Impresario: The Life and Times of Ed Sullivan (39 page)

That the luminaries listed in
Red Channels
were part of a communist conspiracy was an absurd assertion; the most common denominator among the group was support for the New Deal. Even one of its publishers conceded that some performers shouldn’t have been listed. Regardless, the list was read and in many cases treated as gospel by broadcasting executives. Though rarely spoken of in public, the list became a powerful force behind the scenes. And while the “transgressions” of those listed were usually imaginary or close to it, they had no redress once they were unemployed. One of
Red Channels’
chief backers was Laurence Johnson, a supermarket executive in Syracuse, New York, whose association with the publication gave him unquestioned power across the television and advertising industries. “
If he put the word out on you, you were through,” recalled Mike Dann, who then worked in NBC’s programming department. Dann also remembered the wholehearted enthusiasm that Ed brought to his support of
Red Channels.
As he understood it, Ed “wasn’t a reactionary, he was square—he was very square.”

The irony of Ed’s involvement with
Counterattack
is that he himself had written for a Socialist newspaper in his twenties. The
Leader
, for which he was sports editor and a columnist, regularly listed all the communist cell meetings in the New York area, and espoused kinship between American and Russian workers; these groups were all part of the international proletariat, as the
Leader
saw it. (One of
the government raiders who ransacked
The Leader
’s offices in 1919 was a young agent who then went by the name of John Edgar Hoover.) Certainly his writing had been largely apolitical, but then many blacklisted performers had done nothing more serious. Yet Ed’s youthful indiscretion went overlooked—helped, no doubt, by his silence on the topic. In interviews, he always glossed over this period, and in a 1956 article he wrote for
Collier
’s magazine detailing his early newspaper career, he pointedly omitted
The Leader.

At any rate, the host of
Toast of the Town
had now thrown himself into the pitched battle to protect America from the communist threat, real and perceived, which was joined by virtually all major American institutions. In December 1950, Ed was a member of an expert panel enlisted to judge an essay contest sponsored by the Veterans of Foreign Wars. The contestants wrote on the topic “What Strategy Should the V.F.W Recommend to Our Government in Combating the Communist Threat to America?” The other judges on the panel included newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst,
Counterattack
publisher Theodore Kirkpatrick, Westbrook Pegler—the columnist whom Ed defied in booking Paul Draper—and Julius Ochs Adler, an executive with
The New York Times.

Despite the depth of his involvement, Ed maintained a level of critical judgment about some of the actions taken in the name of anticommunist fervor. In 1952, the
New York Post
launched a full-scale assault against Walter Winchell, running a series of articles attacking him from every angle; naturally they enlisted Ed for commentary. In the
Post
series, Ed remarked, “
Long before Senator McCarthy came into the character-assassination racket, there was a guy by the name of Walter Winchell.” The roundhouse punch against Winchell aside, the public denunciation of McCarthy was unusual for someone in Ed’s position. Certainly the description was accurate—reckless character assassination was McCarthy’s forte—but in 1952, the Republican senator was still very much a force to be reckoned with.

Even Dwight Eisenhower, then a popular war hero running a heavily favored campaign as the Republican presidential nominee, opted to cut a McCarthy rebuke from one of his speeches. Eisenhower’s advisors convinced him to remain mute on the subject, “
fearing McCarthy’s retaliation against their candidate,” according to historian David Halberstam. That Sullivan, producing a television program aimed at a mass audience, supported by a public relations—sensitive corporate sponsor, would so openly declaim McCarthy was just short of foolhardy. It was also typical of the contradictions that ran throughout his political attitudes. He cooperated with
Counterattack
but called McCarthy a character assassin; he was an avid blacklister but professed to voting for Adlai Stevenson, the Democratic presidential candidate in 1952 and 1956, who stood against the practice. Although he could pander, by telling Paul Draper to dance to “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” his swipe at McCarthy demonstrated he remained a pugilist at heart.

And that quality would be an essential one in Sullivan’s television career—especially in the early 1950s. Not long after launching his show, his pugilistic spirit would face its greatest test yet.

CHAPTER TEN
David vs. Goliath

B
Y THE SPRING OF
1950, Ed and Marlo Lewis could point to
Toast of the Town
as a success. It had been on the air close to two years, and while Ed himself still drew negative reviews, the show was a clear hit. The previous August,
New York Times
critic Jack Gould had written a satirical piece about the difficulty of taking a vacation without television: “
It was toward the end of the evening that one most missed Ed Sullivan … all in all it was pretty nerve racking, never getting the signal when to applaud, and meeting people who were not Ed’s friends.” While Gould meant that tongue in cheek, he also knew his readers would understand the reference. Television ratings for October 1949 published by
Variety
identified
Toast of the Town
as the number two show on television, second only to Berle’s
Texaco Theater.
It even bested Arthur Godfrey’s
Talent Scouts
, whose beloved host benefited from years of national radio exposure. To give the show an extra ratings boost, Ed produced fresh episodes of
Toast of the Town
year-round, with guest hosts filling in during his three-week vacation—there was no time to rest when an audience was being built.

Ed and Marlo had, finally, begun to make money from the show. With Ford’s continued sponsorship, CBS knew it had to make a real investment in the program, and the show’s weekly talent budget jumped to several thousand dollars. It was time for Ed and Marlo to start taking home more than token payment. But how much would it be?

The two, by Marlo’s account, had signed an agreement before the show launched to split any profits equally. Since there had been precious little profit, the issue had been moot. But by early 1950 the success of
Toast of the Town
prompted a discussion. One day in April, Ed asked Marlo to have lunch with him in the Delmonico’s dining room to talk about the show’s future. When Marlo arrived he was surprised to find that Ed had also invited his lawyer, Fred Backer. Ed was talkative through lunch, regaling Backer with tales of how he and Marlo had run the show on a shoestring. As lunch ended, though, Ed’s mood took a serious tone. He removed a piece of paper from his pocket, the original agreement between Marlo and him; he paused
for a moment, not sure of how to handle the subject. “
I don’t want you to misunderstand, but the fact is—I’ve got star status now,” Ed said, according to Marlo. “I’ve worked like a dog, paid my dues … and our deal is not equitable. Lord knows, you’ve done a great job, and we’re a great team. But this old agreement of fifty-fifty doesn’t make sense anymore.”

At that point Ed’s lawyer took over the conversation. “
What Ed is getting at is that he wants to change the deal. It’s no longer fair to him. We want it to read seventy-five percent for him, twenty-five percent for you. That’s it in a nutshell.” Lewis was dumbstruck. He conceded that Ed deserved more for his starring role, but he pointed out that he, like Ed, had worked for almost nothing since the show’s debut. Complicating the issue was the fact that Lewis had quit his job at the Blaine Thompson agency to devote himself to the show. He asked for a few days to think over the matter. Backer agreed, but, he said, “
that won’t change our position.”

While Marlo glared at Backer, Ed reached over and took hold of his arm. As Marlo recalled the meeting—Ed never made reference to this discussion—Ed said, “Come on, Marlo. You’re gonna get rich on this show. Don’t take it so big. I need you, you need me. You gotta remember, I’m a lot older than you, and without my muscle there never would’ve been a show in the first place.” He told Marlo to have his own lawyer get together with Backer and rework the contract. “
I’ll see you Sunday, same time, same station.”

Marlo left the Delmonico in a daze, feeling betrayed and unsure of what to do. Ed, of course, had a point: the show was his, from conception to choice of talent; he created the onscreen product down to the minute, shaping many of the comics’ acts and selecting many of the vocalists’ songs. And Sullivan’s column enabled the show to attract talent long before Lincoln Mercury provided major backing. But Marlo couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being taken advantage of, that the deal was changed only after he invested countless hours. Full of doubts about continuing on the show, he went to see Hubbell Robinson, CBS executive in charge of programming. Robinson, understanding that the Lewis—Sullivan conflict threatened the network’s Sunday night flagship, went to CBS head Bill Paley, who decided to take control of the situation.

Paley called a meeting at his St. Regis apartment, inviting Sullivan and Lewis along with Robinson and network president Frank Stanton. He kept the meeting light, making no allusion to the contract conflict, instead complimenting Ed and Marlo on the job they had done.
Toast of the Town
, Paley said, might be just the beginning; he wanted both men to become integral parts of the network. To cement their relationship with CBS, he made each of them an offer. To Marlo, he offered a position as an executive producer for the network; Lewis would work on
Toast of the Town
and might also produce other shows. To Ed, he offered a five-year contract as the producer of
Toast of the Town.
Sullivan would not be a CBS staff member, but instead would work as an independent contractor. The answer from Ed and Marlo was unequivocal: we accept.

Ed’s new contract set his pay at a minimum of $1,500 a week until September 1955. His compensation would increase if sponsorship revenue increased; that is, if the show’s ratings allowed CBS to charge Lincoln Mercury more, then Sullivan
would make more. If the program was still on the air in 1955, he would begin to receive a one-percent share of sponsorship revenue in addition to his weekly pay.

The talent budget was set at $10,000 per show for the first year, increasing to $12,000 over the following two years. The amount wasn’t stated for the contract’s last two years—apparently the network felt it wasn’t reasonable to guess talent budgets more than three years out.

While the contract specified that both Ed and Marlo would work on
Toast of the Town
, it clearly placed Ed in charge. Oddly, in the document’s language, Ed was referred to as “Producer,” while Marlo was referred to by his own name. One clause specified that Marlo would be the show’s coproducer, to which Ed insisted upon an amendment; this was handwritten in and initialed by all parties: “
Any successor to Mr. Lewis shall be subject to Producer approval.” In other words,
Toast of the Town
was Sullivan’s show.

The terms agreed upon, CBS issued a press release, picked up by
The New York Times
in a terse one-paragraph news item. Reporting that the two had been hired as producers, the paper noted, “
They will work as a team, creating new productions and working on existing programs.” The news, for those watching, announced that Sullivan and Lewis weren’t arrivistes anymore; they had earned the blessing of a major network. For Marlo, it was both a relief—a way around what he saw as Ed’s arm-twisting—and a step up; the door was open for him to produce other shows. For Ed, it was a dream come true. He had won the support of CBS. He was no longer a mere columnist; he had achieved what he most hungered for: a solid foothold in broadcasting.