The Big Show (NBC Radio) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Big Show, an American radio

Radio

Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...

variety program featuring 90 minutes of top-name comic, stage, screen and music talent, was aimed at keeping American radio

Radio

in its classic era alive and well against the rapidly-growing television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

tide. For a good portion of its two-year run (1950-51), the show's quality made its ambition seem plausible.

Banking on Bankhead

Hosted by legendary stage actress and personality Tallulah Bankhead

Tallulah Bankhead

Tallulah Brockman Bankhead was an award-winning American actress of the stage and screen, talk-show host, and bonne vivante...

, The Big Show began November 5, 1950 on NBC

NBC

The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

with a stellar line-up of guests: Fred Allen

Fred Allen

Fred Allen was an American comedian whose absurdist, topically pointed radio show made him one of the most popular and forward-looking humorists in the so-called classic era of American radio.His best-remembered gag was his long-running mock feud with friend and fellow comedian Jack Benny, but it...

, Mindy Carson

Mindy Carson

Mindy Carson , an American traditional pop vocalist, was heard often on radio during the 1940s and 1950s.She was born in New York City. In 1946, still in her teens, she won an audition to the radio program, Stairway to the Stars. This gave her a chance to perform with Paul Whiteman's band and...

, Jimmy Durante

Jimmy Durante

James Francis "Jimmy" Durante was an American singer, pianist, comedian and actor. His distinctive clipped gravelly speech, comic language butchery, jazz-influenced songs, and large nose helped make him one of America's most familiar and popular personalities of the 1920s through the 1970s...

, José Ferrer

José Ferrer

José Vicente Ferrer de Otero y Cintrón , best known as José Ferrer, was a Puerto Rican actor, as well as a theater and film director...

, Portland Hoffa

Portland Hoffa

Portland Hoffa was an American comedienne, actor, and dancer...

, Frankie Laine

Frankie Laine

Frankie Laine, born Francesco Paolo LoVecchio , was a successful American singer, songwriter, and actor whose career spanned 75 years, from his first concerts in 1930 with a marathon dance company to his final performance of "That's My Desire" in 2005...

, Russell Knight, Paul Lukas

Paul Lukas

Paul Lukas was an Austrian-Hungarian-born actor.-Biography:Born Pál Lukács in Budapest, he arrived in Hollywood in 1927 after a successful stage and film career in Hungary, Germany and Austria where he worked with Max Reinhardt. He made his stage debut in Budapest in 1916 and his film debut in 1917...

, Ethel Merman

Ethel Merman

Ethel Merman was an American actress and singer. Known primarily for her powerful voice and roles in musical theatre, she has been called "the undisputed First Lady of the musical comedy stage." Among the many standards introduced by Merman in Broadway musicals are "I Got Rhythm", "Everything's...

, Danny Thomas

Danny Thomas

Danny Thomas was an American nightclub comedian and television and film actor, best known for starring in the television sitcom Make Room for Daddy . He was also the founder of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital...

and Meredith Willson

Meredith Willson

Robert Meredith Willson was an American composer, songwriter, conductor and playwright, best known for writing the book, music and lyrics for the hit Broadway musical The Music Man...

. To make sure no one missed the launch, NBC ran in Sunday newspapers across the country an illustrated advertisement displaying headshots of Allen, Bankhead, Carson, Durante and Merman. The premiere opened with this introduction:

Tallulah Bankhead: This is radio, 1950. The greatest stars of our time on one big program. And the most fabulous part about this, darlings, is that every Sunday we will present other stars of the same magnitude. Uh, pardon me if I sound like a name dropper, but, uh, let's look into three or four of the names we've lined up for next week's show: Groucho Marx

Groucho Marx

Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx was an American comedian and film star famed as a master of wit. His rapid-fire delivery of innuendo-laden patter earned him many admirers. He made 13 feature films with his siblings the Marx Brothers, of whom he was the third-born...

, Fanny Brice

Fanny Brice

Fanny Brice was a popular and influential American illustrated song "model," comedienne, singer, theatre and film actress, who made many stage, radio and film appearances and is known as the creator and star of the top-rated radio comedy series, The Baby Snooks Show...

, Jane Powell

Jane Powell

Jane Powell is an American singer, dancer and actress.After rising to fame as a singer in her home state of Oregon, Powell was signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer while still in her teens...

and Ezio Pinnnn-za

Ezio Pinza

Ezio Pinza was an Italian basso opera singer with a rich, smooth and sonorous voice. He spent 22 seasons at New York's Metropolitan Opera, appearing in more than 750 performances of 50 operas...

! (Laughter) Well, now, don't just sit there with your mouths open, darlings. I know what you're thinking: you think such a radio show every week is impossible. And I'm sure that, after you hear our first broadcast, you're going to say that show was impossible. (Laughter) Oh, no, that doesn't sound quite right, does it? (Laughter) But NBC says nothing is impossible. All it takes is courage, vision, and a king-sized bundle of dough. Each week, there will be comedy, drama, music, all performed by the biggest stars of the time. Of course, darlings, now and then a clinker may sneak in, but we're going to try--

Jimmy Durante: Just a minute, just a minute. I heard that last remark and I resemble it!

As she promised, on the second week's program, the guests were Groucho Marx, Jane Powell, Ezio Pinza and Fanny Brice, along with Hanley Stafford

Hanley Stafford

Hanley Stafford . An actor principally on radio, he is remembered best for playing Lancelot Higgins on The Baby Snooks Show. He is commemorated by a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.-External links:...

, Frank Lovejoy

Frank Lovejoy

Frank Lovejoy was an American actor in radio, film, and television. He was born Frank Lovejoy Jr. in Bronx, New York, but grew up in New Jersey. His father, Frank Lovejoy Sr., was a furniture salesman from Maine...

, David Brian

David Brian

David Brian was an American actor and dancer.-Career:Brian was signed by Warner Bros. in 1949 and appeared in such films as The Damned Don't Cry! and Flamingo Road with Joan Crawford, and Beyond the Forest with Bette Davis...

and John Agar

John Agar

John George Agar was an American actor. He starred alongside John Wayne in the films Sands of Iwo Jima, Fort Apache and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, but was later relegated to B movies, such as Tarantula, The Mole People, The Brain from Planet Arous, Flesh and the Spur, and Hand of Death...

(the latter three recreating their screen roles in highlights from their current Warner Bros. picture, Breakthrough). The early shows were successful, and the program stayed on Sunday nights from 6:00-7:30pm ET for its first season, shifting to 6:30-8:00pm ET in its second. NBC went full-throttle in an attempt to keep radio from its predicted death, and The Big Show was thought to be a key to that effort. Newsweek stated it was "the biggest bang to hit radio since TV started." As if to prove big bang and big bucks were mutual partners, some $100,000 could be budgeted for a single installment.

The show's success was credited to Bankhead's notorious wit and ad-libbing ability in addition to the show's superior scripting. She had one of the funniest writers in the business on her staff: Goodman Ace

Goodman Ace

Goodman Ace , born Goodman Aiskowitz, was an American humourist, working as a radio writer and comedian, a television writer, and a magazine columnist....

, the mastermind of radio's legendary Easy Aces

Easy Aces

Easy Aces, a long-running American serial radio comedy , was trademarked by the low-keyed drollery of creator and writer Goodman Ace and his wife, Jane, as an urbane, put-upon realtor and his malaprop-prone wife...

. She included renowned ad-libbers in the show---particularly Fred Allen

Fred Allen

(he and his longtime sidekick and wife, Portland Hoffa

Portland Hoffa

Portland Hoffa was an American comedienne, actor, and dancer...

, appeared so often they could have been the show's regular co-hosts) and Groucho Marx, both of whom appeared on the first season's finale and appeared jointly on three other installments.

As Bankhead recorded in her memoirs, she took the show because she needed the money but nearly changed her mind when she feared she'd be little more than a glorified mistress of ceremonies with nothing to do but introduce the feature performers. "Guess what happened?" she continued. "Your heroine emerged from the fracas as the Queen of the Kilocycles. Authorities cried out that Tallulah had redeemed radio. In shepherding my charges through The Big Show, said the critics, I had snatched radio out of the grave. The autopsy was delayed."

Top talent

The show opened each week with Bankhead quietly trumpeting the high profile of each show's guests. Those guests would then introduce themselves in alphabetical order before Bankhead finished with her own unmistakable rasp, "And my name, darlings, is Tallulah Bankhead."

The show's lineup, including Allen and Marx, was a literal "who's who" of American entertainment of the time. They included film stars Ethel Barrymore

Ethel Barrymore

Ethel Barrymore was an American actress and a member of the Barrymore family of actors.-Early life:Ethel Barrymore was born Ethel Mae Blythe in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the second child of the actors Maurice Barrymore and Georgiana Drew...

, Charles Boyer

Charles Boyer

Charles Boyer was a French actor who appeared in more than 80 films between 1920 and 1976. After receiving an education in drama, Boyer started on the stage, but he found success in movies during the 1930s. His memorable performances were among the era's most highly praised romantic dramas,...

, Gary Cooper

Gary Cooper

Frank James Cooper, known professionally as Gary Cooper, was an American film actor. He was renowned for his quiet, understated acting style and his stoic, but at times intense screen persona, which was particularly well suited to the many Westerns he made...

, Marlene Dietrich

Marlene Dietrich

Marlene Dietrich was a German-American actress and singer.Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In the Berlin of the 1920s, she acted on the stage and in silent films...

, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.

Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.

Douglas Elton Fairbanks, Jr. KBE was an American actor and a highly decorated naval officer of World War II.-Early life:...

, Carmen Miranda

Carmen Miranda

Carmen Miranda, GCIH was a Portuguese-born Brazilian samba singer, Broadway actress and Hollywood film star popular in the 1940s and 1950s. She was, by some accounts, the highest-earning woman in the United States and noted for her signature fruit hat outfit she wore in the 1943 movie The Gang's...

, Bob Hope

Bob Hope

Bob Hope, KBE, KCSG, KSS was a British-born American comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in radio, television and movies. He was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO shows entertaining American military personnel...

, Martin and Lewis

Martin and Lewis

Martin and Lewis were an American comedy team, comprising singer Dean Martin and comedian Jerry Lewis as the comedic "foil". The pair first met in 1945; their debut as a duo occurred at Atlantic City's 500 Club on July 24/25, 1946....

, Ginger Rogers

Ginger Rogers

Ginger Rogers was an American actress, dancer, and singer who appeared in film, and on stage, radio, and television throughout much of the 20th century....

, George Sanders

George Sanders

George Sanders was a British actor.George Sanders may also refer to:*George Sanders , Victoria Cross recipient in World War I...

, and Gloria Swanson

Gloria Swanson

Gloria Swanson was an American actress, singer and producer. She was one of the most prominent stars during the silent film era as both an actress and a fashion icon, especially under the direction of Cecil B. DeMille, made dozens of silents and was nominated for the first Academy Award in the...

; musical/comedy stage stars Eddie Cantor

Eddie Cantor

Eddie Cantor was an American "illustrated song" performer, comedian, dancer, singer, actor and songwriter...

, Jimmy Durante

Jimmy Durante

, Judy Holliday

Judy Holliday

Judy Holliday was an American actress.Holliday began her career as part of a night-club act, before working in Broadway plays and musicals...

and Gordon MacRae

Gordon MacRae

Gordon MacRae was an American actor and singer, best known for his appearances in the film versions of two Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, Oklahoma! and Carousel and films with Doris Day like Starlift.-Early life:Born Albert Gordon MacRae in East Orange, New Jersey, MacRae graduated from...

; opera stars Lauritz Melchior

Lauritz Melchior

Lauritz Melchior was a Danish and later American opera singer. He was the pre-eminent Wagnerian tenor of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, and has since come to be considered the quintessence of his voice type.-Biography:...

and Robert Merrill

Robert Merrill

Robert Merrill was an American operatic baritone.-Early life:Merrill was born Moishe Miller, later known as Morris Miller, in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, New York, to tailor Abraham Miller, originally Milstein, and his wife Lillian, née Balaban, immigrants from Warsaw, Poland.His mother...

; and, jazz and popular music titans Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....

, Rosemary Clooney

Rosemary Clooney

Rosemary Clooney was an American singer and actress. She came to prominence in the early 1950s with the novelty hit "Come On-a My House" written by William Saroyan and his cousin Ross Bagdasarian , which was followed by other pop numbers such as "Botch-a-Me" Rosemary Clooney (May 23, 1928 –...

, Perry Como

Perry Como

Pierino Ronald "Perry" Como was an American singer and television personality. During a career spanning more than half a century he recorded exclusively for the RCA Victor label after signing with them in 1943. "Mr...

, Billy Eckstine

Billy Eckstine

William Clarence Eckstine was an American singer of ballads and a bandleader of the swing era. Eckstine's smooth baritone and distinctive vibrato broke down barriers throughout the 1940s, first as leader of the original bop big-band, then as the first romantic black male in popular...

, Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...

, Benny Goodman

Benny Goodman

Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...

, The Ink Spots

The Ink Spots

The Ink Spots were a popular vocal group in the 1930s and 1940s that helped define the musical genre that led to rhythm and blues and rock and roll, and the subgenre doo-wop...

, Frankie Laine

Frankie Laine

, Judy Garland

Judy Garland

Judy Garland was an American actress and singer. Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years and for her renowned contralto voice, she attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage...

, Édith Piaf

Édith Piaf

Édith Piaf , born Édith Giovanna Gassion, was a French singer and cultural icon who became widely regarded as France's greatest popular singer. Her singing reflected her life, with her specialty being ballads...

, Frank Sinatra

Frank Sinatra

Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...

, Rudy Vallée

Rudy Vallée

Rudy Vallée was an American singer, actor, bandleader, and entertainer.-Early life:Born Hubert Prior Vallée in Island Pond, Vermont, the son of Charles Alphonse and Catherine Lynch Vallée...

and Sarah Vaughan

Sarah Vaughan

Sarah Lois Vaughan was an American jazz singer, described by Scott Yanow as having "one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century."...

.

The show also featured many of the nation's most familiar radio stars, some of whom were beginning to shine on the medium the show was intended to help hold at bay: Gertrude Berg

Gertrude Berg

Gertrude Berg was an American actress and screenwriter. A pioneer of classic radio, she was one of the first women to create, write, produce and star in a long-running hit when she premiered her serial comedy-drama The Rise of the Goldbergs , later known as The Goldbergs.-Career:Berg was born...

(The Goldbergs

The Goldbergs

The Goldbergs is a comedy-drama broadcast from 1929 to 1946 on American radio, and from 1949 to 1956 on American television. It was adapted into a 1948 play, Me and Molly, and a 1973 Broadway musical, Molly.-Radio:...

), Milton Berle

Milton Berle

Milton Berlinger , better known as Milton Berle, was an American comedian and actor. As the manic host of NBC's Texaco Star Theater , in 1948 he was the first major star of U.S. television and as such became known as Uncle Miltie and Mr...

, Bob Cummings

Robert Cummings

Charles Clarence Robert Orville Cummings , mostly known professionally as Robert Cummings but sometimes as Bob Cummings, was an American film and television actor....

, Joan Davis

Joan Davis

Joan Davis was an American comedic actress whose career spanned vaudeville, film, radio and television. Remembered best for the 1950s television comedy, I Married Joan, Davis had a successful earlier career as a B-movie actress and a leading star of 1940s radio comedy.Born as Madonna Josephine...

, Ed Gardner

Ed Gardner

Edward Francis 'Ed' Gardner was an American comic actor, writer and director, best remembered as the creator and star of the radio's popular Duffy's Tavern comedy series....

(Archie from Duffy's Tavern

Duffy's Tavern

Duffy's Tavern was a popular American radio situation comedy which ran for a decade on several networks , concluding with the December 28, 1951 broadcast....

), Phil Harris

Phil Harris

Harris and Faye married in 1941; it was a second marriage for both and lasted 54 years, until Harris's death. Harris engaged in a fistfight at the Trocadero nightclub in 1938 with RKO studio mogul Bob Stevens; the cause was reported to be over Faye after Stevens and Faye had ended a romantic...

, Garry Moore

Garry Moore

Garry Moore was an American entertainer, game show host and comedian best known for his work in television...

, Jan Murray

Jan Murray

Jan Murray was an American stand-up comedian, actor, and game show host who made his name on the Borscht Belt.-Early life:Murray was born Murray Janofsky in The Bronx, New York City...

, Ozzie

Ozzie Nelson

Oswald George "Ozzie" Nelson was an American entertainer and band leader who originated and starred in The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet radio and television series with his wife and two sons.-Early life:...

& Harriet Nelson

Harriet Nelson

Harriet Nelson was an American singer and actress. Nelson is best known for her role on the long-running sitcom The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.-Early life and career:...

(The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet

The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet

The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet is an American sitcom, airing on ABC from October 3, 1952 to September 3, 1966, starring the real life Nelson family. After a long run on radio, the show was brought to television where it continued its success, running on both radio and TV for a couple of years...

), Phil Silvers

Phil Silvers

Phil Silvers was an American entertainer and comedy actor, known as "The King of Chutzpah." He is best known for starring in The Phil Silvers Show, a 1950s sitcom set on a U.S...

, Danny Thomas

Danny Thomas

, Paul Winchell

Paul Winchell

Paul Winchell was an American ventriloquist, voice actor and comedian, whose career flourished in the 1950s and 1960s...

and more.

Other shows in the radio universe were referenced. The Big Shows November 26, 1950 installment, for example, took the cast of Bankhead, Fred Allen, Jack Carson

Jack Carson

John Elmer "Jack" Carson was a Canadian-born U.S.-based film actor.Jack Carson was one of the most popular character actors during the 'golden age of Hollywood', with a film career spanning the 1930s, '40s and '50s...

, Melchoir and Ed Wynn

Ed Wynn

Ed Wynn was a popular American comedian and actor noted for his Perfect Fool comedy character, his pioneering radio show of the 1930s, and his later career as a dramatic actor....

to the fictitious Duffy's Tavern, where Ed Gardner, in character as Archie the manager, awaited them.

Fred Allen, who frequently joked about his own radio demise, joined Bankhead in recreating one of the best-remembered routines from Allen's old show: the "Mr. and Mrs. Breakfast Show" routine that ruthlessly satirized the often saccharine husband-and-wife morning shows that became something of a radio staple a decade earlier. And it was on The Big Show's premiere that Allen delivered his famous wisecrack about TV: "Television is a new medium, and I have discovered why it's called a new medium --- because nothing is well done."

"The Big Show was not just more grand than most radio shows---it was also more witty, smoothly produced, smart, and ambitious, with an interesting juxtaposition of guests, but it wasn't significantly different," wrote radio historian Gerald Nachman in Raised on Radio. "It was just a more lavish, inflated revival of radio's earliest form---the variety showcase; you could almost hear the sequins." Yet Nachman admired the show, which he said was "as close to a Broadway show as radio could whip together each week."

Finale

Except for special tributes (the series premiere, coinciding with the anniversary of George M. Cohan

George M. Cohan

George Michael Cohan , known professionally as George M. Cohan, was a major American entertainer, playwright, composer, lyricist, actor, singer, dancer, and producer....

's death, was a particularly slam-bang tribute: a medley of Cohan musicals' signature songs), the show usually concluded with each guest taking a turn singing music director Meredith Willson

Meredith Willson

Robert Meredith Willson was an American composer, songwriter, conductor and playwright, best known for writing the book, music and lyrics for the hit Broadway musical The Music Man...

's composition "May the Good Lord Bless and Keep You

May the Good Lord Bless and Keep You

"May the Good Lord Bless and Keep You" is a popular song by Meredith Willson, originally published in 1950.The song is now considered a standard, recorded by many artists....

," a touch which proved sentimental but not saccharine. So did Bankhead's likewise customary sign-off, wishing "Godspeed" to American armed forces around the world (who also listened to the program via the Armed Forces Radio Service).

In the surviving episodes, including that first-season finale, Bankhead and her guests breeze through the comic banter and music sequences. Bankhead benefited from a first-class musical director in Willson. Ace's staff writers included Frank Wilson (who adapted movie scripts and short stories for the dramatic segments), George Foster, Mort Greene and Selma Diamond

Selma Diamond

Selma Diamond was a Canadian-born American comic actress and radio and television writer, and is known for her high-range, raspy voice and her portrayal of Selma Hacker on the first two seasons of the NBC television comedy series Night Court.-Life and career:Diamond was born in Montreal, Quebec,...

. Fred Allen, a longtime friend of Goodman Ace

Goodman Ace

Goodman Ace , born Goodman Aiskowitz, was an American humourist, working as a radio writer and comedian, a television writer, and a magazine columnist....

, contributed as well and is considered (at least by historian Nachman) to have been the show's unofficial script doctor. The show's announcers were Ed Herlihy

Ed Herlihy

Edward Joseph "Ed" Herlihy was an American newsreel narrator for Universal-International. His voice was heard in countless films on every subject, making him one of the best-known voices in broadcast history...

and, when it occasionally originated from Hollywood, Jimmy Wallington

Jimmy Wallington

James "Jimmy" Wallington was an American radio personality.After playing small roles in a few Hollywood films, he was the announcer for several popular radio shows in the 1940s and 1950s....

.

The Big Show wasn't quite big enough to put television in its place and keep it there. NBC cancelled the show after two seasons and a reported loss of $1 million, a major figure in those years. In fact, it was primarily because the program was unable to attract more advertisers than those who sustained the second half-hour segment (6:30-7:00pm) during the first season: RCA Victor, American Home Products/Whitehall Pharmacal's Anacin

Anacin

Anacin is a pain reliever intended for the temporary relief of minor aches and pains. Anacin is a product of Insight Pharmaceuticals. Anacin's active ingredients are aspirin and caffeine.-History:...

, and Liggett & Myers' Chesterfield

Chesterfield (cigarette)

Chesterfield is a brand of cigarette made by Altria. It was one of the most recognized brands of the early 20th century, but sales have declined steadily over the years. It was named for Chesterfield County, Virginia. Chesterfield is still being made today; it is still popular in Europe, but has...

cigarettes. The show's failure to pull the audience needed to keep it alive longer than two years might also have been due to the former NBC hits now nestling on rival CBS

CBS

CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

, including The Jack Benny

Jack Benny

Jack Benny was an American comedian, vaudevillian, and actor for radio, television, and film...

Program (directly opposite The Big Show), Amos 'n' Andy

Amos 'n' Andy

Amos 'n' Andy is a situation comedy set in the African-American community. It was very popular in the United States from the 1920s through the 1950s on both radio and television....

and Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy

Edgar Bergen

Edgar John Bergen was an American actor and radio performer, best known as a ventriloquist.-Early life:...

. But The Big Show is remembered as one of the great final stands, at its best, of classic American old-time radio and---for its wit, colorful music and dramatics---as good as broadcast variety programming got on either medium. Some believe Bankhead never had quite as unfettered and effective an outlet to shine, before or after, as she did hosting this show.

Television

Dee Englebach, producer of The Big Show, attempted to recreate the radio program's success on television with All-Star Revue, and Bankhead signed on as one of the rotating hosts, essentially repeating the comedy antics and musical variety of The Big Show in front of cameras, beginning October 11, 1952, with guest line-up that included Groucho Marx, Ethel Barrymore, Ben Grauer

Ben Grauer

Benjamin Franklin Grauer was an US radio and TV personality, following a career during the 1920s as a child actor in films and on Broadway. He began his career as a child in David Warfield's production of The Return of Peter Grimm. Among his early credits were roles in films directed by D.W....

, and Meredith Willson. She continued to host that TV series until April 18, 1953.

In the spring of 1980, a 90-minute TV series titled The Big Show

The Big Show (TV series)

The Big Show is an American comedy-variety-musical television series produced and broadcast by NBC for several months in 1980.The series aimed to revitalize the moribund variety television genre, which had been in a downward spiral since the cancellations of the Ed Sullivan Show and The Carol...

, premiered on NBC

NBC

. Nominated for several Emmy Award

Emmy Award

An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...

s, it nevertheless died a quick death after only a few months. Keith Olbermann

Keith Olbermann

Keith Theodore Olbermann is an American political commentator and writer. He has been the chief news officer of the Current TV network and the host of Current TV's weeknight political commentary program, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, since June 20, 2011...

's first MSNBC

MSNBC

MSNBC is a cable news channel based in the United States available in the US, Germany , South Africa, the Middle East and Canada...

news show, which aired from 1997 to 1998, was titled The Big Show with Keith Olbermann.

Sources

Ace, Goodman. Interview with Richard Lamparski, WBAI, 1970.
Ace, Goodman. The Better of Goodman Ace. New York: Doubleday, 1971.
Bankhead, Tallulah. Tallulah. New York: Harper & Row, 1952.
Carrier, Jeffrey L. Tallulah Bankhead: A Bio-Bibliography, page 35. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1991.
Crosby, John. Out of the Blue. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1952.
Nachman, Gerald. Raised on Radio. New York: Pantheon Books, 1998.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.