibly be two?), his was the stage where stardom was conferred. Everyone, it seemed, who dwelled in or passed, however fleetingly, through the light of celebrity appeared on one or more of his 1,087 shows. A mere sampling of the names is staggering. Cut and cut again, it still produces the following scroll:<\/p>\n<div class=\"inline-recirc-wrapper inline-recirc-observer-target-1 viewport-monitor-anchor\" data-attr-viewport-monitor=\"inline-recirc\" data-event-boundary=\"click\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;pattern&quot;:&quot;InlineRecirc&quot;}\" data-include-experiments=\"true\"><\/div>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Woody Allen, Louis Armstrong, Fred Astaire, Gene Autry, Lucille Ball, the Band, Tallulah Bankhead, Brigitte Bardot, Lionel Barrymore, Count Basie, the Beach Boys, Tony Bennett, Irving Berlin, Eubie Blake, Humphrey Bogart, Marlon Brando, James Brown, Richard Burton, the Byrds, Sid Caesar, James Cagney, Maria Callas, Cab Calloway, Johnny Cash, Fidel Castro, Ray Charles, Montgomery Clift, George M. Cohan, Nat King Cole, Perry Como, Bill Cosby, Bing Crosby, Salvador Dal\u00ed, Rodney Dangerfield, Bobby Darin, James Dean, Jack Dempsey, Fats Domino, Peter Duchin, Clint Eastwood, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Duke Ellington, Clark Gable, Judy Garland, Ira Gershwin, Jackie Gleason, Cary Grant, Alec Guinness, Bill Haley and His Comets, Oscar Hammerstein II, W. C. Handy, Alfred Hitchcock, Judy Holliday, Buddy Holly and the Crickets, John Huston, the Ink Spots, Harry James, Jefferson Airplane, Gene Kelly, B. B. King, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Gene Krupa, Bert Lahr, Dorothy Lamour, Burt Lancaster, Mario Lanza, London Lee, Jerry Lee Lewis, Joe E. Lewis, Liberace, Sonny Liston, Sophia Loren, Moms Mabley, Jayne Mansfield, Rocky Marciano, Willie Mays, the McGuire Sisters, Yehudi Menuhin, Glenn Miller, Robert Mitchum, Ogden Nash, Paul Newman, Rudolf Nureyev, Merle Oberon, Gregory Peck, Itzhak Perlman, Edith Piaf, the Platters, Cole Porter, Perez Prado, Richard Pryor, George Raft, Johnnie Ray, Ronald Reagan, Jerome Robbins, Bill \u201cBojangles\u201d Robinson, Eleanor Roosevelt, Babe Ruth, Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, Carl Sandburg, Albert Schweitzer, Jean Seberg, Ravi Shankar, Dinah Shore, Frank Sinatra, the Supremes, Elizabeth Taylor, the Three Stooges, Margaret Truman, Sophie Tucker, Ike and Tina Turner, Lana Turner, the Vienna Boys\u2019 Choir, Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps, Betsy von Furstenberg, John Wayne, Orson Welles, Billy Wilder, Tennessee Williams, Henny Youngman, Darryl F. Zanuck.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-dropcap paywall\">Ascroll of the most legendary Sullivan-show performances: Elvis, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones. A scroll of the most bizarre: Joshua Logan\u2019s 1953 dramatic recounting of his mental breakdown and treatment; Charlton Heston reciting \u201cThe Passion of Jesus Christ\u201d in 1961; Kirk Douglas plugging Ken Kesey\u2019s novel\u00a0<em>One Flew over the Cuckoo\u2019s Nest<\/em>\u00a0in 1963; assorted jugglers, acrobats, trained-animal acts. A scroll of the performers who appeared most often: Pigmeat Markham (21 shows), Connie Francis (26), Alan King (37), ventriloquist Rickie Layne (39), Metropolitan Opera soprano Roberta Peters (41), Jack Carter (49), Wayne and Shuster (58), Sullivan\u2019s proudest discovery, Topo Gigio, the Italian Mouse (50), and everyone\u2019s favorite, Se\u00f1or Wences (23, according to one source; 48, according to others). Sullivan also had a great fondness for Peg Leg Bates, a one-legged dancer who performed on the show more than a dozen times.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Both Jack Carter and Alan King, who knew Sullivan before he started in television, remember him essentially as a Broadway newshound transposed from one medium to another.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cYou know what the bottom line is?\u201d King says. \u201cHe was a newspaperman. So, in a sense, what he was doing was using his talent as a newspaperman, scooping everyone. When he heard there was a nun who was singing in Brussels, he was on the next plane\u2014and he brought back the Singing Nun.\u201d King is referring to Sister Sourire of Belgium, whose \u201cDominique\u201d was a pop hit in 1963. Sullivan would play himself in the 1966 movie\u00a0<em>The Singing Nun.<\/em>\u00a0(As for the Sister herself, she would later take her own life in a lesbian lovers\u2019 suicide pact.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-dropcap paywall\">Edward Vincent Sullivan was born, a twin, on September 28, 1901, on East 114th Street, in a part of Harlem which at that time was a volatile alembic of Irish, Jewish, and other immigrants. Ed\u2019s parents, Peter and Elizabeth Smith Sullivan, had moved there not from the County Cork of Peter\u2019s ancestry but from the upstate industrial town of Amsterdam. Following the deaths of Ed\u2019s twin brother, Dan, and kid sister Elizabeth, the Sullivans moved to Port Chester, in suburban Westchester.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cDuring my childhood, Port Chester was a sleepy little village, the streets shaded by trees,\u201d Sullivan would write. After a start at St. Mary\u2019s Parochial, Ed hit Port Chester High, faring well in English, poorly in Latin, and winning 10 varsity letters, in baseball, basketball, football, and track. A nose twice broken in football left him merely vestigial senses of taste and smell; chipped teeth, long unfixed, left the habit of not baring them, a hesitancy to smile.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">After graduation, Sullivan was hired, at $10 a week, as a sports reporter for the Port Chester\u00a0<em>Daily Item.<\/em>\u00a0In time he became sports editor and interviewed Babe Ruth. His next big story, at the job that followed, was a 1923 article on heavyweight champ Jack Dempsey. (Both men would later appear on the Sullivan show, Dempsey six times.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">By 1922, Sullivan\u2014making $75 a week at the New York\u00a0<em>Evening Mail<\/em>\u2014 had become a Broadway bon vivant with a fancy Durant car, custom-made shirts, hand-tailored suits, and pretty flappers with whom he made the nightclub rounds. He lived over a tavern on West 48th Street.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">When the\u00a0<em>Mail<\/em>\u00a0folded, Sullivan ended up at the Philadelphia\u00a0<em>Ledger.<\/em>\u00a0From there he drifted widely, landing in 1927 at the weekend sports supplement of Bernarr Macfadden\u2019s\u00a0<em>Graphic.<\/em>\u00a0Macfadden, a former indentured servant who had built his fortune with\u00a0<em>True Story<\/em>\u00a0and other pulp magazines, had made the\u00a0<em>Graphic<\/em>\u00a0the yellowest of the yellow, dedicating it to \u201cthe masses, not the classes.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"grid grid-margins grid-items-2 grid-layout--adrail narrow wide-adrail\">\n<div class=\"grid--item body body__container article__body grid-layout__content\">\n<p class=\"paywall\">Sullivan became the Broadway bloodhound, following, though not directly, in the not inconsiderable footsteps of Walter Winchell. Sullivan\u2019s first column appeared on June 1, 1931: \u201cI feel, frankly,\u201d he wrote, \u201cthat I have entered a field of writing which ranks so low that it is difficult to distinguish any one columnist. . . . The Broadway columnists have lifted themselves to distinction by borrowed gags, gossip that is not always kindly, and keyholes that too often reveal what might better be hidden.\u201d Then, in grandiose aspersion, he concluded: \u201cI charge the Broadway columnists with defaming the street!\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cDid you mean what you wrote today?\u201d Winchell asked Sullivan that night at a local watering hole. Sullivan, hesitating, mumbled something about making a big entrance. Winchell said that he accepted this as an apology. But, according to what we\u2019ll call The Sullivan Version, the new columnist was apologizing to no one. \u201cI grabbed him by the knot in his necktie,\u201d Ed later wrote, \u201cand pulled him over the table, right on top of the cheesecake. \u2018Apologize to you?\u2019 I said\u2014\u2018You son of a bitch, I did mean you and if you say one more word about it, I\u2019ll take you downstairs and stick your head in the toilet bowl.\u2019 \u201d According to Sullivan, Winchell rose and slunk out. Whatever the truth, the two remained bitter rivals throughout their lives.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cPhonies will receive no comfort in this space,\u201d Sullivan wrote. \u201cTo get into this particular column will be a badge of merit and a citation\u2014divorces will not be propagated in this column.\u201d Not long after, however, he led with an item on the marital status of a former baseball player: \u201cGrover Cleveland Alexander is back with his wife and off the booze.\u201d In July he noted that \u201ceveryone who played a lead in\u00a0<em>The Marriage Circle,<\/em>\u00a0including Lubitsch, the director, has been divorced.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-dropcap paywall\">Sullivan\u2019s early newspaper career spanned the years when Broadway was the realm of bootleggers and racketeers, and every columnist was a liege. Back in his\u00a0<em>Evening Mail<\/em>\u00a0days, Ed had frequented the Club Durant, Jimmy Durante\u2019s West 58th Street speakeasy, where the clientele included Jack Dempsey, gangster Legs Diamond, producer Billy Rose, and writer Damon Runyon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Later, the Silver Slipper, at 201 West 48th Street, became his haunt. The Durant had shuttered, and even Jimmy himself had moved on to the Slipper, where he was performing with soft-shoe dancer Lou Clayton and singer Eddie Jackson in an act called the Three Sawdust Bums.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">The Slipper was run by a syndicate headed by Owney \u201cThe Killer\u201d Madden and his henchmen Frankie Marlow and Big Bill Duffy. Madden was no stranger to the press. He had given Winchell a Stutz Bearcat and appears to have set up his interview with Al Capone. Marlow, also the gangster\u2019s pal, owned pieces of a couple of boxers. Duffy managed Primo Carnera, the gentle Italian giant whose infamous heavyweight-championship reign (1933\u201334) was regarded as an orchestral masterpiece of Mob fight fixing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">When Marlow was gunned down near Flushing Cemetery in June 1929, Sullivan delivered this eulogy in his\u00a0<em>Graphic<\/em>\u00a0column:<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cAlong Broadway they are selling extras telling of Frank Marlow\u2019s death, and yet some of us almost expect to see his fine eyes crinkle in a pleased smile and to hear his cheery, \u2018Hello, pardner,\u2019 a salutation that was not paralleled along Broadway for pure warmth of feeling. . . .<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cTo some, Frank Marlow was a racketeer. . . . To us, who rejoiced in his friendship, he was an eager, impulsive, loyal friend.\u201d At this, the typographical tears burst into glory: \u201cGood bye, Frank, and God bless you! Our hearts tell us we have lost a friend and wholesouled comrade, a pardner, in the complete sense, an ace.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-dropcap paywall\">Throughout Primo Carnera\u2019s suspect rise, Sullivan was his foremost press supporter. In his column of April 25, 1930, the *Daily Mirror\u2019*s Dan Parker wrote, \u201cSpeaking, I presume for the Duffy interests which he seems to represent, Mr. Sullivan . . . as he confesses, \u2018the original booster of the big man from the South of Italy,\u2019 offers to take \u2018any odds such a scoffer as Danyell Parker will offer.\u2019 \u201d Dismissing both the offer and \u201cPrimo and his faking entourage,\u201d Parker ended on a provocative note: \u201cAnd, oh, what I know about Eddie Sullivan!\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Sullivan sought legal recourse, but lost in State Supreme Court against Parker and the\u00a0<em>Mirror.<\/em>\u00a0He won on appeal, but ultimately settled for legal fees.<\/p>\n<div class=\"inline-recirc-wrapper inline-recirc-observer-target-3 viewport-monitor-anchor\" data-attr-viewport-monitor=\"inline-recirc\" data-event-boundary=\"click\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;pattern&quot;:&quot;InlineRecirc&quot;}\" data-include-experiments=\"true\"><\/div>\n<p class=\"paywall\">When Vincent \u201cMad Dog\u201d Coll was murdered, possibly at the behest of Owney Madden, Sullivan was moved to a certain sort of poetry. \u201cWhat a dreadful feeling must come over a Coll\u2014as the ugly snout of a submachine gun adjusts its evil leer,\u201d he wrote on February 10, 1932. \u201cDeath has arrived . . . and the shortest path between two points . . . is the path traveled by a leaden pellet.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Sullivan claimed to have once traversed the path\u2019s narrow outskirts. \u201cI was threatened by Scarface Al Capone\u2019s mob in 1929,\u201d he wrote; \u201cthey mistook me for Edward Dean Sullivan, who wrote\u00a0<em>Rattling the Cup on Chicago Crime,<\/em>\u00a0an expos\u00e9 of Chicago gangland killings.\u201d This may be another instance of The Sullivan Version: Edward Dean Sullivan was known to have been a Capone chum.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">The Sullivan Version is encountered in full flower in the story our hero told in the\u00a0<em>New York Post<\/em>\u00a0of a confrontation in Reuben\u2019s restaurant with gangster Larry Fay and entertainment writer Mark Hellinger, a cohort of Walter Winchell\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cNow this guy Hellinger had always been one of my pet peeves, a real phony, with that phony Broadway smile and those dark blue shirts with the pinned collar and that Broadway air about him. . . . I\u2019d met Hellinger for the first time only a little while before; we were standing in front of the Ziegfeld, and you know the first thing he said to me? \u2018<em>Listen,<\/em>\u00a0Sullivan,\u2019 he said, \u2018you\u2019ve been pulling an awful lot of boners lately. You need some straightening out, straightening out with the right people.\u2019<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201c \u2018You listen to me, Hellinger,\u2019 I told him. \u2018Straighten yourself out first, you with your phony Broadway airs and your rewrites of O. Henry. You\u2019re a phony, and a lousy writer, too. I don\u2019t need straightening out. . . . I\u2019ve been a pretty good sporting writer . . . and I had a byline before you were even heard of.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"grid--item grid-layout__aside\">\n<div class=\"sc-dkAroR gYiDIv sticky-box\">\n<div class=\"sc-jifIRw lkksMp sticky-box__primary\">\n<div class=\"ad pppnkj\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"grid grid-margins grid-items-2 grid-layout--adrail narrow wide-adrail\">\n<div class=\"grid--item body body__container article__body grid-layout__content\">\n<p class=\"paywall\">According to Sullivan, nothing further had passed between them until this fateful day.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cThey sat down and Hellinger leaned over to me. \u2018Remember what I told you once?\u2019 he said, \u2018about your needing some straightening out . . . \u2019<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cI never gave him a chance to finish.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201c \u2018Listen, Mark,\u2019 I said, \u2018I told you what I thought of you the last time and I\u2019ll tell you again. You\u2019re a phony. . . . And another thing,\u2019 I said, \u2018if you\u2019re looking for trouble, you just don\u2019t know what tough guys are. I\u2019ll get a couple of\u00a0<em>my<\/em>\u00a0guys after you and you\u2019ll wind up with your ears lopped off!\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-dropcap paywall\">In 1926 at a nightclub known as the Casa Lopez, Sullivan met Sylvia Weinstein, the fresh-out-of-high-school daughter of an Upper West Side real-estate agent. They were married in a civil service on April 28, 1930. (A Catholic ceremony was performed by a priest in West Orange, New Jersey, three days later, on May 1.) The 28-year-old Ed was at the\u00a0<em>Graphic<\/em>\u00a0then, and the paper\u2019s not-so-accurate report of the marriage listed Sylvia\u2019s age as 26. The couple\u2019s only child was born later that year. She was given the name Elizabeth for Ed\u2019s sister and his mother, who had just passed on.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">The\u00a0<em>Graphic<\/em>\u00a0folded in 1932, and Sullivan was brought by Captain Joe Patterson to the\u00a0<em>Daily News,<\/em>\u00a0one of the oldest and biggest tabloids. It was a good job, but came with a deep cut in pay, down to $200 a week from $375.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">The gossip racket, however, was not his only source of income. At the\u00a0<em>Graphic,<\/em>\u00a0he had acted as the master of ceremonies for an annual All-Sports Dinner. When Winchell left the paper, Sullivan took over booking the entertainment as well as the sporting personalities. This led to a 1930 radio program sponsored by Adam Hats, which in turn led to a grand-a-week hosting job for another program.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">By early 1932, Sullivan was affiliated with the Columbia Broadcasting System. According to Sullivan\u2019s biographer, Michael David Harris, it was Ed who introduced the first radio broadcasts of Jack Benny, Jimmy Durante, Irving Berlin, and Florenz Ziegfeld. Also in 1932, Sullivan served as master of ceremonies at the $100-a-plate dinner of the United Jewish Federation at the Plaza Hotel, after which he struck a deal to produce a variety show at the Paramount Theatre, as Winchell had done before him. Sullivan\u2019s revue,\u00a0<em>Gems of the Town,<\/em>\u00a0brought him $3,750 a week. Other Sullivan stage shows followed at the Loew\u2019s State Theatre, and in 1936 he began hosting the Harvest Moon Ball for the\u00a0<em>Daily News.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"has-dropcap paywall\">The Sullivans certainly lived well during the Depression and the blues that followed. Sylvia, however, remembered her husband entering his 30s as a brooder, a distinctly dissatisfied guy. A March 1937 magazine portrait described Ed as a man whose \u201cdomestic arrangements\u201d lay \u201cmidway between those of Winchell and [columnist Louis] Sobol. The former is rarely seen with his wife, while Sobol takes his to all theatrical openings.\u201d Sullivan took his wife to big openings, but was otherwise a loner. He was, as always, one of the rounders\u2014the insiders, the mobsters, the hangers-out\u2014who hit the nightclubs toward the hour of the wolf.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">The writer continued: \u201cHe seldom gets back home before five A.M., in the meanwhile having taken in, on a typical night, \u201821,\u2019 the Stork Club, the Hollywood, Dave\u2019s Blue Room, Lindy\u2019s and Jimmy Kelly\u2019s. . . . Courvoisier brandy is his only but not single drink; then it\u2019s bed until one or two in the afternoon. The column is written\u2014at home. That takes a couple of hours and Sullivan then drives down to the\u00a0<em>Daily News,<\/em>\u00a0reads his mail and waits while the composing room gives him a proof.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Later in 1937, Sullivan left Broadway for Hollywood, moving his family to a house with a garden in Beverly Hills. For three years, he wrote a Hollywood gossip column for the\u00a0<em>News.<\/em>\u00a0Like Winchell, he would get a taste of moving pictures. On the West Coast, he tried his hand at screen scenarios: Hal Roach\u2019s\u00a0<em>There Goes My Heart<\/em>\u00a0and two Universal films,\u00a0<em>Ma, He\u2019s Making Eyes at Me<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0<em>Big Town Czar,<\/em>\u00a0in which Sullivan also appeared. All three films were ignored and forgotten.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">After a brief return to New York, Sullivan announced, in November 1940, that he was assuming the editorship of Billy Wilkerson\u2019s\u00a0<em>Hollywood Reporter.<\/em>\u00a0Captain Patterson of the\u00a0<em>News<\/em>\u00a0wired, \u201c<em>Rebus sic stanibus,<\/em>\u00a0you can stay with us as long as you want.\u201d Returning to the\u00a0<em>News<\/em>\u00a0for good, Sullivan moved his family into the Hotel Astor, at Broadway and 44th Street, in the heart of Times Square.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Betty Sullivan was 10. \u201cIt was horrible,\u201d she tells me. \u201cIt was no place for a young girl to live. I went to Marymount at that time, and I\u2019d walk over to Fifth Avenue and step over drunks and unsavory characters.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">But, as Betty says, \u201cit was convenient for my dad for us to live at the Astor.\u201d Right across the street was the Loew\u2019s where Ed put on his shows.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">In 1944 the Sullivans moved from the Astor to the much swankier Delmonico, at Park Avenue and 59th Street. Living there \u201cwas much better,\u201d Betty recalled. She remembered that, as at the Astor, there were no home-cooked meals. \u201cWe\u2019d go out to dinner every evening.\u201d She described her father as a sort of intimate stranger: \u201cHe didn\u2019t have many friends. I think, as a father, he related more to me as I got older. He would correct my papers and took an interest in that part of my life, and I remember I would get exasperated and say, \u2018I wanna make my own mistakes,\u2019 and he would say, \u2018Can\u2019t you profit from my experience?,\u2019 which I didn\u2019t want to, I wanted to learn by making my own mistakes.\u201d Asked if he was a domineering sort of fellow, Betty says, \u201cI guess so. He had a temper.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-dropcap paywall\">In 1942, Sullivan co-produced\u00a0<em>Harlem Cavalcade,<\/em>\u00a0reuniting some greats of black vaudeville, including Noble Sissle, Flournoy Miller, and Tim Moore. It was early evidence of Sullivan\u2019s longtime support of nonwhite entertainers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Sullivan also served as a guest interviewer on the CBS\u00a0<em>Vox Pop<\/em>\u00a0radio program. Then, at a quarter past seven, Eastern War Time, Monday, September 13, 1943, he began his first really big show:\u00a0<em>Ed Sullivan Entertains,<\/em>\u00a0a weekly CBS radio series of 15-minute celebrity interviews broadcast from the \u201821\u2019 Club and sponsored by Mennen. In April of 1946 came\u00a0<em>The Ed Sullivan Program,<\/em>\u00a0a weekly quarter-hour collection of commentaries, sponsored by Edgeworth Smoking Tobacco.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">The Harvest Moon Ball of September 3, 1947, was the first to be broadcast by the new medium of television. The Sullivan Version claimed that he wasn\u2019t aware that the program was being aired live. At the same time, however, he was alert to the possibilities of television. Through Marlo Lewis of the Blaine Thompson advertising agency, he approached CBS with a proposal for a program called\u00a0<em>Pros and Cons,<\/em>\u00a0in which golf professionals would give tips on how to improve one\u2019s game. The idea was rejected by the network. But when Worthingon Miner, the network\u2019s director of program development, later mulled the notion of a Sunday-night variety show, he thought of Sullivan and the telecast of the Harvest Moon Ball.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-dropcap paywall\">ACBS press release in May of 1948 announced \u201ca full-hour Sunday revue series, titled \u2018You\u2019re the Top\u2019 and tentatively scheduled to begin on the CBS Television Network June 20, 9:00\u201310:00 PM, EDST\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Broadcast from the Maxine Elliott Theatre, on West 39th Street, the show premiered as scheduled, but under a different name:\u00a0<em>Toast of the Town.<\/em>\u00a0This first show, now lost (of the 1,087 shows, 30 are missing; the earliest surviving dates to November of 1948), consisted of eight acts, including Rodgers and Hammerstein, singer Monica Lewis (sister of the show\u2019s first producer, Marlo Lewis), boxing referee Ruby Goldstein (discussing the upcoming Louis-Walcott fight), and, for human interest and to build a local audience, New York City singing fireman John Kokoman. The budget was reported at under $1,400, of which the show\u2019s headliners, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, making their TV debut, received $200.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"grid--item grid-layout__aside\">\n<div class=\"sc-dkAroR gYiDIv sticky-box\">\n<div class=\"sc-jifIRw lkksMp sticky-box__primary\">\n<div class=\"ad pppnkj\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sc-hkwnrn jOcitS\"><span style=\"font-size: inherit;\">The old Billy Rose Theater, originally Hammerstein\u2019s Theater, at 1697 Broad-way, was converted by CBS into a studio for the show, which moved from nine o\u2019clock to eight so that kids could see it before being put to bed. Sullivan survived bad reviews\u2014and accusations that he used the influence of his column to get star performers to appear for chicken feed. But he prevailed over the competition: <\/span><em style=\"font-size: inherit;\">Philco Television Playhouse,<\/em><span style=\"font-size: inherit;\">\u00a0Perry Como, and\u00a0<\/span><em style=\"font-size: inherit;\">The Colgate Comedy Hour.<\/em><span style=\"font-size: inherit;\">\u00a0By 1954\u2014the year he introduced Will Jordan\u2019s Ed Sullivan impersonation with a good-humored reference to \u201cthis rigor-mortis face of mine\u201d\u2014his own Sullivan Productions had assumed total control of the show. By 1955, it was\u00a0<\/span><em style=\"font-size: inherit;\">The Ed Sullivan Show.<\/em><span style=\"font-size: inherit;\">\u00a0By the following year, CBS was paying him $176,000 a year under a new, 20-year contract. (Yet another contract would follow in 1961; he would later be taking in a reported 20 grand a week.) In 1957, when Sullivan celebrated his show\u2019s ninth anniversary, John Crosby of the\u00a0<\/span><em style=\"font-size: inherit;\">Herald Tribune,<\/em><span style=\"font-size: inherit;\">\u00a0one of his earliest and most avid critics, wrote, \u201cMr. Sullivan has grown no more skillful with his hands or his face or his prose. But he is still there, which is more than you can say about a lot of people who are enormously skillful in all these departments. There is a great lesson in this for all of us, but I\u2019m damned if I know what it is.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"grid grid-margins grid-items-2 grid-layout--adrail narrow wide-adrail\">\n<div class=\"grid--item body body__container article__body grid-layout__content\">\n<p class=\"paywall\">The pay helped keep the performers loyal. Alan King remembers getting $7,500 for a nine-minute bit. But just as valuable, he says, was the exposure: \u201cI was working Vegas for a thousand dollars, I went on\u00a0<em>The Ed Sullivan Show<\/em>\u2014the next time I got $2,500. Every time I went on the Sullivan show, my price went up.\u201d Connie Francis says that she tried to schedule her Sullivan appearances before her Vegas openings, to ensure a packed house. \u201cIf you went on\u00a0<em>The Ed Sullivan Show,<\/em>\u201dshe says, \u201ceverybody knew who you were the next day.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-dropcap paywall\">In 1955, Ed bought a country place, a 130-acre dairy farm with a swimming pool, in Southbury, Connecticut. The Delmonico suite, however, would remain the home and headquarters of both Sullivan and his show. Actually, it had now become\u00a0<em>suites:<\/em>\u00a0No. 1101, adjoining the original Sullivan suite, 1102, had been acquired as an office.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Betty recalls that after she graduated from high school, \u201cmy dad helped me get into U.C.L.A. through Joe E. Brown, the comedian, who was a big man on campus as far as sports. I got in through the sports department, really, not on a scholarship, mind you, but just through the sports department. My high school, Miss Hewitt\u2019s, didn\u2019t have a gymnasium, so I didn\u2019t even have that credit, which they required at U.C.L.A.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">It was there that she met and dated Robert Precht, who described his first meeting with Betty\u2019s parents, at Chasen\u2019s, as \u201ca fairly tense evening.\u201d Precht, an idealistic young liberal who was studying Russian for a degree in international relations, found himself discussing politics with Ed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cMy dad thought Bob was a Communist,\u201d Betty says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Ed was a conservative man, to put it mildly. In 1933, when Marlene Dietrich attended a matinee in slacks, he denounced her for \u201cappearing in men\u2019s clothes,\u201d concluding, with a bitter sigh, \u201cWell, what can you expect from one of Hitler\u2019s cuties?\u201d The following year, he declared in a column, \u201cMy resentment of effeminates as performers is just as keen as ever,\u201d and \u201cMy intemperance of dirty jokes and dirty songs has not tempered.\u201d The revues presented by him, he said, proved \u201cthat a clean show can be crisp and entertaining without the injection of smuttiness or double meanings.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">In a 1957\u00a0<em>New York Journal-American<\/em>\u00a0series on Sullivan by Jim Bishop, Ed stated the philosophy of his show in 17 words: \u201cOpen big, have a good comedy act, put in something for the children, keep the show clean.\u201d Bishop also enumerated Sullivan\u2019s major influences. His father came first, then: \u201c(2) his mother and his church, (3) Sir Walter Scott, (4) high school sports, where the credo is \u2018Play hard and play to win, but play clean.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Clean, clean, clean. Jack Carter, who once tried to do a routine mentioning the human navel, discovered the volcanic intensity of a Sullivan eruption. \u201cYou\u2019d do a run-through at noon and kill the people and then you\u2019d have to go up to his room, where he was being shaved, and he\u2019d lace into you in the worst language you ever heard. \u2018How dare you do that shit on my show! You really think you\u2019re gonna get away with that fucking gag about a navel? That\u2019s a fucking hole, you little shit. You little fuck, you do that shit on my show.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"grid--item grid-layout__aside\">\n<div class=\"sc-dkAroR gYiDIv sticky-box\">\n<div class=\"sc-jifIRw lkksMp sticky-box__primary\">\n<div class=\"ad pppnkj\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sc-hkwnrn jOcitS\"><span style=\"font-size: inherit;\">He was, Carter says, \u201ca strange man. He was very paradoxical. He was the height of nunnery, and then, offstage, he was vile and vulgar and angry. But only concerning his show.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"grid grid-margins grid-items-2 grid-layout--adrail narrow wide-adrail\">\n<div class=\"grid--item body body__container article__body grid-layout__content\">\n<p class=\"paywall\">Sullivan himself recalled that \u201con three occasions, at dress rehearsals, I had our wardrobe chief, Bill Walstrom, cover up with tulle the cleavage in the gowns of Kim Novak, Jeanne Crain and Esther Williams. Yet when each of these stars emerged from the wings, the tulle mysteriously had disappeared. We solved that simply by focusing the cameras on their faces.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-dropcap paywall\">In one infamous incident, on October 18, 1964, Jackie Mason was banished from the show for allegedly making an obscene gesture at Sullivan. Mason, who felt that Sullivan\u2019s practice of standing off-camera and grimly counting down time with his fingers had a distracting effect on the studio audience, had supposedly responded with a finger flurry of his own. But in a libel-and-slander suit filed by Mason, the judge\u2014according to the comic\u2014could discern no offensive gesture by Mason.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cThe gesture,\u201d Mason told me, \u201cwas in his mind. He used four-letter words and dirty gestures as a way of life, because he was a Broadway street guy. I was a yeshiva student and a rabbi. I didn\u2019t know from dirty gestures.\u201d The feud was, by Sullivan standards, short-lived. Two years later at the Las Vegas airport, Sullivan expressed regret. \u201cIt was a very touching speech he made,\u201d says Mason. \u201cIt was a very long, apologetic speech, and two weeks later I was on the show again.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">The effects of the scandal, however, were, according to Mason, long-lived. \u201cIt basically destroyed my career for at least 10, 15 years. Because in those days, if you had an image of a filthy person, you were wiped out. Today, if you have an image as a filthy person, you become a sensation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">To Mason, Sullivan \u201cwas a wonderful guy. Off the show, he was the nicest, classiest man. On the show itself, he became very intense. . . . He became very nervous before each show. He was just trying to make the show as perfect as possible, and he was very insecure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">There were other celebrated feuds: with Frank Sinatra (who in 1955 called \u201cfor movie performers to stop appearing cuffo on commercial TV shows to plug pictures\u201d) and with his competitors such as Jack Paar (who were getting guests for scale, while Sullivan was paying them thousands). Alan King, who describes Ed as \u201cmy best friend but worst enemy,\u201d says that when he appeared on Garry Moore\u2019s show, \u201cEd literally came close to slapping me in the face at Danny\u2019s Hideaway. He called me a traitor. . . . For five years Ed didn\u2019t talk to me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-dropcap paywall\">In the Winchell feud, whose true origin lies clouded in contradiction, there would not be as much as a gesture of reconciliation until 1967, almost 40 years after it began. \u201cThey hated each other,\u201d Betty says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Above all else\u2014above women in pants and sissies and smut and anatomical holes\u2014Sullivan hated Commies. He once suggested that the House Committee on Un-American Activities subpoena choreographer Jerome Robbins because \u201cin my office not long ago he revealed he had been a card-carrying member of the Communist Party.\u201d He publicly denounced John Garfield, Charlie Chaplin, and Arthur Miller; lauded\u00a0<em>Red Channels,<\/em>\u00a0the broadcasters\u2019 blacklist guide; held court in his Delmonico suite for performers \u201ceager to secure a certification of loyalty\u201d; and, according to Alvin Davis of the\u00a0<em>New York Post,<\/em>\u00a0\u201cproposed a quasi-official agency to issue clearances for television personalities.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">He felt he had helped keep black performers from Communism, a point he made while commending their decency: \u201cI\u2019ve never had to censor the material of a Negro performer\u201d or \u201cask a Negro girl or woman to correct her costume,\u201d he wrote in 1956. \u201cSo, when the Commies were trying to take over AFTRA [American Federation of Television and Radio Artists], the Negro performers always voted solidly with me to defeat them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-dropcap paywall\">Betty Sullivan and Bob Precht were married in Los Angeles in 1952, the year of their college graduations. Bob spent four years in the navy, but found his interest drifting from his planned career in diplomatic service. \u201cWhen we lived in D.C., we were with the Sullivans much more, and I was able to get a taste of the television business, which was . . . very appealing, very exciting, and very glamorous. So, when I got out of the navy, in 1956, I went into the television business.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Marlo Lewis, who produced the Sullivan show, found Precht a position with the children\u2019s show\u00a0<em>Winky-Dink and You,<\/em>\u00a0which folded in 1957. \u201cAbout four years later, Marlo decided to either quit or retire or make a career move. Ed obviously looked in my direction. . . . There\u2019s no question that I was young, and certainly, I guess, there was favoritism.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Bob Precht became associate producer of the show in 1959, producer in 1960. He learned quickly that the show was his father-in-law\u2019s life. \u201cMy father just wasn\u2019t a very social person,\u201d Betty says. \u201cHe really was the person people saw on Sunday.\u201d Ed\u2019s eldest grandchild, Rob, says, while he was very supportive, \u201cdeep down, I think, he thought family life was overrated, and that the symbols of family life tired him a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cIt was a life cycle,\u201d Bob Precht says. \u201cI mean, he lived for that Sunday night, and his whole week, particularly as he got older, would be a preparation for that Sunday night.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-dropcap paywall\">Bob remembers that life cycle well. \u201cMonday, we would have a production meeting. Myself, the director, the music director, the scenic designer, the choreographer, the production team. We would see what the lineup was and what had to be done, and in some instances we would begin rehearsals very early. We would begin rehearsals as early as that Monday or Tuesday if it was a fairly complicated production number, or a Wayne and Shuster sketch, Bert Lahr sketch\u2014something like that. . . . Our production offices were on 57th Street, and we had some rehearsal halls there, but sometimes we would go to a rehearsal hall over on Eighth Avenue. With musical acts, it would be a matter of meeting with them to determine what music we could use, et cetera. That would continue through the week, and then on Saturday we would go into the studio and basically block it out. In some instances, Ed would come over to those rehearsals. During the week, he and I basically communicated by phone, or if there was something special, I\u2019d go over to the Delmonico, or we\u2019d meet at Gino\u2019s, on Lexington.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cEd, because of his nocturnal life, would usually have his breakfast or lunch about three in the afternoon, at Gino\u2019s, when the waiters were having their lunch. Ed would be the only customer. We\u2019d sit in the back of the restaurant talking about various show matters. By Saturday we were basically on our feet. But the big moment of truth was the dress rehearsal, which was on Sunday afternoon, and we had to have everything in order, ready to show an audience. Ed would come over. He knew the lineup and he knew the people, and he would dictate his copy to one of the girls, who would put it on the TelePrompTer, and then we would have our dress rehearsal. . . . Between the end of that dress rehearsal and going on-air, he would make substantial changes. That was Ed\u2019s newspaper approach to show business. He would edit, he would change, and if something was particularly weak, he would drop it. . . . I had the unhappy job of going to the acts or their agents and having to say, \u2018I\u2019m sorry, we can\u2019t use you.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-dropcap paywall\">Unlike most singers, Connie Francis had carte blanche to sing whatever she wanted. She remembers an incident backstage, when she was going to sing \u201cMy Yiddishe Momme,\u201d from her album\u00a0<em>Connie Francis Sings Jewish Favorites.<\/em>\u00a0Sophie Tucker, who had recorded \u201cMy Yiddishe Momme\u201d in the late 20s, became outraged that Connie should sing what she called \u201cmy song.\u201d As Connie recalls, Jerry Lewis stuck his nose in, and he and Tucker threatened to walk off the show if Connie\u2014Concetta Franconero\u2014was allowed to desecrate this hallowed Tucker heirloom. \u201cEd,\u201d she said, \u201cmade them reconsider.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Robert Arthur, the show\u2019s music and creative coordinator, remembers that \u201cEd\u2019s main interest was in booking the show and finding the acts. . . . It was sort of up to us to figure out exactly what that person might do on the show.\u201d Robert remembers the Motown acts as being \u201cpleasant to work with.\u201d Kate Smith, on the other hand, was \u201can iron butterfly.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Another important figure in Sullivan\u2019s life was Carmine Santullo, the secretary and right-hand man who had served Sullivan since the early 1930s. Rob Precht remembers Santullo as seeming \u201cslightly Dickensian to me. I mean, he was someone I imagine out of a Dickens novel, the faithful retainer. I loved Carmine, but there was something lugubrious in his appearance. He would prepare a lamb chop for my grandfather on a hot plate. Although they had a stove, they would use the hot plate.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cOnce it started,\u201d says Jack Carter, \u201cthe show was Ed\u2019s life. He was concerned with every small act, every detail. He\u2019d be there at rehearsal all day. . . . He fought you tooth and nail for every joke, every line.\u201d Not everything went smoothly. Carter remembers the night Frankie Laine was singing \u201cI Believe\u201d with a live horse pulling him in a buggy. \u201cHe started singing and the horse started dropping these lumps. They didn\u2019t know you got to clean out animals before they go on.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Problems or delays were rarely traceable to Ed, who wouldn\u2019t stop working\u2014even when it hurt. Under the heading HE WAS AFRAID OF THE KNIFE, Jim Bishop, writing in the\u00a0<em>New York Journal-American,<\/em>\u00a0gave a graphic account of Ed\u2019s ulcer: \u201cIt is situated in the duodenum and, when it erupts, it locks the stomach exit in a closed position. When this happens, Ed sticks two tubes through his nostrils and down into his esophagus. Then he pumps out his stomach.\u201d Ed finally confronted the knife in June 1960.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-dropcap paywall\">Despite his show\u2019s reputation as lowbrow, Sullivan was the greatest supporter of opera on commercial television. \u201cHe loved Roberta Peters,\u201d Bob Precht remembers, and, indeed, the soprano was one of the show\u2019s most frequent performers. Under a 1956 contract with the Metropolitan Opera, Sullivan scheduled several scenes of opera for the show, beginning with 18 minutes of\u00a0<em>Tosca<\/em>\u00a0featuring Maria Callas and George London. The opera presentations, however, resulted in a drop in ratings, and the contract was ended early in 1957.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Sullivan had better luck with rock \u2019n\u2019 roll. He featured Louis Jordan, one of the genre\u2019s progenitors, on September 19, 1948; the Ravens on January 2, 1949; and in November 1955 dedicated a segment to the new black music, presenting Bo Diddley, LaVern Baker, and the Five Keys.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Sullivan was recuperating from an automobile accident in the late summer of 1956. Thus it came to pass that Charles Laughton, who filled in for him on the night of September 9, introduced Elvis Presley for the first of the three appearances for which Sullivan had agreed to pay a total of 50 grand. (This was barely more, per appearance, than the 13 grand he had paid Sonja Henie for her 1952 ice-spectacular television debut.) Presley was not a Sullivan scoop\u2014he already had nine network performances behind him\u2014but he did bring in the ratings, beating by 5 percent the Sullivan audience record set in 1954 by a show featuring Elizabeth Taylor, Julius LaRosa, and the Harlem Globetrotters. As Sullivan himself observed, \u201cPresley\u2019s style was not as agitated as that of Johnnie Ray when Ray made his TV debut on our stage January 6, 1952.\u201d It was true: not until Presley\u2019s final appearance did the cameras cut off his gyrations from the waist down. As Sullivan said, \u201cThere could never be any possible chance for anything offensive to happen on our stage. I am in control of the cameras.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Bob Dylan was scheduled to appear on May 12, 1963. But he came into rehearsal on the appointed Sunday with \u201cTalkin\u2019 John Birch Paranoid Blues,\u201d a whimsical little song to which the CBS censors objected. Offered the chance to choose another song, he decided not to do the show at all.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-dropcap paywall\">The Beatles, on February 9, 1964, were a coup, and a new ratings record: the largest viewing audience yet in television history. It was after this that Sullivan entered into the negotiations with CBS that won him ownership of all past and future shows. From this vast and invaluable archive, acquired in 1990 by the producer Andrew Solt, there will soon emerge what promises to be one of the best exhibitions of rock \u2019n\u2019 roll archaeology ever unveiled,\u00a0<em>The Sullivan Pop and Rock Classics,<\/em>\u00a0a 20-part series of half-hour segments that will premiere on VH1 in January 1998.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Tamer than Presley, the Beatles, in their cute little suits and ties, with their cute little smiles, posed no threat. The Rolling Stones, whom Sullivan first presented on October 25, 1964, were another matter entirely. With their five appearances through January \u201967, the show seemed to enter dangerous territory beyond the absolute control of its aging master and mediocrator. Mitzi Gaynor\u2019s performance of \u201cToo Darn Hot,\u201d on February 16, 1964, was another omen: it was as lascivious a moment as television had ever known.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">And\u2014this might mean something\u2014it was also during this period, on September 19, 1965, that the Sullivan show passed from black and white to color.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">On January 15, 1967, as Robert Arthur remembers, the Stones \u201cwere going to sing one of their hits, \u2018Let\u2019s Spend the Night Together.\u2019 Well, at that time, that was absolutely . . . it would be like saying, \u2018Fuck, fuck, fuck.\u2019 People\u2019s eyes would roll in their heads at the network. So I was sent to deal with them, because I was also a songwriter . . . and I came up with a phrase that was almost the same thing and sounded almost the same, and it was \u2018Let\u2019s spend some time together.\u2019 Mick Jagger agreed . . . but then, on the show . . .\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">The Stones honored their promise in performance, with Jagger parodying the edit with his ironic glances. \u201cI was sort of on their side,\u201d says Robert Arthur, looking back. It would be November 23, 1969, almost three years later, before the Stones returned to the show, for the last time, with a pre-Altamont \u201cGimme Shelter\u201d that portended changing times.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-dropcap paywall\">On September 17, 1967, came the Doors. The self-styled \u201cErotic Politicians\u201d refused to sanitize their song \u201cLight My Fire\u201d by deleting the word \u201chigher,\u201d which the Sullivan forces considered a blatant drug reference. Jim Morrison\u2019s band never made it back for a second show. They might not have wanted to; it had become an anachronism. During the program of December 10, 1967, the CBS studio at Broadway and 53rd Street was renamed the Ed Sullivan Theater. But all was not well. Two weeks later, on Christmas Eve, George Carlin managed to slip a marijuana joke into one of his routines.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cThe only live show with a dead host\u201d\u2014again, the line is courtesy of Jack Carter\u2014itself began to die. In March of 1971, CBS announced that Sullivan would not be a part of its coming fall schedule. The last show was broadcast on May 30. The time slot would be filled by another movie of the week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Ed\u2019s old enemy, Walter Winchell, died in February 1972. Sylvia died in March 1973. Without his show, without hate, without love, Ed Sullivan was lost. \u201cHe was a shattered man,\u201d his grandson Rob says. \u201cHe really didn\u2019t have any point, or probably didn\u2019t feel any point, in living.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">When Rob was attending Scarsdale Junior High School, his father and grandfather had arranged for him to interview Mick Jagger backstage for the school magazine. \u201cHe would look at me during the course of my stupid questions and say, \u2018You know, you look like your father,\u2019 and then we would have a few more questions, and he would say, \u2018You know, you talk like your grandfather,\u2019 and we would continue on, and he would say, \u2018You know, you walk like your grandfather.\u2019\u201d Now Rob, who went on to become a lawyer, says of himself and his grandfather, \u201cI\u2019ve inherited his show-business sensibility.\u201d A few years ago, as a public defender, he represented Mohammad Salameh in the World Trade Center bombing case. Today, at the University of Michigan Law School, he heads a program to create and promote pro bono and public-service legal work. \u201cIn many ways, I think I\u2019m kind of like the Ed Sullivan of public service.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-dropcap paywall\">Rob was in his late teens in his grandfather\u2019s final years. \u201cShortly before he died, when he was in frail health, I remember taking him back to his hotel from a restaurant. It was about 11 at night, and as I was walking with him down the lonely sidewalks, hoping that no one would recognize him, because I didn\u2019t want to have to stop, I noticed two women in the distance walking toward us. As they came closer, it was obvious to me that they were prostitutes. I became anxious because I didn\u2019t want them to recognize my grandfather and engage him in conversation or anything like that. I just wanted to get back to the hotel. So, as we got closer, I got more and more concerned, and just as we got to within five feet of passing them, my grandfather yelled out to them, \u2018Oh, hello, girls!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">He entered Lenox Hill Hospital on September 6, 1974, suffering from cancer of the esophagus. Some weeks later, on October 13, a Sunday, he died there, just after his 73rd birthday. Three days later, two thousand mourners converged on St. Patrick\u2019s, where Cardinal Cooke officiated at a Requiem High Mass.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">From \u2018ill-advised\u2019 choice to host of the longest-running variety show in television, from cramming tulle into cleavage to \u2018Hello, girls!\u2019 There is simply no explaining Ed Sullivan. John Leonard, the Schopenhauer of television exegetes, has been trying. As long ago as 1975, he described Sullivan as \u201cwhat Ezra Pound might have meant by \u2018The fourth; the dimension of stillness \/ And the power over wild beasts.\u2019 \u201d Almost 22 years later, Leonard is still at it\u2014nigh as long a pursuit as the span of Sullivan\u2019s show. In his recent book,\u00a0<em>Smoke and Mirrors,<\/em>\u00a0the chapter \u201cEd Sullivan Died for Our Sins\u201d presents Ed as \u201cour father and our Fisher King.\u201d But, in the end, high-voltage erudition is but tulle in the hole of unknowing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-dropcap paywall\">It is April, the cruelest month, or so I have heard it said. I sit with Se\u00f1or Wences in his memory-filled West Side Manhattan apartment on the eve of his 101st birthday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cWhat was Ed Sullivan like as a human being?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cDifficult,\u201d answers his wife, from somewhere nearby.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cYes,\u201d says the master ventriloquist, \u201cvery difficult, very difficult.\u201d He shows me a hand-mask device, works his fingers into it, calls out to his wife: \u201cYou have one orange? Orange? One orange?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cAn orange? No, I don\u2019t have an orange,\u201d she replies. \u201cWould you like a ball instead of an orange?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">He accepts the ball, bounces it from his ankle toward a hoop in the hand mask\u2019s mouth. Almost\u2014but not quite. He shrugs, takes out another puppet-head hand device, introduces it as \u201cErnesto.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">I remember the bizarre little face he made by painting lips on his forefinger and thumb, placing eyes and a little blond wig over his knuckles. I always thought it was a girl. But, no, its name, I have been reminded, is Johnny. Originally, in Spain, Juanito; then, in America, Johnny.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cWas Johnny always a boy? Did you ever do a girl?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cNo. Johnny. I use the name Johnny.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">I remember the head in the box. \u201cEes all right?\u201d he would ask it. \u201cEes all right,\u201d it would answer. Jerry Lewis feared the head. I loved the head. The head\u2019s name was Pedro. The head\u2019s name\u00a0<em>is<\/em>\u00a0Pedro.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cDo you have Pedro here?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cPedro. Yes. He here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cWhere?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cHe wants to see Pedro.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cPedro is asleep,\u201d says the wife. She enters the room, gestures hopelessly to a bottom shelf blocked by heavy boxes. Wences shrugs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cWas Pedro your favorite?\u201d I ask.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cNo. Johnny. Johnny more.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cDid Ed Sullivan have a sense of humor?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cNo, none,\u201d answers the wife.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cNo,\u201d says Wences.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-dropcap paywall\">Ihave brought with me a copy of\u00a0<em>The Oracle,<\/em>\u00a0by the 17th-century Spanish sage Baltasar Graci\u00e1n y Morales. What better than this volume to have the wise man Wenceslao Moreno sign? He kindly and with care takes to the task, laboring at an accompanying illustration.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">This afternoon is my pot of gold at the end of the monochromatic rainbow of Edward Vincent Sullivan. I ask Se\u00f1or Wences the secret of life. \u201cHow have you lived so long and happily?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">He shrugs, smiles. \u201cI am very happy to make laugh people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">In the language of Graci\u00e1n, in the language of Graci\u00e1n\u2019s ancient countryman Martial, the syntax is perfect, eloquent. Mrs. Moreno, who speaks seven languages, lights a cigarette. I light a cigarette. Wences beams amid the secondary smoke. I ask him if he smokes. He regards me spryly, slyly.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cNo. Johnny smokes. And Pedro, he drinks.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">It is time to go. Se\u00f1or Wences rises, walks me to the elevator, waits with me, advises with a gesture of his thumb that I should please remember to push the button upon entering if I want the elevator to move. I wish him 20 years more, and I give him a hug.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">I press the button and descend. The true secret of life, of longevity and happiness, is to me now clear but unstated. As Graci\u00e1n, in the 59th aphorism, counsels us to \u201cend well,\u201d so I here end by sharing the secret with you: Speak to your hand often.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">As for Ed, he remains, as ever, deceased and immortal.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<p><\/main><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/189359747768249\/posts\/10201691699240399\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Beatles 50th Sullivan Anniversary Count Down&#8230;5 Days There was only thing the Ed Sullivan staff and crew knew for sure&#8230;they were on at 8 and off at 9! Everything else&#8230;well, it was up to Ed! I&#8217;ve talked to about half a dozen people that worked on the Sullivan show, and aside from the opening line [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":27510,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pgc_sgb_lightbox_settings":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"_vp_custom_popup_image":0,"_vp_format_audio_url":"","_vp_album_images":[],"_vp_custom_thumbnail":0,"_vp_custom_thumbnail_focal_point":[],"_vp_custom_thumbnail_cover":0,"_vp_hover_thumbnail":0,"_vp_hover_thumbnail_focal_point":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[713,683,703,680,704],"class_list":["post-27509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-associate-producer","tag-cameras","tag-director","tag-people","tag-producer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27509"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60450,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27509\/revisions\/60450"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}