Impresario: The Life and Times of Ed Sullivan (53 page)

Next up was twenty-three-year-old comic Carol Burnett, who pretended to be various girl singers at Broadway auditions, including the Nose Singer, the Jaw Singer, Miss Big Deal, and Miss Old Timer. Burnett simultaneously worked the camera like a close friend and connected with the studio audience, getting continuous waves of laughter with her wildly flexible facial and vocal contortions.

Elvis’ second set kicked off with a straight blues romp, “Too Much,” featuring a riffing guitarist and a gyrating Presley. But home viewers didn’t see much of the singer; the camera cut diplomatically to the guitarist’s fingertips. Elvis’ swiveling hips fueled a screaming mania in the studio audience, but home viewers were left wondering why, hearing a legion of inflamed studio fans while they got a close-up of guitar picking. For the next tune, the jaunty finger-snapper “When My Blue Moon Turns to Gold Again,” the camera was equally chaste, hovering on Elvis’ face, venturing no lower than chest level. He spun offstage to end his set, after which Sullivan told the screaming girls “rest your larynx”—the singer was coming back.

Ed brought on boxer Sugar Ray Robinson for a celebrity chat, a common feature on the show. Considered by many experts to be the greatest pugilist in the sport’s history, Robinson wore a bandage over his left eye, having just lost the title to Gene Fullmer four days earlier. Ed chastised him, mostly good-naturedly, for what he called the boxer’s mistakes in his recent bout. “I was talking to Joe Louis the other day and he said he didn’t know what happened to you the other night,” Ed said, telling Sugar Ray he needed some lessons—which Ed proceeded to give. First, he taught Ray to clinch, pinning the boxer’s arms to his side to prevent him from punching; Robinson accepted the tip with a humble smile. To finish his lesson, Ed demonstrated the effective counterpunch: “Just remember what Sullivan tells you—hit him there!” and he sent a mock left jab to Robinson’s mid section.

Following the boxer was ballerina Nancy Crompton, who twirled in a tutu to a frantic cancan beat, rippling across the stage faster than the camera could follow. Then a rotund Brazilian singer, Leny Eversong, growled and belted out “El Cumbanchero” over a bongo-driven Latin beat. She was succeeded by a four-man German acrobatic team, the Gutees, two of whom were dressed as gorillas; their act was a two-minute melee of zoo animals versus zookeepers.

In the audience, Ed introduced two sports stars, Don Budge, the first player to win tennis’ Grand Slam, and Jackie Robinson, who had broken baseball’s color line in 1947, and who had recently retired. Ed gave a short speech about the greatness of Robinson’s career and led a second round of applause for him.

Following this was Bory and Bor, a ballroom dancer in a tuxedo who waltzed with a life-size female mannequin dressed in an elegant evening gown. Accompanied by a wild brassy beat, he flew around the stage with her in his arms, sometimes using the mannequin as support for a leap, sometimes spinning the mannequin as if she was a real woman. His act was brief, no more than ninety seconds, and he whirled so unpredictably the effect was akin to visual chaos. After big applause, Sullivan
brought back on Leny Eversong, who belted out “Jezebel” over an orchestral tango. Then Ed introduced two sportswriters in the audience from competing publications, the
Daily News’
Gene Ward and the
New York Post
’s Jimmy Cannon; this was diplomacy on Sullivan’s part—he worked for the
Daily News
but he wanted good press from the
Post.

Before Ed brought Elvis back out for the evening’s finale, he told viewers how committed the singer was to a charity, Hungarian relief. (Hungarians had attempted to revolt against the Soviet regime in October 1956 and were brutally suppressed.) Elvis was scheduled to perform a benefit for the charity, Ed told the audience, but in the meantime, “because he feels so keenly, he urges us all that immediate relief is needed, so long before his benefit he wants to remind you to send in your checks to your various churches, Red Cross, etc.” The audience had never put “Elvis” and “church” in the same sentence, so Ed was revealing a new dimension to the singer. And, if Elvis was such an avid supporter of the forces battling communism, then he couldn’t be a bad influence.

The camera cut to Presley and the Jordanaires, looking solemn, who sang an a capella version of the gospel song “Peace in the Valley.” It was a lugubrious rendering, with Elvis’ voice submerged in the supporting harmonies and the singer standing as motionless as a statue. Still, the camera took no chances, shooting him only from the chest up. His fans likely expected some combustible fireworks from his final performance, yet this sober performance threw a damp blanket over the singer’s fire. Never had Elvis been so grave. In the face of such propriety even the singer’s screaming section sounded muted, barely screeching louder than the general applause.

To wrap up the evening, Ed came on and chatted with Elvis about the singer’s plans. Lest any doubt linger about whether Presley was a subversive force—though after tonight’s neutered showing he threatened no one—Ed summed up his experience with Elvis: “I wanted to say to Elvis Presley and the country, that this is a real decent, fine boy. We want to say we’ve never had a pleasanter experience with a big name on our show, you’re thoroughly alright.” As he often did, he was speaking in code to his audience, letting them know that he himself, the unstinting watchdog, personally approved of the pompadoured singer. In response, Elvis lit up a winsome smile, the girls screeched, then Ed bid the audience good night.

In the following weeks, Sullivan managed to avoid significant backlash from disgruntled older viewers. His decision to restrict the camera work let these viewers know that their concerns were paramount. He could still be relied upon to safeguard the family living room. It helped, too, that by Elvis’ third appearance the singer was virtually omnipresent. His recordings had held the number one chart spot for twenty-five weeks in 1956, and would hold it for another twenty-five weeks in 1957, a feat never since achieved. So any complaints about the singer’s corrupting influence now had a diffuse target.

Still, problems loomed. Elvis was only the vanguard. Even a brief glance at the horizon revealed that rock’s infectious energy—plus the baby boom that began right after World War II—was spawning a new generation of musicians. Would they all be this difficult?

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Globetrotter

T
HE
STEVE
ALLEN
SHOW
, although it had scooped Sullivan on Elvis, rarely provided a serious ratings challenge to Ed. Allen was immeasurably wittier but lacked Sullivan’s talent as a producer. Yet since they both put on shows every Sunday night at 8
P.M.
, at times their head-to-head competition took on a vituperative tone. Newspapers portrayed their competition as a feud, but more accurately it was a straightforward ratings battle with some accompanying grousing. After Elvis, Sullivan vowed never again to let Allen get ahead of him with a new act, and he learned to respect Allen’s sense of what was current and compelling.

In October 1956, just weeks before Elvis’ second Sullivan appearance, word got out that Allen planned a tribute to James Dean. The screen star’s mix of brooding nonconformism and diffident sex appeal had rocketed him to fame after only two major films,
Rebel Without a Cause
and
East of Eden
, both released in 1955. Yet Dean, as if guided by his own legend, died in a high-speed car crash in September of that year, at age twenty-four. His last film,
Giant
, co-starring Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson, was about to be released in the fall of 1956. Allen, hoping to capitalize on the Dean buzz as he had on Elvis, was negotiating to show a preview from
Giant
, and working on booking Dean’s aunt and uncle, who had raised the actor.

Sullivan saw an opportunity. With his close relationship with film studios, securing the
Giant
preview was quick work; he also booked Dean’s aunt and uncle before Allen could. On October 14, Sullivan presented his Dean tribute. (Sharing the bill were ballerina Nancy Crompton, Japanese aerialist Takeo Usui, and a performing monkey named Jinx.) The ratings grab brought howls of protest from Allen, who told reporters he couldn’t believe that it was Ed himself who was “
responsible for such tactics”—it must have been a Sullivan staffer. Ed, calling Allen a “
crybaby,” retorted, “My show is a one-man operation and he knows it.” Furthermore, he said, “Most of the variety show things started on our show—not that I’m a genius—they just started there. And now I’m being accused of ‘pirating!’ ” Hence their feud, such as it was, began.

The two showmen had a few more skirmishes. Allen scooped Sullivan in January 1957 by booking Charles Van Doren, the boyishly Brahmin university professor then wowing audiences with his phenomenal success on the quiz show
Twenty One.
(Van Doren was later disgraced in the resulting quiz show scandal.) That summer Allen again cried foul after a stolen booking, this time over Harry Belafonte, the Jamaican-raised actor and singer starring in 1957’s
Island in the Sun.
In the late spring, Sullivan announced that Belafonte would appear on his show, confounding the Allen staff, who had offered the performer $25,000 to appear first on their show. In June, Ed presented a clip of Belafonte singing “Lead Man Holler” from
Island in the Sun
—but without the performer himself.

He didn’t explain the Belafonte no-show, but he did succeed in disrupting Allen’s plans for a ratings win. Allen’s producer, Jules Green, claimed that Sullivan was “cheating the public” by claiming he would present Belafonte without actually booking him. When reporters asked Ed for comment, he replied, “
I have no comment to make. I have no comment on either of those punks.” Ed’s feint with the Belafonte booking proved he could out jab the Allen show at will, but in truth Allen’s Nielsen victories were few enough that Ed needn’t have bothered.

In fact, there was little that offered Sullivan competition in the 1956–57 season. Month after month the show was one of television’s top rated. The program had long been a magnet for performers, offering a good payday as well as major exposure. At this point its ratings were so unchallenged that it offered any performer—no matter how renowned—a big bounce. (With one exception: when Ed called Colonel Tom Parker to book more Elvis appearances and he heard the singer’s new price—$200,000—he promptly hung up.) With his virtually unlimited access to talent,
The Ed Sullivan Show
became a live canvas that Ed filled however he wanted. Like an artist who starts with a basic knack but grows to enjoy true command over his medium, the showman was now freer and stronger than ever.

In September he booked Edward G. Robinson to perform a scene from Paddy Chayefsky’s play
Middle of the Night
on the same show with legendary French vocalist Edith Piaf, who sang “The Poor People of Paris.” A few weeks later he interviewed screen stars Rita Hayworth, Jack Lemmon, and Robert Mitchum on the same bill with French comedian Salvador, followed by the Bokaras acrobats, who cavorted with a teeterboard. In November Bing Crosby bantered with comic Phil Silvers before crooning “True Love,” after which Julie Andrews sang a Broadway medley and Kate Smith belted out “God Bless America.” Later that month Fats Domino—the pioneering rock ’n’ roller had five songs in the Top 40 that year—rollicked through “Blueberry Hill” on the same bill with Conn and Mann, a tap dancing duo from New York’s Copacabana nightclub.

At the end of November, Maria Callas rendered a selection from Puccini’s opera
Tosca
on an evening in which Ed (on film) interviewed Clark Gable on location; later that hour he showed clips of the 1956 All American football squad. In an early December program, Ed opened with vocalist Rosemary Clooney singing “April in Paris,” followed by the Princeton Triangle Club (men performing in drag), after which comic Myron Cohen spun his Borscht Belt humor. The show ended with the Modern Screen Awards, featuring appearances by Natalie Wood, Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis, and Doris Day.

In January 1957 Elvis made his third appearance, with comic Carol Burnett and baseball star Jackie Robinson. Later that month jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong
shared the bill with vocalist Ella Fitzgerald, followed by two Metropolitan Opera stars performing a scene from
Madame Butterfly
, on the same evening ventriloquist Senor Wences earned laughs by chattering with his painted hand. In February Benny Goodman and his big band swung through “Just One of Those Things” on the same bill with young stand-up comedian Johnny Carson, who did impressions of Sullivan and journalist Edward R. Murrow. In March Fred Astaire and Jane Powell dazzled through a tap-dance routine on the same bill with a tap duet by Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron. In April Olympic weightlifter Paul Anderson hoisted twenty people on a show in which ancient vaudeville team Smith and Dale played a sketch about taxes and Henry Fonda introduced a clip from his new movie
Twelve Angry Men.