This is a "Titanic" post...

I was six years old the first time I ever heard of the Titanic.  We were watching a movie on TV called, appropriately enough, Titanic, starring Clifton Webb, Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Wagner.   It was a fairly standard soap opera involving family drama aboard a luxury ocean liner*, and I was following along about as well as a six-year-old can, far more interested in the ship (which seemed to be getting a lot of attention) than the suds, when someone mentioned that there soon would be an accident involving the ship.  I became frightened, being a timid kid at the time, envisioning something dark and disastrous, with explosions or crashes or things equally terrifying, and so I fled the movie and the living room, staying in a bedroom until the terror was over.  This was, frankly, an embarrassing thing to do – I’m embarrassed right now, over 40 years later, just recalling it – and I must have been at least abashed about it at the time, because from that point on I sought to make up for it by learning as much as I could about the Titanic.

*Webb and Stanwick played an unhappily married couple, with Wagner as their son.  In real life, during the course of the filming Stanwyck and the much younger Wagner began a torrid affair, creating an off-screen soap opera much juicier than that on the big screen.

This interest started with the conclusion of the movie, to which I’d returned once my mother told me it was safe to come back out. Once again, I was caught up in the drama of the event – the Titanic going down at the head, the terrified passengers and their inability to find a way off the ship, the crew struggling to do their duty in the midst of the chaos, and over all of this a stunned sense that none of this could, or should, have been happening. I must have wanted to know more right away, because my mother pulled out a volume of an old encyclopedia that had an article about the Titanic, including a drawing showing (inaccurately, we now know, with the benefit of much technology) how the iceberg had caused a ragged gash in the side of the ship. I learned that the Titanic was the biggest ship ever built, that it was thought to be unsinkable, and that it had sunk on its maiden voyage, killing most of its passengers because there weren’t enough lifeboats to save them all.

Well, this was heady stuff – the stuff of high adventure, which I was just learning to embrace through my timidity, and of Greek-like tragedy, which I must have instinctively understood even though I wouldn’t have intellectually appreciated it at the time. There was the nobility of the father and son (Webb and Wagner), reconciled at last*, standing together at the rail of the ship with the other men onboard, facing imminent death while singing “Nearer My God to Thee” as the great ship prepared for its final plunge. It was all so odd, so – well, tragic - that I was immediately hooked.

*Webb was exceedingly proud of his son until, during a particularly nasty argument, Stanwyck revealed that Wagner was not Webb’s son, which caused Webb to shun the boy until the end. By choosing to remain on ship, rather than climbing into a lifeboat with the women and children, Wagner showed not only that he’d become a man, but that regardless of the bloodlines he was his father’s son after all. Probably better that as a six-year-old I didn’t get that part of the story.

I started by going to the neighborhood library to see if they had any books on the Titanic. They did – it was called A Night to Remember, written by Walter Lord, and that book ensured I’d always be fascinated by the Titanic. It was brilliantly written, accessible to even a six-year-old, with great pictures of the ship itself and her crew (although, disappointingly, none of the ship actually sinking), all told in a way that made that cold and dark night come alive for me. There were other books that mentioned the Titanic, books about famous ships and famous shipwrecks, but nothing else even came close. That year, for my birthday, my grandmother gave me a paperback copy of the book, with an inscription promising that one day she’d get a copy of the hardcover, which had all the pictures. (Interestingly, to this day, of all the Titanic books I’ve since bought and read I’ve never bought the hardcover version of A Night to Remember, although I’ve probably got most all of those pictures in my other books.)  I became interested in other ship disasters, the Lusitania and the Morro Castle and the Andrea Doria, but they were all a distant second behind the Titanic.*

*Overcoming my six-year-old squeamishness about such things, I also read all I could about other disasters – the Chicago Fire, airplane crashes, spectacular accidents at auto races. The Hindenburg was a particular favorite of mine. Even today, though, when I’m watching a movie or documentary involving some kind of accident I still get a little unsettled if I know what’s coming.

There was always more. At the public library in downtown Minneapolis I spent hours going over microfilm of the New York Times, reading their accounts of the sinking; it was particularly interesting even after the sinking to see ads running for the Titanic, it being too late to pull them. In the forward to A Night to Remember Lord references a novel written a few years prior to the Titanic, written by Morgan Robertson and called Futility, about an unsinkable ocean liner, the largest ever built, which hits an iceberg and sinks on her maiden voyage.  It was a stunning coincidence, made all the more so because Robertson had named his ship the Titan.  This book was so obscure that the library had to order it, but they did. And it was a terrible book – Robertson was no stylist – but I read it, and that book did wind up in my bookcase.

In 1968 CBS broadcast the movie adaptation of A Night to Remember, a faithful, almost documentary-like version of the book, and it was a terrific movie.* It seems, from my long-ago memory, as if it aired either the same night or a week or so after the initial episode of the sci-fi series The Time Tunnel, in which our two time travelling heroes found themselves onboard the Titanic trying to convince the captain of what was to happen. Guess what – nobody believed them.   (I can't imagine the passengers of a ship billed as unsinkable wouldn't believe some crazy-eyed stranger, shouting that he's from the future and that the ship is going to sink and almost everyone's going to die.  I mean, that happens to me all the time - except for that guy who told me the Cubs were going to win the World Series in 2035.  C'mon, do I look stupid?)  It wasn’t nearly as good as the movie, even to an eight-year-old’s low standards, but I enjoyed it just the same.

*I watched this movie again a few years ago – it’s still terrific, but horrifying in a way that has nothing to do with the actual accident. It mostly has to do with families being separated as wives are forced by their husbands or crew members to board lifeboats, or choosing to remain onboard and face death together. The scenes are harrowing, and overwhelmingly sad – it reminds me of Erik Fosnes Hansen’s fictional account of the ship’s band, Psalm at Journey’s End, a profoundly sad book. I suppose it has something to do with being older and married myself, and the thought of finding myself in that position. My wife, to this day, refuses to watch it.

And over the years more books came out about the disaster, and documentaries, and Cameron’s Titanic, which I wouldn’t see because of the stupid storyline, although I understand the part about the sinking itself is sensational. Even before the 100^th anniversary, it wasn’t hard to go into a bookstore and find a new book on the Titanic, which makes it all the more surprising to find out that interest in the ship had waned considerably prior to the publication of Lord’s book in 1954, which revived the public’s fascination to a level that remains to this day.

The story of the Titanic is an epic one, and its role in my life has been equally epic. I don’t know if I can say that it caused my subsequent interest in history, or my fascination with singular historical events such as the Kennedy assassination, although it undoubtedly caused my interest in disasters. I do know that what little interest I’ve ever had in ships stems from the Titanic, and that it’s why I always tried to sink my ships in the bathtub. It’s why nearly an entire bookshelf in our library is filled with Titanic books, and it’s why I spent a couple of years building a model of the Titanic, and why I’m probably going to spend a couple of hundred dollars buying a better, prebuilt version of it. Walter Lord was right: the night of April 14 and the early morning of April 15, 1912, was a night to remember, and it’s a story that I’ll never forget.

Which is a long way of leading up to today’s topic. Lost amidst all that we know about the Titanic is the very first adaption of A Night to Remember which was broadcast live, if you can believe it, on Kraft Television Theater in 1956.  Stephen Bowie covers the fascinating story of this massive broadcast far better and in much more detail than I can, so I simply defer to him.  But if you’re intrigued, as I am, you can see that broadcast starting right here.

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And who knows – perhaps this will set some other youngster off on a world of discovery and history, learning about a real-life epic that outdoes any fictional story that Hollywood could ever dream up. TV  

Please Stand By

It's been very frustrating the last few days, with technical difficulties (read: computer) preventing me from updating both this site and the Our Word blog.  Hopefully, this will be corrected, at least temporarily, in the next week or so.  There's a lot to cover, including more classic TV Guides, a remembrance of Mike Wallace, and the sinking of the Titanic on live television.  So stand by! TV  

This week in TV Guide: April 15, 1961

Perhaps it was the fact that we shared a first name, or maybe it was the fascination a bouncing dot had for a small boy sitting in front of the television. Whatever the reason, I grew up a fan of Mitch Miller. I've been told that I was quite the sight, standing in front of the TV with my legs together, arms stretched out, waving my hands in imitation of Miller's famous conducting pose.  Ah, those were the days.

Mitch Miller was a singularly unlikely television star.  He was a classical oboeist, a studio musician, and head of recording for Columbia Records.  He worked with, and later feuded with, Sinatra.  He certainly had an eye for talent: his discoveries included Tony Bennett, Patti Page, Rosemary Clooney and Johnny Mathis.  He had a knack for marketing: In 1954, the producers of the CBS TV anthology Studio One approached Miller in search of a song for a drama they were doing about payola in the music industry.  He gave them a ballad called "Let Me Go, Devil," and urged them to use an unknown singer (Joan Weber) rather than an established star.  The show was telecast (with the song now titled "Let Me Go, Lover"); Miller had shrewdly seen to it that store shelves were well-stocked with recordings of the song. It was a smash, and sold 500,000 copies in five days.

He made a few records himself, and had a big choral hit with "The Yellow Rose of Texas."  Yes, Mitch Miller was doing pretty well.  But there was one thing Mitch Miller didn't like: rock music.  It wasn't his kind of music, the music that had been so successful for him for so long.  So he decided to fight back, with what was called the "Sing-along" album, recordings of old favorites with the lyrics printed on the cover so listeners could sing along with Mitch and the gang.

And when Sing Along With Mitch debuted on television in 1961, Mitch Miller became a star.


Sing Along With Mitch was an instant, and surprise, hit, reaching #15 in its first season.  It slaughtered The Untouchables (perhaps the most violent program on television at the time).  It spawned the successful singing career of Leslie Uggams.  It introduced us to Bob McGrath, of Sesame Street fame, who was a longtime singalongers.  Not bad.

The show stayed on the air for three seasons, was seen in reruns through 1966.  The Christmas specials were always a highlight.  The records sold well.  Eventually, of course, the British invasion and the rock movement proved too much.  But Mitch Miller never really faded away entirely.  He was a pretty good, not great, player on Password.  He was a frequent guest conductor for the Boston Pops. (And wouldn't it have been interesting had he, and not John Williams, been chosen to succeed Arthur Fielder?)  A lot of people credit Miller with being the progenitor of karaoke.  OK, we'll give him a pass on that one.

Today I suppose it's hard to imagine a show like that being a hit, but then back in the day, almost anything was possible on television.  It's - well, it's unfortunate that TV, with its astounding technological advances, is in many ways far less advanced than it was when it depended on the incredible creativity of its pioneers.  But, as with so many other things, that's a story for another day.

There was one big show televised the week of April 15, and that was the Academy Awards.  Two things about that: first, it was shown on what was until the last decade or so its traditional night, which was Monday.  Second, it started at what was then the traditional time of 10:30 p.m. Eastern.  And when you think about it, that part makes sense - after all, it's hard to have the red carpet walk, with the flashbulbs popping, when it's still light out.  At 7:30 Pacific time, that wasn't a problem.  The show was only scheduled to run for two hours, and it only preempted ABC's detective series Peter Gunn.  Bob Hope was the host, for the ninth time.  And if you're interested, the winners were The Apartment for Best Picture, Burt Lancaster (in Elmer Gantry) for Best Actor, and Liz Taylor (Butterfield 8) for Best Actress.*  Definitely an adult-oriented group of films.

*No, I didn't have to look that up, either.

And back in my old home town of Minneapolis, the fans got to see the Minnesota Twins in their first-ever home opener, taking on the new team from their old city, the Washington Senators.

Indeed, those were the days. TV  

This week in TV Guide: April 6, 1968

M

artin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968.  This isn't reflected in the programming for the week of April 6, which was already on the newsstands at the time of the shooting.  Its effects would be seen in subsequent weeks, however, along with the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy two months later, as a revulsion against television violence would manifest itself in rescheduled and re-edited programs.  Judging by looking at today's fare, the movement against TV violence didn't stick.

On the cover this week was Barbara Anderson, co-star of NBC's Ironside, along with Raymond Burr.  A quick perusal of programming for the week gives us some interesting listings.  The big show of the week was ABC's broadcast of the Academy Awards, which had been scheduled for Monday, April 8 but was rescheduled for Wednesday, April 10 due to King's funeral. (The winners: In the Heat of the Night, Rod Steiger, and Katharine Hepburn.)  The NBA and Stanley Cup playoffs were in full swing, with the hoopsters in the semifinals and the pucksters the quarterfinals.  Baseball season kicked off, with TV Guide's Melvin Durslag projecting the Twins and Cardinals in the last World Series to be staged before the introduction of divsions and playoffs.  (They were half right: the Cards were there, but they'd lose the Series in seven to the Detroit Tigers, Durslag's pick for second in the AL.)

There's another article referenced on the cover: "Yesterday's Quiz Winners - Today."  To put it in perspective, in 1968 it had only been a dozen or so years since the height of the quiz shows, which culminated in the scandals of the late 50s.  There are the usual suspects, those whose names have remained in the public eye to one extent or another: Charles Van Doren, the golden boy whose fall was the most spectacular of the scandal, and Dr. Joyce Brothers, an honest contestant who was already on her way to becoming America's most popular psychologist, the Dr. Phil of her day.  But it was the names of two other contestants that caught my eye.

Rob Strom and Leonard Ross were two of the most spectacular winners of the quiz show era.  Both were child prodigies: Strom, an 11-year-old science whiz who took home a cool quarter-million; Ross, a 10-year-old expert on the stock market whose winnings were more than $150,000.   When TV Guide's Dan Carlinsky visited with them in 1968, they were both on the road to success - Strom, now 21, had already graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard and was now doing graduate work, and the 22-year-old Ross had graduated from Yale Law School the previous year and was looking forward to a career in government.  (By the way, check out this interview with Ross and Mike Wallace in 1957.)  For each of them, the sky seemed to be the limit.  And so, I wondered, what had indeed happened to them?  Had they indeed fulfilled the potential that had been suggested in 1968?

In Rob Strom's case, it's hard to tell.  He doesn't have a Wikipedia entry, and while a Google search doesn't provide a definitive answer, it does give us some suggestions.  For example, there's a "Rob Strom" working (as of the mid-2000s) as a IBM Research Staff Member at the IBM TJ Watson Research Center, who was credited with several scholarly papers.  The brief bio in the abstract doesn't mention quiz shows, but this 1957 newspaper article mentions that IBM had already offered the 11-year-old a job in mathematical computer work when he grew up.*  Considering all this, I don't think it's unrealistic to suppose that this is the same Rob Strom. 

*I wonder if he had anything to do with work on the Watson computer that won on Jeopardy?  Wouldn't that have been ironic?

Leonard Ross, on the other hand, tells a different story.  Indeed, we know exactly what happened to Ross, and it's not a happy ending.  Maureen Dowd, back before she became as annoying as she is today, wrote this poignant 1985 column about Ross' death by suicide earlier that year.  He had, in fact, stormed through Yale; one classmate recalled that Ross "raised his hand and answered questions on torts and contracts with such lucid brilliance that . . . ''a chill went down the collective spine of the class.'''  After that he taught at Harvard and Columbia, worked for Jerry Brown in California, and worked in the early Carter administration. 

And then it fell apart.

Ross' torment was an awful one:  "Over the years, his friends had watched with horror as Mr. Ross's quicksilver mind moved faster and faster and his attention span grew shorter and shorter." Having been, as one acquaintance put it, an adult since childhood, he expected perfection and cut himself no slack.  He was compulsive about everything.  He became frustrated with government work once he discovered he wasn't able to really change things.  Eventually, nothing was able to hold his interest, and he couldn't even complete one project before starting another.  He attempted suicide, underwent psychoanalysis, took as many as fifteen medications a day, and even had an operation to "snip a circuit in the limbic system, the part of the brain concerned with emotion and motivation."

Nothing worked.  As one friend pointed out, perhaps the worst torment for Ross was that, due to his natural brilliance, he was fully aware of what was happening to him. His inability - helplessness? - to change things just made it worse.  Finally, on the last day of April in 1985, he walked into the pool of the Capri Motel in Santa Clara and was found the next morning face down at the bottom of the pool, with his arms crossed.  He was only 39. 

When we see child stars we always hope for the best, that they'll wind up a Mozart or Shirley Temple.  Too often it doesn't turn out that way.  Still, there was something hopeful, something wistful in that 1968 "Where are they now?" article.  We weren't talking about child actors or composers, but young boys whose intellect seemed to offer them the moon.  One wanted to find out that these two had fulfilled all that potential, had gone on to really make a difference.  Rob Strom likely accomplished a great deal, but Dowd's truly heartbreaking story shows that the gift that brought Leonard Ross his fame also resulted in his fall.  And that fall truly was tragic. TV  

The assassination of Martin Luther King - April 4, 1968

We do seem to dwell on death a lot at this site, don't we?  But there's no question the death of a prominent person provides television with some of its most dramatic moments.  Such a time was 44 years ago today, as we see with CBS' bulletin on the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. 


Note that in the five years since the assassination of JFK, CBS has changed its graphics.  Although they still use a modification of the repeating "CBS News" script, it is now a "Special Report" rather than a "Bulletin," a convention which is more or less standard today.  As a matter of fact, I can't recall the last time I saw an actual bulletin on TV*; the going concern nowadays is "Breaking News." 

*Actually, I think I do - it was in 1981, when ABC interrupted with the shooting of Ronald Reagan.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was not an elected official, a head of state or government; yet, such was the impact he made that his murder caused regular programming to be pre-empted, and his funeral would cause the Academy Awards to be postponed for two days. TV