Ed Sullivan

Edward Vincent Sullivan entered the world on 28 September 1901 in New York City and departed it on 13 October 1974 in the same metropolis. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s he presided over America’s dominant variety series, exposing millions of viewers to scores of landmark performers; it was there that Presley and the Beatles first registered with most of the country. Musical guests routinely delivered their numbers in real time, occasionally supported by the host’s house band under Ray Bloch.

Born one of seven siblings, Sullivan spent his earliest years in Harlem before his family relocated to Port Chester, New York, when he turned five. Lacking any ambition to perform, he began writing sports for a local Port Chester paper while still in his teens. During the early 1920s the New York Evening Graphic brought him to Manhattan, and in 1932 the New York Daily News hired him away. While employed there he started staging vaudeville bills, an activity that prompted CBS to offer him a new Sunday slot in 1947. Titled Toast of the Town, the series premiered on 20 June 1948; Sullivan kept his print column alongside it. On 25 September 1955 the title became The Ed Sullivan Show. Its host booked any act he believed might snare viewers—opera soloists, acrobats, trained primates, or chart-topping ensembles—turning the broadcast into one of television’s most watched fixtures and a weekly custom for countless households. Sullivan himself grew into a national figure, his gestures and speech patterns supplying endless material for mimics and stand-ups.

Countless musicians appeared, among them Louis Armstrong, Judy Garland, Liberace, the Rolling Stones, the Doors, and Ella Fitzgerald. In 1990 selected performances were licensed for audio and video release, spawning anthology albums that later migrated to DVD formats. The final edition aired on 6 June 1971.