Impresario: The Life and Times of Ed Sullivan (48 page)

Although Sullivan’s alliance with Hollywood usually ran much smoother than his attempted project with Warner Bros., in April 1955 it precipitated yet another run-in, this time between the showman and Frank Sinatra.

Ed, continuing to show his viewers a steady diet of film previews, negotiated with Samuel Goldwyn to present excerpts from
Guys and Dolls
, starring Sinatra, Marlon Brando, and Jean Simmons. Ed planned to produce a half hour piece using the excerpts along with interviews of Brando and Simmons. Sullivan paid Goldwyn $32,000 for the excerpts, and he also paid Brando and Simmons for their interviews. He did not, however, ask Sinatra for an interview. Ed explained this by noting that the Simmons interview would be her television debut, and that Brando was the hottest thing in show business, yet Sinatra “
is not exactly a TV novelty.” In other words, the vocalist had recently appeared opposite Sullivan on an NBC “spectacular,” as well as on
Comedy Hour
, and Ed viewed him as a competitor.

As Ed’s plans coalesced, the studio let it be known that it expected Sinatra to appear for a Sullivan interview, paid or not, to help promote the film. At this point Sinatra balked. In his view, since Sullivan was paying Brando and Simmons but not him, the showman was attempting to arm-twist him into making an unpaid appearance. That the pressure came from the studio, not Sullivan, wasn’t reported in most news articles about Frank’s unhappiness. Samuel Goldwyn pointedly told reporters that his actors’ contracts required them to make unpaid promotional appearances. But that contractual fine point was lost as the story devolved into a conflict between two egos, Sinatra’s and Sullivan’s.

The two had once enjoyed a warm friendship. The singer appeared on Sullivan’s 1943 radio show and in his war bond rallies. Ed defended Sinatra in his column when the singer came under fire from columnist Westbrook Pegler for not serving in the military. In April 1947, after Sinatra punched Hearst columnist Lee Mortimer, resulting in a spate of bad press—as
Look
magazine archly observed, “
The number of things he does besides sing is astounding”—Ed again came to his rescue.
“Basically, Sinatra is a decent, warm-hearted person and I think it’s about time they stop kicking him around,” he wrote. (Ed, for his part, appreciated anyone who slugged Hearst columnists.) Deeply grateful, Frank sent Ed an effusive letter of thanks, along with a gold wristwatch inscribed, “Ed, you can have my last drop of blood. Frankie.”

Yet now, upset by the
Guy and Dolls
dispute, Sinatra complained to the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) about unpaid promotional appearances. SAG quickly passed a new regulation prohibiting unpaid appearances on commercial television shows. Not satisfied, the singer went on the attack against Sullivan, decrying
“newspaper personalities on TV” who use movie actors “without paying for their services.”

Ed counterattacked by taking out full-page ads in
Variety
and the
Hollywood Reporter
to print his open letter to SAG president Walter Pidgeon: “
Let us overlook the fact that Sinatra, regularly trounced by us when he becomes part of the rival network’s ‘spectacular,’ hardly qualifies as an impartial or disinterested witness. What I particularly resent is Sinatra’s reckless charge that
Toast
does not pay performers.” His show had paid over $5,000,000 in performers fees, he claimed, rendering “substantial benefits to motion pictures.” Additionally, “If Sam Goldwyn approached Sinatra, that hardly is my concern or problem. Certainly, I never approached Sinatra. My negotiations with Mr. Goldwyn involved an offer by me to pay a substantial sum of money … to represent, on film, thirty minutes of
Guys and Dolls
as an exclusive preview. Sincerely, Ed Sullivan.

P.S. Aside to Frankie Boy—never mind that tremulous 1947 offer: ‘Ed, you can have my last drop of blood.’ ”

The letter sent Sinatra into a sputtering rage. He took out full-page ads in the same trade publications, stating, “Dear Ed: You’re sick. Frankie. P.S. SICK! SICK! SICK!” To drive the point home, the word “sick” grew larger as it descended the page. The dueling full-page ads gave newspapers the fodder to nurture the story for an additional two weeks. Sinatra did not appear as part of Sullivan’s promotion of
Guys and Dolls
(though he was in a film clip that Ed showed), and in the short term their erstwhile friendship foundered.

In the 1955–56 television season, the first year the program was called
The Ed Sullivan Show
, a number of factors combined to make Sullivan’s showcase a cultural focal point. In the previous season it had ranked number five among the 122 shows in prime time, and this season’s ratings were trending still higher, drawing the attention of not only viewers but entertainers. Performers now practically clawed to get on the show; musicians knew an appearance sent their vinyl sales soaring, and comics knew a Sullivan introduction pushed their nightclub fees skyward. Moreover, MCA president Sonny Werblin provided Sullivan with an open door to his rich hoard of talent, so it was easier to get bigger names, which in turn made the show more attractive to other high-profile performers. Adding momentum was the increased production budget of $50,000 per episode.

With his now-larger budget, Ed often gave Lincoln Mercury automobiles to stars as inducements to appear: Henry Fonda got a black Thunderbird, Robert Mitchum got a black Lincoln Coupe, Bing Crosby got a red station wagon, Gene Kelly got a blue Lincoln convertible, and Gary Cooper got a champagne-colored Premiere.

Many Sundays now included a lavishly produced scene from a current Broadway play, performed by original cast members. In October, for example, actors Tony Randall, Melvyn Douglas, and Ed Begley performed a scene from
Inherit the Wind
, a play about the Scopes Monkey Trial written in response to the hysteria of McCarthyism. That same show saw performances by the Dave Brubeck Jazz Quartet, bejeweled pianist Liberace, vocalist Rosemary Clooney, and animal trainer Robert Lamouret with his talking duck.

In an unorthodox variation on his Broadway presentations, Ed booked film actors to recreate scenes from current movies, in essence performing a live trailer. The season opened with Robert Mitchum and Lillian Gish reprising a scene from
Night of the Hunter
, and later in the year Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster reenacted a scene from
Trapeze.
These film tableaus were always just one of a half dozen acts on any evening; Curtis and Lancaster, for instance, shared the bill with vaudevillian Benny Fields, Metropolitan Opera singer Lily Pons, and trampoline acrobat Larry Griswold.

Rock ’n’ roll was just a squalling infant in November 1955, yet that month the public heard one of its original voices. On the night of November 20, Ed told viewers they were about to hear something novel: “Now ladies and gentlemen, as everyone knows, whenever any new musical trend has evinced itself in the popular trends—the Charleston or the black bottom or any of the rhythm songs—the first area to find out about it in advance is Harlem. A couple of weeks ago I went up to Harlem, I’d seen these shots in the newsreel about thousands of people jamming the streets around the Apollo Theater, all trying to get in to see Dr. Jive’s …”—and here Ed hesitated, unsure of what the music was called, so he riffed a few variations—“rhythm and roll, rhythm and color, rhythm and blues. So here is Dr. Jive!”

Dr. Jive was the stage name for Tommy Smalls, a tall, handsome, nattily attired black disc jockey, promoter, and band manager, who that evening presented his rhythm and blues revue: Bo Diddley, LaVern Baker, The Five Keys, and Wallis “Gator Tail” Jackson. The electrified beat that the four acts laid down formed the foundation of rock ’n’ roll, and that night was the first time that most of Ed’s viewers ever heard such a sound.

Most notable among Dr. Jive’s acts was Bo Diddley. When the Mississippi-born singer-guitarist moved to Chicago’s South Side, he brought a style of polyrhythmic
syncopation he learned from black sharecroppers. Called “hambone,” it was a chant that was sung over an intensely physical cross-layered beat—its rhythm was the basis for tap dancing. The hambone chant had been handed down from slaves, who brought it with them from Africa. When Diddley recorded his first song with the hambone rhythm in Chess studios in 1955 (just months before his Sullivan appearance) he dubbed it “Bo Diddley.” This was the song he wanted to perform tonight.

At rehearsal that afternoon, Ed hadn’t liked it. The song was pure rhythm. Instead of a traditional verse and chorus, it was a driving, electrified version of the generations-old hambone chant-song, played over a visceral voodoo beat. Sullivan vetoed the selection. Diddley could remain on the bill, but Ed, casting around for a suitably contemporary alternative, told him to play Tennessee Ernie Ford’s “Sixteen Tons.” By comparison with “Bo Diddley,” Ford’s tune was a lumbering dirge, yet it was hot at the moment—it held number one on the charts, having sold more than a million copies in three weeks. Diddley apparently agreed with the song change, otherwise Ed wouldn’t have let him on that evening.

Yet during the live broadcast, when the camera cut to Diddley, he jumped into “Bo Diddley” as if he had never considered anything else. He and his three band-mates, dressed in matching light-colored blazers, started with a kick-snare cross-rhythm, then overlaid a percolating maracas; the bass player began thrumming the backbeat, and Bo joined in with rhythm guitar and chant-song vocals. The result was musical combustion, blissful and unapologetic. The tune would reverberate throughout rock ’n’ roll for a generation, with musicians from the Rolling Stones to Bruce Springsteen proudly claiming to have been inspired by it. Ed, however, was furious—Diddley never again played the Sullivan show.

Not all the shows that season introduced the audience to such otherworldly sounds. For Ed’s program on Christmas Day—he wasn’t going to take the day off—actors Gary Cooper and Rod Steiger performed a scene from their film
The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell
, the Michigan Glee Club sang carols, and Ed presented a taped segment from a holiday ice show featuring Czech skating champion Miroslava Nachodska.

In January’s tribute to America’s songwriters and composers, famed bandleader Cab Calloway tap-danced in black tie and tails with his daughter Layla. In February, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz shared the stage with vocal quartet the Ames Brothers; Desi sang along as Lucy goofed around pretending to be the fifth singer. Later in the hour, Rodgers and Hammerstein chatted with Ed about their music and introduced performances of their favorite songs. Following them was actor Orson Welles rendering a scene from his Broadway production of Shakespeare’s
King Lear
, and ventriloquist Rickie Layne riposting with his dummy Velvel.

The following week, Pulitzer Prize—winning poet Carl Sandburg recited his “A Lincoln Portrait” accompanied by the ever-mellow Andre Kostelanetz Orchestra; actor Hal Holbrook monologued as Mark Twain; and Clayton Moore, who played TV’s Lone Ranger, demonstrated some swift pistol work, after which acrobatic team the Amandis dazzled with a teeterboard.

As winter turned to spring, the Sullivan show presented actors Jimmy Cagney and Jack Lemmon in a scene from the Broadway play
Mr. Roberts;
Walt Disney gave an award to Fess Parker for his dramatic performance in
Davey Crockett;
French
mime Marcel Marceau re-created the story of David and Goliath; and Ed hosted the Mother of the Year Awards, spotlighting actresses Betty Grable, Deborah Kerr, and June Allyson.

For the show’s eighth-anniversary program in June, Ed arranged for a crowd of celebrities to pay tribute to the show’s longevity. In a group sing-along, Ronald Reagan (host of the popular
General Electric Theater
), Natalie Wood, Robert Walker, Walt Disney, Lucille Ball, and Desi Arnaz all warbled “Happy Anniversary” in a tribute to Ed. Broadway veteran Ethel Merman belted out “Sullivan for Me,” longtime friend Louis Armstrong stopped by to sing “Happy Birthday,” Harry Belafonte crooned calypso music, and screen star Gregory Peck previewed next week’s lineup.