David Susskind (December 19, 1920 – February 22, 1987) was a producer of TV, movies, and stage plays and also a pioneer TV talk show host.
Susskind was born in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
. He went to the
University of Wisconsin–MadisonThe University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public research university located in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1848, UW–Madison is the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. It became a land-grant institution in 1866...
and then
Harvard UniversityHarvard University is a private university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and currently comprises ten separate academic units...
, graduating with honors in 1942 and then heading off to the World War. A communications officer on an attack transport, he saw action at Iwo Jima and Okinawa. His first job was as a press agent for Warner Brothers.
Next he was a talent agent for Century Artists, ultimately ending up in the powerhouse
Music Corporation of AmericaMCA, Inc. was an American corporation in the music and television businesses. MCA published music, booked acts, ran a record company, and distributed television productions and home videos.-The Early Years:...
's fairly-newly-minted television program department, managing
Dinah ShoreDinah Shore was an American singer, actress, and television personality. She was most popular during the Big Band era of the 1940s and 1950s....
,
Jerry LewisJerry Lewis is an American comedian, actor, film producer, writer, film director, singer and humanitarian. He is best-known for his slapstick humor in stage, screen, television, radio, recording and is also known for his charity fund-raising telethons and position as national chairman for the...
, and others.
David Susskind (December 19, 1920 – February 22, 1987) was a producer of TV, movies, and stage plays and also a pioneer TV talk show host.
Personal
Susskind was born in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
. He went to the
University of Wisconsin–MadisonThe University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public research university located in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1848, UW–Madison is the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. It became a land-grant institution in 1866...
and then
Harvard UniversityHarvard University is a private university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and currently comprises ten separate academic units...
, graduating with honors in 1942 and then heading off to the World War. A communications officer on an attack transport, he saw action at Iwo Jima and Okinawa. His first job was as a press agent for Warner Brothers.
Next he was a talent agent for Century Artists, ultimately ending up in the powerhouse
Music Corporation of AmericaMCA, Inc. was an American corporation in the music and television businesses. MCA published music, booked acts, ran a record company, and distributed television productions and home videos.-The Early Years:...
's fairly-newly-minted television program department, managing
Dinah ShoreDinah Shore was an American singer, actress, and television personality. She was most popular during the Big Band era of the 1940s and 1950s....
,
Jerry LewisJerry Lewis is an American comedian, actor, film producer, writer, film director, singer and humanitarian. He is best-known for his slapstick humor in stage, screen, television, radio, recording and is also known for his charity fund-raising telethons and position as national chairman for the...
, and others. He then came to New York and with Alfred Levy formed
Talent Associates, Ltd.Talent Associates was a production company headed by David Susskind, later joined by Daniel Melnick.In the years after World War II, Susskind was a talent agent for Century Artists, ultimately ending up in the powerhouse Music Corporation of America's fairly-newly-minted television program...
, representing creators of material rather than performers and also itself creating programs for TV. Ultimately, Susskind himself became a producer—of movies and stage plays as well as TV programs.
He married (and later divorced) two women, Phyllis Briskin in 1939, and in 1966
Joyce Davidson-Biography:She married American producer and talk-show host David Susskind and gave him two step-daughters by their marriage. She was a member of CBC Television's Tabloid, a current affairs program with a light entertainment manner, in the 1950s...
, a Canadian-American television personality. He had three daughters and a son. He had two stepdaughters by his marriage to Davidson.
Talk show
His program,
Open End, began in 1958 on
WNTA-TVWNET, channel 13 , is a non-commercial television station licensed to Newark, New Jersey. With its signal covering the three-state New York metropolitan area, WNET is a flagship station of the Public Broadcasting Service and a primary provider of PBS programming...
in New York City, and was appropriately titled: the program continued until Susskind or his guests were too tired to continue. In 1961,
Open End was constrained to two hours and went into national
syndicationIn broadcasting, syndication is the sale of the right to broadcast radio shows and television shows to multiple individual stations, without going through a broadcast network. It is common in countries where television is scheduled by networks with local affiliates, particularly in the United States...
. The show was retitled
The David Susskind ShowThe David Susskind Show was an American television talk show hosted by David Susskind. The program began its existence in 1958 as Open End, and was broadcast by WNTA-TV in New York City...
in 1967 and continued until 1987.
During his almost 30-year run as a talk show host, Susskind covered many controversial topics of the day, such as race relations and the
Vietnam WarThe Vietnam War or the Second Indochina War was a Cold War military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1959 to 30 April 1975...
. Susskind's interview of Soviet Premier
Nikita KhrushchevNikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
, which aired in October 1960, during the height of the
cold warThe Cold War was the continuing state of political conflict, military tension, and economic competition existing after World War II , primarily between the USSR and its satellite states, and the powers of the Western world, including the United States...
, generated national attention.
In 1961, Susskind conducted a series of interviews with former president Harry Truman in Truman's hometown of Independence, Missouri. After picking Truman up at his home to bring him to the Truman Presidential Library for the interviews for a number of days, Susskind asked Truman why he hadn't been invited into the house. Truman stated to Susskind, according to presidential historian
Michael BeschlossMichael Beschloss is an American historian. A specialist in the United States presidency, he is the author of nine books....
, "This is
Bess'sElizabeth Virginia Wallace Truman , widely known as Bess Truman, was the wife of Harry S. Truman and First Lady of the United States from 1945 to 1953.-Early life:...
house" and that there has never been nor will there ever be, a Jewish guest in there.
Producer and legacy
Susskind was also a noted producer, with scores of movies, plays, and TV programs to his credit. His legacy is that of a producer of intelligent material at a time when TV had left its golden years behind and had firmly planted its feet in programming which had wide appeal, whether or not it was worth watching. Among other projects, he produced television adaptations of
Beyond This PlaceBeyond This Place is a 1957 American television adaption from A. J. Cronin's novel, Beyond This Place, which was originally published in 1953. The show was directed by Sidney Lumet and produced by David Susskind. It was the third episode of the first season of The DuPont Show of the Month, which...
(1957),
The Moon and SixpenceThe Moon and Sixpence is a 1919 short novel by William Somerset Maugham based on the life of the painter Paul Gauguin. The story is told in episodic form by the first-person narrator as a series of glimpses into the mind and soul of the central character, Charles Strickland, a middle aged English...
(1960),
Ages of ManAges of Man is a one-man play performed by John Gielgud of a collection of speeches in Shakespeare's plays. Based on an anthology edited by Oxford professor George Rylands in 1939 that organized the speeches to show the journey of life from birth to death, the show takes its title from Jaques'...
(1966),
Death of a SalesmanDeath of a Salesman is a 1949 play by American playwright Arthur Miller and is a classic of American theater. The play ran for 742 performances, winning both the Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize for drama. The original production was directed by Elia Kazan with Lee J...
(also 1966),
Look Homeward, AngelLook Homeward, Angel: A Story of the Buried Life is a 1929 novel by Thomas Wolfe. It is Wolfe's first novel, and is considered a highly autobiographical American Bildungsroman. The character of Eugene Gant is generally believed to be a depiction of Wolfe himself. The novel covers the span of time...
(1972),
The Bridge of San Luis ReyThe Bridge of San Luis Rey is American author Thornton Wilder's second novel, first published in 1927 to worldwide acclaim. It tells the story of several interrelated people who die in the collapse of an Inca rope-fiber suspension bridge in Peru, and the events that lead up to their being on the...
(1958),
The Glass MenagerieThe Glass Menagerie is an evocative, four-character memory play by Tennessee Williams. It was originally written as a screenplay for MGM, to whom Williams was contracted. Initial ideas stemmed from one of his short stories, and the screenplay originally went under the name of 'The Gentleman Caller'...
(1973), and
Caesar and Cleopatra (1976), the television films
Truman at Potsdam (1976), and
Eleanor and Franklin: The White House Years (1976), and the
feature filmIn the film industry, a feature film is a film made for initial distribution in theaters and being the "main attraction" of the screening...
Loving CouplesLoving Couples is a 1980 American romantic comedy film written by Martin Donovan and directed by Jack Smight.The plot offers a comic spin on adultery. When Greg crashes his sports car, doctor Evelyn comes to his rescue, and the two soon are engaged in an affair...
(1980). In 1964, he produced
Craig StevensCraig Stevens was an American motion picture and television actor.-Biography:Born Gail Shikles, Jr. in Liberty, Missouri, he studied dentistry at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, from which he received a bachelor's degree in 1936...
's acclaimed CBS
dramaDrama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a collective...
Mr. BroadwayMr. Broadway was a 13-episode CBS adventure and drama television series starring Craig Stevens , formerly of Peter Gunn, as New York City public relations specialist Mike Bell. The program aired at 9 p.m. Eastern time Saturdays from September 26 to December 26, 1964...
, which left the air after thirteen episodes.
Death
Susskind suffered a
heart attackMyocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, is the interruption of blood supply to part of the heart, causing some heart cells to die...
and died in New York City. One commentator (see below) has pointed out the irony in that the man who sold Willy Loman to a nationwide audience himself died alone in a hotel room at the early age of 66.
He is interred at
Westchester Hills CemeteryThe Westchester Hills Cemetery, approximately 20 miles north of New York City, was established at 400 Saw Mill River Road in Hastings-on-Hudson, Westchester County, New York. It welcomes the burial of Christians and Jews, and many well-known entertainers and performers are interred there...
in
Hastings-on-Hudson, New YorkHastings-on-Hudson is a village in Westchester County, New York, United States. As a village, it is located in the southwest part of the Town of Greenburgh. It lies on U.S. Route 9, "Broadway" in Hastings. Hastings is a suburb of New York City.- History :...
.
External links