Jack Benny History What was something interesting Jack Benny did in this period? becoming a national figure with The Jack Benny Program, What was the Jack Benny program? a weekly radio show that ran from 1932 to 1948 on NBC and from 1949 to 1955 on CBS. did he work with anybody? Ed Sullivan
What did he do with Ed Sullivan
What did Jack Benny do with Ed Sullivan
Benny had been a minor vaudeville performer before becoming a national figure with The Jack Benny Program, a weekly radio show that ran from 1932 to 1948 on NBC and from 1949 to 1955 on CBS. It was among the most highly rated programs during its run.  Benny's long radio career began on April 6, 1932, when the NBC Commercial Program Department auditioned him for the N.W. Ayer agency and their client, Canada Dry, after which Bertha Brainard, head of the division, said, "We think Mr. Benny is excellent for radio and, while the audition was unassisted as far as orchestra was concerned, we believe he would make a great bet for an air program." Recalling the experience in 1956, Benny said Ed Sullivan had invited him to guest on his program (1932), and "the agency for Canada Dry ginger ale heard me and offered me a job."  With Canada Dry ginger ale as a sponsor, Benny came to radio on The Canada Dry Program, on May 2, 1932, on the NBC Blue Network and continuing for six months until October 26, moving to CBS on October 30. With Ted Weems leading the band, Benny stayed on CBS until January 26, 1933.  Arriving at NBC on March 17, Benny did The Chevrolet Program until April 1, 1934. He continued with sponsor General Tire through the end of the season. In October, 1934, General Foods, the makers of Jell-O and Grape-Nuts, became the sponsor strongly identified with Benny for 10 years. American Tobacco's Lucky Strike was his longest-lasting radio sponsor, from October 1944 through to the end of his original radio series.  The show switched networks to CBS on January 2, 1949, as part of CBS president William S. Paley's notorious "raid" of NBC talent in 1948-49. It stayed there for the remainder of its radio run, ending on May 22, 1955. CBS aired repeat episodes from 1956 to 1958 as The Best of Benny. CANNOTANSWER
invited him to guest on his program (1932), and "the agency for Canada Dry ginger ale heard me and offered me a job."
Benjamin Kubelsky (February 14, 1894 – December 26, 1974), known professionally as Jack Benny, was an American entertainer, who evolved from a modest success playing violin on the vaudeville circuit to one of the leading entertainers of the twentieth century with a highly popular comedic career in radio, television, and film. He was known for his comic timing and the ability to cause laughter with a pregnant pause or a single expression, such as his signature exasperated "Well!"

His radio and television programs, popular from 1932 until his death in 1974, were a major influence on the sitcom genre. Benny often portrayed his character as a miser who obliviously played his violin badly and ridiculously claimed to be 39 years of age, regardless of his actual age.

Early life

Benny was born Benjamin Kubelsky in Chicago on February 14, 1894, and grew up in nearby Waukegan. He was the son of Jewish immigrants Meyer Kubelsky (1864–1946) and Emma Sachs Kubelsky (1869–1917), sometimes called "Naomi." Meyer was a saloon owner and later a haberdasher who had emigrated to America from Poland. Emma had emigrated from Lithuania. At the age of 6, Benny began studying violin, an instrument that became his trademark; his parents hoped for him to become a professional violinist. He loved the instrument but hated to practice. His music teacher was Otto Graham Sr., a neighbor and father of football player Otto Graham. At 14, Benny was playing in dance bands and his high school orchestra. He was a dreamer and poor at his studies, ultimately getting expelled from high school. He later did poorly in business school and in attempts to join his father's business. In 1911, he began playing the violin in local vaudeville theaters for $7.50 a week (about $ in 2020 dollars). He was joined on the circuit by Ned Miller, a young composer and singer.

That same year, Benny was playing in the same theater as the young Marx Brothers. Minnie, their mother, enjoyed Benny's violin playing and invited him to accompany her boys in their act. Benny's parents refused to let their son go on the road at 17, but it was the beginning of his long friendship with the Marx Brothers, especially Zeppo Marx.

The next year, Benny formed a vaudeville musical duo with pianist Cora Folsom Salisbury, a buxom 45-year-old divorcée who needed a partner for her act. This angered famous violinist Jan Kubelik, who feared that the young vaudevillian with a similar name would damage his reputation. Under legal pressure, Benjamin Kubelsky agreed to change his name to Ben K. Benny, sometimes spelled Bennie. When Salisbury left the act, Benny found a new pianist, Lyman Woods, and renamed the act "From Grand Opera to Ragtime." They worked together for five years and slowly integrated comedy elements into the show. They reached the Palace Theater, the "Mecca of Vaudeville," and did not do well. Benny left show business briefly in 1917 to join the United States Navy during World War I, often entertaining fellow sailors with his violin playing. One evening, his violin performance was booed by the sailors, so with prompting from fellow sailor and actor Pat O'Brien, he ad-libbed his way out of the jam and left them laughing. He received more comedy spots in the revues and did well, earning a reputation as a comedian and musician. Despite stories to the contrary, no reliable evidence indicates Jack Benny was aboard during the 1915 Eastland disaster or scheduled to be on the excursion; possibly the basis for this report was that Eastland was a training vessel during World War I and Benny received his training in the Great Lakes naval base where Eastland was stationed.

Shortly after the war, Benny developed a one-man act, "Ben K. Benny: Fiddle Funology." He then received legal pressure from Ben Bernie, a "patter-and-fiddle" performer, regarding his name, so he adopted the sailor's nickname of Jack. By 1921, the fiddle was more of a prop, and the low-key comedy took over.

Benny had some romantic encounters, including one with dancer Mary Kelly, whose devoutly Catholic family forced her to turn down his proposal because he was Jewish. Benny was introduced to Kelly by Gracie Allen.

In 1922, Benny accompanied Zeppo Marx to a Passover Seder in Vancouver at the residence where he met 17-year-old Sadie Marks (whose family was friends with, but not related to, the Marx family). Their first meeting did not go well when he tried to leave during Sadie's violin performance. They met again in 1926. Jack had not remembered their earlier meeting and instantly fell for her. They married the following year. She was working in the hosiery section of the Hollywood Boulevard branch of the May Company, where Benny courted her. Called on to fill in for the "dumb girl" part in a Benny routine, Sadie proved to be a natural comedienne. Adopting the stage name Mary Livingstone, Sadie collaborated with Benny throughout most of his career. They later adopted a daughter, Joan (1934-2021). Sadie's older sister Babe would often be the target of jokes about unattractive or masculine women, while her younger brother Hilliard would later produce Benny's radio and TV work.

In 1929, Benny's agent, Sam Lyons, convinced Irving Thalberg, American film producer at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, to watch Benny at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles. Benny signed a five-year contract with MGM, where his first role was in The Hollywood Revue of 1929. The next film, Chasing Rainbows, did not do well, and after several months Benny was released from his contract and returned to Broadway in Earl Carroll's Vanities. At first dubious about the viability of radio, Benny grew eager to break into the new medium. In 1932, after a four-week nightclub run, he was invited onto Ed Sullivan's radio program, uttering his first radio spiel "This is Jack Benny talking. There will be a slight pause while you say, 'Who cares?

Radio

Benny had been a minor vaudeville performer before becoming a national figure with The Jack Benny Program, a weekly radio show that ran from 1932 to 1948 on NBC and from 1949 to 1955 on CBS. It was among the most highly rated programs during its run.

Benny's long radio career began on April 6, 1932, when the NBC Commercial Program Department auditioned him for the N. W. Ayer & Son agency and their client, Canada Dry, after which Bertha Brainard, head of the division, said, "We think Mr. Benny is excellent for radio and, while the audition was unassisted as far as orchestra was concerned, we believe he would make a great bet for an air program." Recalling the experience in 1956, Benny said Ed Sullivan had invited him to guest on his program (1932), and "the agency for Canada Dry ginger ale heard me and offered me a job."

With Canada Dry ginger ale as a sponsor, Benny came to radio on The Canada Dry Program, on May 2, 1932, broadcast on Mondays and Wednesdays on the NBC Blue Network, featuring George Olsen and his orchestra. After a few shows, Benny hired Harry Conn as writer. The show continued on Blue for six months until October 26, moving to CBS on October 30, now airing Thursdays and Sundays. With Ted Weems leading the band, Benny stayed on CBS until January 26, 1933, when Canada Dry opted not to renew Benny's contract after it attempted to replace Conn with Sid Silvers, who would have also gotten a co-starring role. Unlike later incarnations of the Benny show, The Canada Dry Program was primarily a musical program.

Benny then appeared on The Chevrolet Program, airing on the NBC Red Network between March 17, 1933 until April 1, 1934, initially airing on Fridays (replacing Al Jolson), moving to Sunday nights in the fall. The show, which featured Benny and Livingstone alongside Frank Black's orchestra and vocalists James Melton and (later) Frank Parker, ended after General Motors' president insisted on a musical program. He continued with sponsor General Tire on Fridays through the end of September.

The show switched networks to CBS on January 2, 1949, as part of CBS president William S. Paley's notorious "raid" on NBC talent in 1948–1949. It stayed there for the remainder of its radio run, ending on May 22, 1955. CBS aired repeat episodes from 1956 to 1958 as The Best of Benny.

Television

After making his television debut in 1949 on local Los Angeles station KTTV, then a CBS affiliate, the network television version of The Jack Benny Program ran from October 28, 1950, to 1965, all but the last season on CBS. Initially scheduled as a series of five "specials" during the 1950–1951 season, the show appeared every six weeks for the 1951–1952 season, every four weeks for the 1952–1953 season and every three weeks in 1953–1954. For the 1953–1954 season, half the episodes were live and half were filmed during the summer, to allow Benny to continue doing his radio show. From the fall of 1954 to 1960, it appeared every other week, and from 1960 to 1965 it was seen weekly.

On March 28, 1954, Benny co-hosted General Foods 25th Anniversary Show: A Salute to Rodgers and Hammerstein with Groucho Marx and Mary Martin. In September 1954, CBS premiered Chrysler's Shower of Stars co-hosted by Jack Benny and William Lundigan. It enjoyed a successful run from 1954 until 1958. Both television shows often overlapped the radio show. In fact, the radio show alluded frequently to its television counterparts. Often as not, Benny would sign off the radio show in such circumstances with the line "Well, good night, folks. I'll see you on television."

When Benny moved to television, audiences learned that his verbal talent was matched by his controlled repertory of dead-pan facial expressions and gesture. The program was similar to the radio show (several of the radio scripts were recycled for television, as was somewhat common with other radio shows that moved to television), but with the addition of visual gags. Lucky Strike was the sponsor. Benny did his opening and closing monologues before a live audience, which he regarded as essential to timing of the material. As in other TV comedy shows, a laugh track was added to "sweeten" the soundtrack, as when the studio audience missed some close-up comedy because of cameras or microphones obstructing their view. Television viewers became accustomed to live without Mary Livingstone, who was afflicted by a striking case of stage fright that didn't lessen even after performing with Benny for 20 years. Hence, Livingstone appeared rarely if at all on the television show. In fact, for the last few years of the radio show, she pre-recorded her lines and Jack and Mary's daughter, Joan, stood in for the live taping, with Mary's lines later edited into the tape replacing Joan's before broadcast. Mary Livingstone finally retired from show business permanently in 1958, as her friend Gracie Allen had done.

Benny's television program relied more on guest stars and less on his regulars than his radio program. In fact, the only radio cast members who appeared regularly on the television program as well were Don Wilson and Eddie Anderson. Singer Dennis Day appeared sporadically, and Harris had left the radio program in 1952, although he did make a guest appearance on the television show (Bob Crosby, Phil's "replacement", frequently appeared on television through 1956). A frequent guest was the Canadian-born singer-violinist Gisele Mackenzie.

As a gag, Benny made a 1957 appearance on the then-wildly popular $64,000 Question. His category of choice was "Violins", but after answering the first question correctly Benny opted out of continuing, leaving the show with just $64; host Hal March gave Benny the prize money out of his own pocket. March made an appearance on Benny's show the same year.

Benny was able to attract guests who rarely, if ever, appeared on television. In 1953, both Marilyn Monroe and Humphrey Bogart made their television debuts on Benny's program.

Another guest star on the Jack Benny show was Rod Serling, who starred in a spoof of The Twilight Zone in which Benny goes to his own house and finds that no one knows who he is; Jack runs away screaming in panic; Serling breaks the fourth wall and remarks not to worry about Benny on the grounds that anyone who has been 39 years old as long as he has is a citizen of the "Twilo Zone."

Canadian singer Gisele MacKenzie, who toured with Benny in the early 1950s, guest starred seven times on The Jack Benny Program. Benny was so impressed with MacKenzie's talents that he served as co-executive producer and guest starred on her 1957–1958 NBC variety show, The Gisele MacKenzie Show.

In 1964, Walt Disney was a guest, primarily to promote his production of Mary Poppins. Benny persuaded Disney to give him over 110 free admission tickets to Disneyland for his friends and one for his wife, but later in the show Disney apparently sent his pet tiger after Benny as revenge, at which point Benny opened his umbrella and soared above the stage like Mary Poppins.

In due course the ratings game finally got to Benny, too. CBS dropped the show in 1964, citing Benny's lack of appeal to the younger demographic the network began courting, and he went to NBC, his original network, in the fall, only to be out-rated by CBS's Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. The network dropped Benny at the end of the season. He continued to make occasional specials into the 1970s, the last one airing in January 1974. Benny also appeared on The Lucy Show twice: Once as a plumber who resembles Jack Benny and in 1967 "Lucy Gets Jack Benny's account" where Lucy takes Jack on a tour of his new money vault. In the late 1960s, Benny did a series of commercials for Texaco Sky Chief gasoline, using his "stingy" television persona, always telling the attendant after being implored, "Jack Benny, won't you please fill up?", "I'll take a gallon."

In his unpublished autobiography, I Always Had Shoes (portions of which were later incorporated by Jack's daughter, Joan Benny, into her memoir of her parents, Sunday Nights at Seven), Benny said that he, not NBC, made the decision to end his TV series in 1965. He said that while the ratings were still very good (he cited a figure of some 18 million viewers per week, although he qualified that figure by saying he never believed the ratings services were doing anything more than guessing, no matter what they promised), advertisers were complaining that commercial time on his show was costing nearly twice as much as what they paid for most other shows, and he had grown tired of what was called the "rate race." Thus, after some three decades on radio and television in a weekly program, Jack Benny went out on top. In fairness, Benny himself shared Fred Allen's ambivalence about television, though not quite to Allen's extent. "By my second year in television, I saw that the camera was a man-eating monster ... It gave a performer close-up exposure that, week after week, threatened his existence as an interesting entertainer."

In a joint appearance with Phil Silvers on Dick Cavett's show, Benny recalled that he had advised Silvers not to appear on television. However, Silvers ignored Benny's advice and proceeded to win several Emmy awards as Sergeant Bilko on the popular series The Phil Silvers Show.

Films

Benny also acted in films, including the Academy Award-winning The Hollywood Revue of 1929, Broadway Melody of 1936 (as a benign nemesis for Eleanor Powell and Robert Taylor), George Washington Slept Here (1942), and notably, Charley's Aunt (1941) and To Be or Not to Be (1942). He and Livingstone also appeared in Ed Sullivan's Mr. Broadway (1933) as themselves. Benny often parodied contemporary films and genres on the radio program, and the 1940 film Buck Benny Rides Again features all the main radio characters in a funny Western parody adapted from program skits. The failure of one cinematic Benny vehicle, The Horn Blows at Midnight, became a running gag on his radio and television programs, although contemporary viewers may not find the film as disappointing as the jokes suggest.

Benny may have had an uncredited cameo role in Casablanca, claimed by a contemporary newspaper article and advertisement and reportedly in the Casablanca press book. When asked in his column "Movie Answer Man", film critic Roger Ebert first replied, "It looks something like him. That's all I can say." He wrote in a later column, "I think you're right."

Benny also was caricatured in several Warner Brothers cartoons including Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur (1939, as Casper the Caveman), I Love to Singa, Slap Happy Pappy, and Goofy Groceries (1936, 1940, and 1941 respectively, as Jack Bunny), Malibu Beach Party (1940, as himself), and The Mouse that Jack Built (1959). The last of these is probably the most memorable: Robert McKimson engaged Benny and his actual cast (Mary Livingstone, Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, and Don Wilson) to do the voices for the mouse versions of their characters, with Mel Blanc—the usual Warner Brothers cartoon voicemeister—reprising his old vocal turn as the always-aging Maxwell, always a phat-phat-bang! away from collapse. In the cartoon, Benny and Livingstone agree to spend their anniversary at the Kit-Kat Club, which they discover the hard way is inside the mouth of a live cat. Before the cat can devour the mice, Benny himself awakens from his dream, then shakes his head, smiles wryly, and mutters, "Imagine, me and Mary as little mice." Then, he glances toward the cat lying on a throw rug in a corner and sees his and Livingstone's cartoon alter egos scampering out of the cat's mouth. The cartoon ends with a classic Benny look of befuddlement. It was rumored that Benny requested that, in lieu of monetary compensation, he receive a copy of the finished film.

Benny made a cameo appearance in It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

Final years 

After his broadcasting career ended, Benny performed live as a standup comedian.

In the 1960s Benny was the headlining act at Harrah's Lake Tahoe with performer Harry James, and Vocalist Ray Vasquez.

Benny made one of his final television appearances on January 23, 1974, as a guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, the day before his final television special aired. Benny was preparing to star in the film version of Neil Simon's The Sunshine Boys when his health failed later the same year. He prevailed upon his longtime best friend, George Burns, to take his place on a nightclub tour while preparing for the film. Burns ultimately had to replace Benny in the film as well, going on to win an Academy Award for his performance.

Despite his failing health, Benny would go on to make one last appearance on The Tonight Show  on August 21, 1974 with Rich Little as guest host.  Benny also made several appearances on The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast in his final 18 months, roasting Ronald Reagan, Johnny Carson, Bob Hope and Lucille Ball, in addition to himself being roasted in February 1974. The Lucille Ball roast, his last public performance, aired on February 7, 1975, several weeks after his death.

Death

In October 1974, Benny cancelled a performance in Dallas after suffering a dizzy spell, coupled with numbness in his arms. Despite a battery of tests, Benny's ailment could not be determined. When he complained of stomach pains in early December, a first test showed nothing, but a subsequent examination showed that he had inoperable pancreatic cancer. Benny went into a coma at home on December 22, 1974. While in a coma, he was visited by close friends including George Burns, Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Johnny Carson, John Rowles and then Governor Ronald Reagan. He died on December 26, 1974, at age 80. At the funeral, Burns, Benny's best friend for more than fifty years, attempted to deliver a eulogy but broke down shortly after he began and was unable to continue. Hope also delivered a eulogy in which he stated, "For a man who was the undisputed master of comedic timing, you would have to say this is the only time when Jack Benny's timing was all wrong. He left us much too soon." Benny was interred in a crypt at Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City, California. His will arranged for a single long-stemmed red rose to be delivered to his widow, Mary Livingstone, every day for the rest of her life. Livingstone died eight and a half years later on June 30, 1983, at the age of 78.

In trying to explain his successful life, Benny summed it up by stating: "Everything good that happened to me happened by accident. I was not filled with ambition nor fired by a drive toward a clear-cut goal. I never knew exactly where I was going."

Upon his death, Benny's family donated his personal, professional and business papers, as well as a collection of his television shows, to UCLA. The university established the Jack Benny Award for Comedy in his honor in 1977 to recognize outstanding people in the field of comedy. Johnny Carson was the first award recipient. Benny also donated a Stradivarius violin (purchased in 1957) to the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. Benny had quipped, "If it isn't a $30,000 Strad, I'm out $120."

Honors and tributes
In 1960, Benny was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame with three stars. His stars for television and motion pictures are located at 6370 and 6650 Hollywood Boulevard, respectively, and at 1505 Vine Street for radio. He was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1988 and the National Radio Hall of Fame in 1989. He was also inducted into the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame.

Benny was inducted as a laureate of The Lincoln Academy of Illinois and awarded the Order of Lincoln (the state's highest honor) by the governor of Illinois in 1972 in the area of the performing arts.

When the price of a standard first-class U.S. postal stamp was increased to 39 cents in 2006, fans petitioned for a Jack Benny stamp to honor his stage persona's perpetual age. The U.S. Postal Service had issued a stamp depicting Benny in 1991 as part of a booklet of stamps honoring comedians; however, the stamp was issued at the then-current rate of 29 cents.

Jack Benny Middle School in Waukegan is named after Benny. Its motto matches his famous statement as "Home of the '39ers." A statue of Benny with his violin stands in downtown Waukegan.

The British comedian Benny Hill, whose original name was Alfred Hawthorne Hill, changed his name as a tribute to Jack Benny.

He was mentioned by Doc Brown in Back to the Future in which he guesses who would be Secretary of the Treasury by 1985, not believing Ronald Reagan was President of the United States of America. In reality, Benny died before 1985.

Filmography

Selected radio appearances

References

Further reading
 The New York Times, April 16, 1953, p. 43, "Jack Benny plans more work on TV"
 The New York Times, March 16, 1960, p. 75, "Canned laughter: Comedians are crying on the inside about CBS rule that public know of its use"
 Jack Benny, Mary Livingstone Benny, Hilliard Marks with Marcia Borie, Doubleday & Company, 1978, 322 p.
 Sunday Nights at Seven: The Jack Benny Story, Jack Benny and Joan Benny, Warner Books, 1990, 302 p.
 CBS: Reflections in a Bloodshot Eye, by Robert Metz, New American Library, 1978.
 The Laugh Crafters: Comedy Writing in Radio and TV's Golden Age, by Jordan R. Young; Past Times Publishing, 1999. 
 Well! Reflections on the Life and Career of Jack Benny, edited by Michael Leannah, BearManor Media, 2007.
 Jack Benny v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 25 T.C. 197 (1955).
 Balzer, George. They'll Break Your Heart (unpublished autobiography, undated), available at jackbenny.org.
 Hilmes, M. (1997). Radio voices American broadcasting, 1922–1952. Minnesota Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
 Josefsberg, Milt. (1977) The Jack Benny Show. New Rochelle: Arlington House. 
 Leannah, Michael, editor. (2007) Well! Reflections on the Life and Career of Jack Benny. BearManor Media. Contributing authors: Frank Bresee, Clair Schulz, Kay Linaker, Janine Marr, Pam Munter, Mark Higgins, B. J. Borsody, Charles A. Beckett, Jordan R. Young, Philip G. Harwood, Noell Wolfgram Evans, Jack Benny, Michael Leannah, Steve Newvine, Ron Sayles, Kathryn Fuller-Seeley, Marc Reed, Derek Tague, Michael J. Hayde, Steve Thompson, Michael Mildredson
 Wise, James. Stars in Blue: Movie Actors in America's Sea Services. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997.  
 Zolotow, Maurice. "Jack Benny: the fine art of self-disparagement" in Zolotow, No People Like Show People, Random House (New York: 1951); rpt Bantam Books (New York: 1952).

External links

 
 
 
 
 Jack Benny at the National Radio Hall of Fame
 Jack Benny Fred Allen Feud
 International Jack Benny Fan Club
 Jack Benny on grubstreet.ca
 Copies of Jack Benny's Radio and TV scripts, with handwritten edits
 Jack Benny Center for the Arts (archived)
 Jack Benny papers at the University of Wyoming—American Heritage Center
 FBI file on Jack Benny

Audio
 All available Jack Benny radio programs in mp3
 Jack Benny Show – OTR Podcast

Video
 
 
 
 

1894 births
1974 deaths
20th-century American comedians
20th-century American male actors
20th-century American male musicians
20th-century American musicians
20th-century violinists
Actors from Waukegan, Illinois
American male comedy actors
American male film actors
American male radio actors
American male television actors
American male violinists
American people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent
American people of Polish-Jewish descent
American radio personalities
American stand-up comedians
Television personalities from Los Angeles
American violinists
Burials at Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery
Comedians from California
Comedians from Illinois
Deaths from cancer in California
Deaths from pancreatic cancer
Golden Globe Award winners
Jewish American comedians
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Military personnel from Illinois
Outstanding Performance by a Lead Actor in a Comedy Series Primetime Emmy Award winners
Peabody Award winners
People from Bel Air, Los Angeles
United States Navy personnel of World War I
Vaudeville performers
20th-century American Jews
Edward Vincent Sullivan (September 28, 1901 – October 13, 1974) was an American television personality, impresario, sports and entertainment reporter, and syndicated columnist for the New York Daily News and the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate. He was the creator and host of the television variety program The Toast of the Town, which in 1955 was renamed The Ed Sullivan Show. Broadcast from 1948 to 1971, it set a record as the longest-running variety show in US broadcast history.  "It was, by almost any measure, the last great TV show," said television critic David Hinckley. "It's one of our fondest, dearest pop culture memories."

Sullivan was a broadcasting pioneer during the early years of American television. As critic David Bianculli wrote, "Before MTV, Sullivan presented rock acts. Before Bravo, he presented jazz and classical music and theater. Before the Comedy Channel, even before there was The Tonight Show, Sullivan discovered, anointed and popularized young comedians. Before there were 500 channels, before there was cable, Ed Sullivan was where the choice was. From the start, he was indeed 'the Toast of the Town'." In 1996, Sullivan was ranked number 50 on TV Guide'''s "50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time".

Early life and career
Edward Vincent Sullivan was born on September 28, 1901, in Harlem, New York City: the son of Elizabeth F. (née Smith) and Peter Arthur Sullivan, a customs house employee.  He grew up in Port Chester, New York, where the family lived in a small red brick home at 53 Washington Street. He was of Irish descent. The entire family loved music, and someone was always playing the piano or singing. A phonograph was a prized possession; the family loved playing all types of records on it. Sullivan was a gifted athlete in high school, earning 12 athletic letters at Port Chester High School. He played halfback in football; he was a guard in basketball; in track he was a sprinter. With the baseball team, Sullivan was catcher and team captain and he led the team to several championships. Baseball made an impression on him that would affect his career as well as the culture of America. Sullivan noted that, in the state of New York, integration was taken for granted in high school sports: "When we went up into Connecticut, we ran into clubs that had Negro players. In those days this was accepted as commonplace; and so, my instinctive antagonism years later to any theory that a Negro wasn't a worthy opponent or was an inferior person. It was just as simple as that."

Sullivan landed his first job at The Port Chester Daily Item: a local newspaper for which he had written sports news while in high school and then joined the paper full-time after graduation. In 1919, he joined The Hartford Post. The newspaper folded in his first week there, but he landed another job on The New York Evening Mail as a sports reporter. After The Evening Mail closed in 1923, he bounced through a series of news jobs with The Associated Press, The Philadelphia Bulletin, The Morning World, The Morning Telegraph, The New York Bulletin and The Leader. Finally, in 1927, Sullivan joined The Evening Graphic: first as a sports writer and then as a sports editor. In 1929, when   Walter Winchell moved to The Daily Mirror, Sullivan was made its Broadway columnist. He left the Graphic for the city's largest tabloid: the New York Daily News. His column, "Little Old New York", concentrated on Broadway shows and gossip, as Winchell's had; and, like Winchell, he did show-business news broadcasts on radio. Again echoing Winchell, Sullivan took on yet another medium in 1933 by writing and starring in the film Mr. Broadway, which has him guiding the audience around New York nightspots to meet entertainers and celebrities. Sullivan soon became a powerful starmaker in the entertainment world himself, becoming one of Winchell's main rivals, setting the El Morocco nightclub in New York as his unofficial headquarters against Winchell's seat of power at the nearby Stork Club. Sullivan continued writing for The News throughout his broadcasting career, and his popularity long outlived Winchell's. In the late 60's, however, Sullivan praised Winchell's legacy in a magazine interview, leading to a major reconciliation between the longtime adversaries.

Throughout his career as a columnist, Sullivan had dabbled in entertainment—producing vaudeville shows with which he appeared as master of ceremonies in the 1920s and 1930s, directing a radio program over the original WABC (now WCBS), and organizing benefit reviews for various causes.

Radio
In 1941, Sullivan was host of the Summer Silver Theater, a variety program on CBS, with Will Bradley as bandleader and a guest star featured each week.

Television

In 1948, producer Marlo Lewis convinced the CBS network to hire Sullivan to do a weekly Sunday-night TV variety show, Toast of the Town, which later became The Ed Sullivan Show. Debuting in June 1948, the show was originally broadcast from the Maxine Elliott Theatre on West 39th Street in New York City. In January 1953, it moved to CBS-TV Studio 50, at 1697 Broadway (at 53rd Street) in New York City, which in 1967 was renamed the Ed Sullivan Theater (and was later the home of the Late Show with David Letterman and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert). From 1936 to 1950, Studio 50 was a CBS Radio playhouse. Before that it was variously known as Manhattan Theatre, Billy Rose's Music Hall, and Hammerstein's Theatre (it was built in 1927 by Arthur Hammerstein).

Television critics gave the new show and its host poor reviews. Harriet Van Horne alleged that "he got where he is not by having a personality, but by having no personality." (The host wrote to the critic, "Dear Miss Van Horne: You bitch. Sincerely, Ed Sullivan.") Sullivan had little acting ability; in 1967, 20 years after his show's debut, Time magazine asked, "What exactly is Ed Sullivan's talent?" His mannerisms on camera were so awkward that some viewers believed the host suffered from Bell's palsy. Time in 1955 stated that Sullivan resembled

"Yet," the magazine concluded, "instead of frightening children, Ed Sullivan charms the whole family." Sullivan appeared to the audience as an average guy who brought the great acts of show business to their home televisions. "Ed Sullivan will last", comedian Fred Allen said, "as long as someone else has talent." Frequent guest Alan King said, "Ed does nothing, but he does it better than anyone else in television." A typical show would feature a vaudeville act (acrobats, jugglers, magicians, etc.), one or two popular comedians, a singing star, a hot jukebox favorite, a figure from the legitimate theater, and for the kids, a visit with puppet "Topo Gigio, the little Italian mouse", or a popular athlete. The bill was often international in scope, with many European performers augmenting the American artists.

Sullivan had a healthy sense of humor about himself and permitted—even encouraged—impersonators such as John Byner, Frank Gorshin, Rich Little, and especially Will Jordan, to imitate him on his show. Johnny Carson also did a fair impression, and even Joan Rivers imitated Sullivan's unique posture. The impressionists exaggerated his stiffness, raised shoulders, and nasal tenor phrasing, along with some of his commonly used introductions, such as "And now, right here on our stage...", "For all you youngsters out there...", and "a really big shew" (his pronunciation of the word "show"). The latter phrase was in fact in the exclusive domain of his impressionists, as Sullivan never actually spoke the phrase "really big show" in the opening introduction of any episode in the entire history of the series. Will Jordan portrayed Sullivan in the films I Wanna Hold Your Hand, The Buddy Holly Story, The Doors, Mr. Saturday Night, Down with Love, and in the 1979 TV movie Elvis.

Sullivan played himself parodying his mannerisms as directed by Jerry Lewis in Lewis' 1964 film The Patsy.

Sullivan inspired a song in the musical Bye Bye Birdie, and in 1963, appeared as himself in the film.

In 1954, Sullivan was a co-host on a memorable TV musical special, General Foods 25th Anniversary Show: A Salute to Rodgers and Hammerstein.

Legacy

Sullivan was quoted as saying "In the conduct of my own show, I've never asked a performer his religion, his race or his politics. Performers are engaged on the basis of their abilities. I believe that this is another quality of our show that has helped win it a wide and loyal audience." Although he was wary of Elvis Presley's "bad boy" image, and initially said that he would never book him, Presley became too big a name to ignore; in 1956, Sullivan signed him for three appearances. In August 1956, Sullivan was injured in an automobile accident near his country home in Southbury, Connecticut, and missed Presley's first appearance on September 9. Charles Laughton wound up introducing Presley on the Sullivan hour. When Ed returned to the show, audiences noticed a change in his voice. After Sullivan got to know Presley personally, he made amends by telling his audience, "This is a real decent, fine boy."

Sullivan's failure to scoop the TV industry with Presley made him determined to get the next big sensation first. In November 1963, while in Heathrow Airport, Sullivan witnessed Beatlemania firsthand as the band returned from Sweden and the terminal was overrun by screaming teens. At first Sullivan was reluctant to book the Beatles because the band did not have a commercially successful single released in the US at the time, but at the behest of a friend, legendary impresario Sid Bernstein, Sullivan signed the group. Their initial Sullivan show appearance on February 9, 1964, was the most-watched program in TV history to that point. The Beatles appeared three more times in person, and submitted filmed performances afterwards. The Dave Clark Five, who claimed a "cleaner" image than the Beatles, made 13 appearances on the show, more than any other UK group.

Unlike many shows of the time, Sullivan asked that most musical acts perform their music live, rather than lip-synching to their recordings. Examination of performances shows that exceptions were made, as when a microphone could not be placed close enough to a performer for technical reasons. An example was B.J. Thomas' 1969 performance of "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head", in which actual water was sprinkled on him as a special effect. In 1969, Sullivan presented the Jackson 5 with their first single "I Want You Back", which ousted the B.J. Thomas song from the top spot of Billboard's pop charts.

Sullivan had an appreciation for African American talent. According to biographer Gerald Nachman, "Most TV variety shows welcomed 'acceptable' black superstars like Louis Armstrong, Pearl Bailey and Sammy Davis Jr. ... but in the early 1950s, long before it was fashionable, Sullivan was presenting the much more obscure black entertainers he had enjoyed in Harlem on his uptown rounds— legends like Peg Leg Bates, Pigmeat Markham and Tim Moore ... strangers to white America." He hosted pioneering TV appearances by Bo Diddley, the Platters, Brook Benton, Jackie Wilson, Fats Domino, and numerous Motown acts, including the Supremes, who appeared 17 times. As the critic John Leonard wrote, "There wasn't an important black artist who didn't appear on Ed's show."

He defied pressure to exclude African American entertainers, and to avoid interacting with them when they did appear. "Sullivan had to fend off his hard-won sponsor, Ford's Lincoln dealers, after kissing Pearl Bailey on the cheek and daring to shake Nat King Cole's hand," Nachman wrote.  According to biographer Jerry Bowles, "Sullivan once had a Ford executive thrown out of the theatre when he suggested that Sullivan stop booking so many black acts. And a dealer in Cleveland told him 'We realize that you got to have niggers on your show. But do you have to put your arm around Bill 'Bojangles' Robinson at the end of his dance?' Sullivan had to be physically restrained from beating the man to a pulp."  Sullivan later raised money to help pay for Robinson's funeral.  "As a Catholic, it was inevitable that I would despise intolerance, because Catholics suffered more than their share of it," he told an interviewer. "As I grew up, the causes of minorities were part and parcel of me. Negroes and Jews were the minority causes closest at hand. I need no urging to take a plunge in and help."

At a time when television had not yet embraced Country and Western music, Sullivan featured Nashville performers on his program. This, in turn, paved the way for shows such as Hee Haw, and variety shows hosted by Johnny Cash, Glen Campbell, and other country singers.

The Canadian comedy duo Wayne & Shuster made the most appearances of any act throughout the show's run, 67 appearances between 1958 and 1969.

Sullivan appeared as himself on other television programs, including an April 1958 episode of the Howard Duff and Ida Lupino CBS situation comedy Mr. Adams and Eve. On September 14, 1958, Sullivan appeared on What's My Line? as a mystery guest, and showed his comedic side by donning a rubber mask. In 1961, Sullivan was asked by CBS to fill in for an ailing Red Skelton on The Red Skelton Show. Sullivan took Skelton's roles in the various comedy sketches; Skelton's hobo character "Freddie the Freeloader" was renamed "Eddie the Freeloader."

Personality
Sullivan was quick to take offense if he felt that he had been crossed, and he could hold a grudge for a long time. As he told biographer Gerald Nachman, "I'm a pop-off. I flare up, then I go around apologizing."  "Armed with an Irish temper and thin skin," wrote Nachman, "Ed brought to his feuds a hunger for combat fed by his coverage of, and devotion to, boxing." Bo Diddley, Buddy Holly, Jackie Mason, and Jim Morrison were parties to some of Sullivan's most storied conflicts.

For his second Sullivan appearance in 1955, Bo Diddley planned to sing his namesake hit, "Bo Diddley", but Sullivan told him to perform Tennessee Ernie Ford's song "Sixteen Tons". "That would have been the end of my career right there," Diddley told his biographer, so he sang "Bo Diddley" anyway. Sullivan was enraged: "You're the first black boy that ever double-crossed me on the show," Diddley quoted him as saying. "We didn't have much to do with each other after that."  Later, Diddley resented that Elvis Presley, whom he accused of copying his revolutionary style and beat, received the attention and accolades on Sullivan's show that he felt were rightfully his. "I am owed," he said, "and I never got paid."  "He might have," wrote Nachman, "had things gone smoother with Sullivan."

Buddy Holly and the Crickets first appeared on the Sullivan show in 1957 to an enthusiastic response. For their second appearance in January 1958, Sullivan considered the lyrics of their chosen number "Oh, Boy!" too suggestive, and ordered Holly to substitute another song. Holly responded that he had already told his hometown friends in Texas that he would be singing "Oh, Boy!" for them. Sullivan, unaccustomed to having his instructions questioned, angrily repeated them, but Holly refused to back down. Later, when the band was slow to respond to a summons to the rehearsal stage, Sullivan commented, "I guess the Crickets are not too excited to be on The Ed Sullivan Show."  Holly, still annoyed by Sullivan's attitude, replied, "I hope they're damn more excited than I am."  Sullivan retaliated by cutting them from two numbers to one, then mispronounced Holly's name during the introduction. He also saw to it that Holly's guitar amplifier volume was barely audible, except during his guitar solo. Nevertheless, the band was so well-received that Sullivan was forced to invite them back; Holly responded that Sullivan did not have enough money. Archival photographs taken during the appearance show Holly smirking and ignoring a visibly angry Sullivan.

During Jackie Mason's October 1964 performance on a show that had been shortened by ten minutes due to an address by President Lyndon Johnson, Sullivan—on-stage but off-camera—signaled Mason that he had two minutes left by holding up two fingers.  Sullivan's signal distracted the studio audience, and to television viewers unaware of the circumstances, it seemed as though Mason's jokes were falling flat. Mason, in a bid to regain the audience's attention, cried, "I'm getting fingers here!" and made his own frantic hand gesture: "Here's a finger for you!" Videotapes of the incident are inconclusive as to whether Mason's upswept hand (which was just off-camera) was intended to be an indecent gesture, but Sullivan was convinced that it was, and banned Mason from future appearances on the program. Mason later insisted that he did not know what the "middle finger" meant, and that he did not make the gesture anyway. In September 1965, Sullivan—who, according to Mason, was "deeply apologetic"—brought Mason on the show for a "surprise grand reunion". "He said they were old pals," Nachman wrote, "news to Mason, who never got a repeat invitation."  Mason added that his earning power "...was cut right in half after that. I never really worked my way back until I opened on Broadway in 1986."

When the Byrds performed on December 12, 1965, David Crosby got into a shouting match with the show's director. They were never asked to return.

Sullivan decided that "Girl, we couldn't get much higher", from the Doors' signature song "Light My Fire", was too overt a reference to drug use, and directed that the lyric be changed to "Girl, we couldn't get much better" for the group's September 1967 appearance. The band members "nodded their assent", according to Doors biographer Ben Fong-Torres, then sang the song as written. After the broadcast, producer Bob Precht told the group, "Mr. Sullivan wanted you for six more shows, but you'll never work the Ed Sullivan Show again."  Jim Morrison replied, "Hey, man, we just did the Ed Sullivan Show."

The Rolling Stones famously capitulated during their fifth appearance on the show, in 1967, when Mick Jagger was told to change the titular lyric of "Let's Spend the Night Together" to "Let's spend some time together". "But Jagger prevailed," wrote Nachman, by deliberately calling attention to the censorship, rolling his eyes, mugging, and drawing out the word "t-i-i-i-me" as he sang the revised lyric. Sullivan was angered by the insubordination, but the Stones did make one additional appearance on the show, in 1969.

Moe Howard of the Three Stooges recalled in 1975 that Sullivan had a memory problem of sorts: "Ed was a very nice man, but for a showman, quite forgetful. On our first appearance, he introduced us as the Three Ritz Brothers. He got out of it by adding, 'who look more like the Three Stooges to me'." Joe DeRita, who worked with the Stooges after 1959, had commented that Sullivan had a personality "like the bottom of a bird cage."

Diana Ross, who was very fond of Sullivan, later recalled Sullivan's forgetfulness during the many occasions the Supremes performed on his show. In a 1995 appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman (taped in the Ed Sullivan Theater), Ross stated, "he could never remember our names. He called us 'the girls'."

In a 1990 press conference, Paul McCartney recalled meeting Sullivan again in the early 1970s. Sullivan apparently had no idea who McCartney was. McCartney tried to remind Sullivan that he was one of the Beatles, but Sullivan obviously could not remember, and nodding and smiling, simply shook McCartney's hand and left. In an interview with Howard Stern around 2012, Joan Rivers said that Sullivan had been suffering from dementia toward the end of his life.

Politics
Sullivan, like many American entertainers, was pulled into the Cold War anticommunism of the late 1940s and 1950s. Tap dancer Paul Draper's scheduled January 1950 appearance on Toast of the Town met with opposition from Hester McCullough, an activist in the hunt for "subversives". Branding Draper a Communist Party "sympathizer", she demanded that Sullivan's lead sponsor, the Ford Motor Company, cancel Draper's appearance. Draper denied the charge, and appeared on the show as scheduled. Ford received over a thousand angry letters and telegrams, and Sullivan was obliged to promise Ford's advertising agency, Kenyon & Eckhardt, that he would avoid controversial guests going forward. Draper was forced to move to Europe to earn a living.

After the Draper incident, Sullivan began to work closely with Theodore Kirkpatrick of the anti-Communist Counterattack newsletter. He would consult Kirkpatrick if  any questions came up regarding a potential guest's political leanings. Sullivan wrote in his June 21, 1950, Daily News column that "Kirkpatrick has sat in my living room on several occasions and listened attentively to performers eager to secure a certification of loyalty."

Cold War repercussions manifested in a different way when Bob Dylan was booked to appear in May 1963. His chosen song was "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues", which poked fun at the ultraconservative John Birch Society and its tendency to see Communist conspiracies in many situations. No concern was voiced by anyone, including Sullivan, during rehearsals; but on the day of the broadcast, CBS's Standards and Practices department rejected the song, fearing that lyrics equating the Society's views with those of Adolf Hitler might trigger a defamation lawsuit. Dylan was offered the opportunity to perform a different song, but he responded that if he could not sing the number of his choice, he would rather not appear at all. The story generated widespread media attention in the days that followed; Sullivan denounced the network's decision in published interviews.

Sullivan butted heads with Standards and Practices on other occasions, as well. In 1956, Ingrid Bergman—who had been living in "exile" in Europe since 1950 in the wake of her scandalous love affair with director Roberto Rossellini while they were both married—was planning a return to Hollywood as the star of Anastasia. Sullivan, confident that the American public would welcome her back, invited her to appear on his show and flew to Europe to film an interview with Bergman, Yul Brynner, and Helen Hayes on the Anastasia set. When he arrived back in New York, Standards and Practices informed Sullivan that under no circumstances would Bergman be permitted to appear on the show, either live or on film. Sullivan's prediction later proved correct, as Bergman won her second Academy Award for her portrayal, as well as the forgiveness of her fans.

Personal life

Sullivan was engaged to champion swimmer Sybil Bauer, but she died of cancer in 1927 at the age of 23. In 1926, Sullivan met and began dating Sylvia Weinstein. Weinstein tried to tell her Jewish family she was dating a man named Ed Solomon, but her brother figured out she meant Ed Sullivan. With both families strongly opposed to a Catholic–Jewish marriage, the affair was on-again-off-again for three years. They were finally married on April 28, 1930, in a City Hall ceremony, and 8 months later Sylvia gave birth to Elizabeth ("Betty"), named after Sullivan's mother, who had died that year. The Sullivans rented a suite of rooms at the Hotel Delmonico in 1944 after living at the Hotel Astor on Times Square for many years. Sullivan rented a suite next door to the family suite, which he used as an office until The Ed Sullivan Show was canceled in 1971. Sullivan was in the habit of calling his wife after every program to get her immediate critique.

The Sullivans were always "on the town", eating out five nights a week at some of the trendiest clubs and restaurants, including the Stork Club, Danny's Hide-A-Way and Jimmy Kelly's. Sullivan socialized with the rich and famous, was friends with U.S. Presidents and was given audiences with several Popes. In 1952, Betty Sullivan married the Ed Sullivan Show's producer, Bob Precht. From the Prechts, Ed had five grandchildren—Robert Edward, Carla Elizabeth, Vincent Henry, Andrew Sullivan and Margo Elizabeth. The Sullivan and Precht families were very close; Betty died on June 7, 2014, aged 83.

Later years and death

In the fall of 1965, CBS began televising its weekly programs in color. Although the Sullivan show was seen live in the Central and Eastern time zones, it was taped for airing in the Pacific and Mountain time zones. Excerpts have been released on home video, and posted on the official Ed Sullivan Show YouTube Channel.

By 1971, the show's ratings had plummeted. In an effort to refresh its lineup, CBS canceled the program in March 1971, along with some of its other long running shows throughout the 1970–1971 season (later known as the rural purge). Angered, Sullivan refused to host three more months of scheduled shows. They were replaced by reruns and a final program without him aired in June. He remained with the network in various other capacities and hosted a 25th anniversary special in June 1973.

In early September 1974, Sullivan was diagnosed with an advanced stage of esophageal cancer. Doctors gave him very little time to live, and the family chose to keep the diagnosis secret from him. Sullivan, believing his ailment to be yet another complication from a long-standing battle with gastric ulcers, died five weeks later on October 13, 1974, at New York's Lenox Hill Hospital, two weeks after his 73rd birthday. His funeral was attended by 3,000 at St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York, on a cold, rainy day. Sullivan is interred in a crypt at the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York.

Sullivan has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6101 Hollywood Blvd.

References

Cited sources
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Further reading
 Leonard, John, The Ed Sullivan Age, American Heritage, May/June 1997, Volume 48, Issue 3
 Nachman, Gerald, Ed Sullivan, December 18, 2006.
 Barthelme, Donald, "And Now Let's Hear It for the Ed Sullivan Show!" in Guilty Pleasures'', Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1974

External links

 
 The Official Ed Sullivan Show Website
 Ed Sullivan Papers at the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research.
 Ed Sullivan Documentary
 
 

1901 births
1974 deaths
20th-century American journalists
American male journalists
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American non-fiction writers
American gossip columnists
American people of Irish descent
Burials at Ferncliff Cemetery
Deaths from cancer in New York (state)
Deaths from esophageal cancer
Journalists from New York City
New York Daily News people
People from Port Chester, New York
Radio personalities from New York City
Television personalities from New York City
Writers from Manhattan Timothy Robert Sullivan, who more commonly uses the name Tim Sullivan, is an American science fiction novelist, screenwriter, actor, film director and short story writer.

Many of his stories have been critically acknowledged and reprinted. His short story "Zeke," a tragedy about an extraterrestrial stranded on Earth, has been translated into German and was a finalist for the 1982 Nebula Award for Best Short Story. "Under Glass" (2011), a well-reviewed semi-autobiographical short story with occult hints, has been translated into Chinese and is the basis for a screenplay by director/actor Ron Ford. "Yeshua's Dog" (2013), similarly has been optioned for translation into Chinese.

Early life 
Tim Sullivan was born on June 9, 1948, in Bangor, Maine, the son of Charles Edward Sullivan, a United States Postal Service worker (born February 2, 1923), and Lillian Hope Fitzgerald Sullivan (b. March 31, 1924), a stay-at-home mother who raised their children, Charles ("Charlie") Edward Sullivan, Jr., and Timothy. Sullivan later wrote short stories about his father, including "Hawk on a Flagpole" (2000) and "The Memory Cage" (2014).

Tim and Charlie developed a love of genre fiction from their father, who brought home for them books and comics ranging from Edgar Rice Burroughs to Vladimir Nabokov to Mad magazine. Tim shared these with his neighbors, who included Richard Tozier (who has become a jazz radio personality at Maine Public Broadcasting Network, and who is featured in three Stephen King novels, It, Dreamcatcher and 11/22/63).  These show the strong ties among friendships born in Bangor, and Sullivan and Tozier retain a lifelong friendship. The Sullivan brothers attended John Bapst Memorial High School in Bangor, as did Tozier. Timothy's older brother, Charlie (1946–1967), a corporal in the United States Marine Corps, died in battle in the Vietnam War.

When Sullivan's father died in 1968, Sullivan and his mother moved to Lake Worth, Florida. Tim Sullivan briefly attended Miami Dade Community College. Later, while studying English literature at Florida Atlantic University, he made a lifelong friendship with Professor Robert A. Collins. Sullivan earned a bachelor's degree while at FAU. Sullivan helped Dr. Collins create what has become the prestigious International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts (ICFA; originally called Swanncon in honor of fantasy author and former FAU professor Thomas Burnett Swann). Sullivan began but did not complete postgraduate education.

Sullivan lived in Florida from 1968 to 1983, then in Philadelphia, and in the Washington, D.C. area.  He moved to southern California in 1988, where he lived for the next twelve years.

Career 
Sullivan has written several novels and many more short stories. He has scripted, directed, and starred in microbudget films in the genres of science fiction and horror, often with his friend Ron Ford. Among his day jobs, Sullivan has worked in construction, in a bookstore, in a library, in a liquor store and other retail sites, as a night guard, as a taxicab driver, and with helping and teaching the mentally challenged.

Writing 
Sullivan edited a horror anthology for Avon Books, Tropical Chills, in 1988. Sullivan also published his first novel, Destiny's End, in 1988. This science fiction novel was followed by The Parasite War in 1989, The Martian Viking in 1991, and Lords of Creation in 1992, and another horror anthology, Cold Shocks (Avon, 1991), among other books.

He befriended Michael Dirda, a chief book reviewer for The Washington Post and, as a result of that friendship, in the 1980s and 1990s Sullivan wrote commissioned reviews of dozens of books for The Washington Post, the Washington Post Book World, and USA Today. Among the fiction and nonfiction he reviewed are included: Kathleen Ann Goonan's The Bones of Time; a review of a novel by Walter Jon Williams, Metropolitan, which Sullivan characterized as highly readable "due largely to pungent characterization and persuasive dialogue"; and Allen Steele's novel The Tranquillity Alternative (1995), which he praised in the same issue of Book World.

He has used different versions of his name while publishing fiction: Timothy Robert Sullivan, Timothy R. Sullivan, and Tim Sullivan.

Acting 
Sullivan began his career in film in a collaboration with S. P. Somtow, entitled The Laughing Dead (1989); Sullivan plays a priest losing his faith, Father O'Sullivan, who becomes possessed by a Mayan god of death. Throughout the 1990s, he scripted, directed and acted in several low-budget science fiction and horror films, most notably Twilight of the Dogs (1995) and Hollywood Mortuary (1998), both of which have become cult favorites.

John Clute writes that Sullivan "concentrated for almost a decade on an acting career, though he began to publish short stories again in 2000."

Personal life 

After graduating from college, Sullivan lived for many years in Silver Lake, Los Angeles, Southern California. He has not married and has no children. In 2000, Sullivan moved to South Florida to care for his ailing mother who died in 2004. In 2003, he moved to South Miami, Florida to share a house with Fiona Kelleghan.

Sullivan is an atheist. He is a constant reader; his bookshelf is filled with science fiction favorites, but also with the works of science popularizers, biographies, and histories. He maintains a Facebook page.

Literary friendships 
Sullivan has been roommates with fantasy authors S. P. Somtow in Alexandria, Virginia and Gregory Frost in Philadelphia. He became friends with several Clarion Workshop graduates, such as Kim Stanley Robinson. He has long been friends with Gardner Dozois, Jack Dann, Pat Cadigan, John Kessel, James Patrick Kelly, John Grant, and Michael Swanwick.

He is part of a group of writers named the "Savage Humanists" by anthologist Fiona Kelleghan.

Sullivan has been tuckerized in the novels of many science fiction writers, including Sharon Webb.

Bibliography

Novels

Anthologies edited by Sullivan 
Tropical Chills (1988) ()
1. "Introduction" by Tim Sullivan
2. "Houston, 1943" by Gene Wolfe
3. "Mama Doah's Garden" by Susan Lilas Wiggs
4. "Grim Monkeys" by Steve Rasnic Tem
5. "The Flowers of the Forest" by Brian Aldiss 
6. "White Socks" by Ian Watson
7. "Chrysalis" by Edward Bryant
8. "Night Fishing on the Caribbean Littoral of the Mutant Rain Forest" by Bruce Boston and Robert Frazier
9. "Dead Meat" by Charles Sheffield 
10. "Where Do You Live, Queen Esther?" by Avram Davidson 
11. "Talking Heads" by George Alec Effinger
12. "Getting Up" by Barry N. Malzberg and Jack Dann 
13. "It Was the Heat" by Pat Cadigan
14. "A Part of Us" by Gregory Frost
15. "Zeke" by Timothy Robert Sullivan
16. "Graveyard Highway" by Dean Koontz

The Locus Index to Science Fiction: 1984–1998 described Tropical Chills as "Highly recommended."

It was republished in German as Heisse Angst (Droemer Knaur, 1990), translated by Marcel Bieger. ()

Cold Shocks (1991) ()
1. "Introduction" by Tim Sullivan
2. "The Ice Children" by Gary Brandner
3. "First Kill" by Chet Williamson
4. "Colder Than by Hell" by Edward Bryant
5. "The Kikituk" by Michael Armstrong
6. "The Christmas Escape" by Dean Wesley Smith
7. "A Winter Memory" by Michael D. Toman
8. "The Sixth Man" by Graham Masterton
9. "The Ice Downstream" by Melanie Tem
10. "Morning Light" by Barry N. Malzberg
11. "Bring Me the Head of Timothy Leary" by Nancy Holder
12. "The Bus" by Gregory Frost 
13. "Adleparmeun" by Steve Rasnic Tem
14. " Close to the Earth" by Gregory Nicoll
15. "Snowbanks" by Tim Sullivan
16. "St. Jackaclaws" by A. R. Morlan 
17. "The Pavilion of Frozen Women" by S. P. Somtow

John Clute wrote that these two anthologies, "composed of carefully selected original and reprinted material, mostly horror, demonstrate Sullivan's editorial acuteness."

Screenplays 
 Twilight of the Dogs (1995)
 Eyes of the Werewolf (1999) 
 Vampyre Femmes (1999) 
 V-World Matrix (1999) 
 Hunting Season (2000) 
 Demonicus (2001)

Short stories 
 "Doin' that Tachyon Rag" [a.k.a. "Tachyon Rag"] (Spring, 1977) – As by Timothy Robert Sullivan; first appeared in Unearth.
 "Downward to Darkness (Part 1 of 2)" (Fall/October, 1977) – As by Timothy Robert Sullivan; first appeared in Unearth; cover art by Tom Barber.
 "Downward to Darkness (Part 2 of 2)" (Winter/January, 1978) As by Timothy Robert Sullivan; first appeared in Unearth; cover art by Clyde Caldwell.
 "The Rauncher Goes to Tinker Town" (1979) - As by Timothy Robert Sullivan; first appeared in New Dimensions Science Fiction Number 9, edited by Robert Silverberg; .
 "My Father's Head" (1979) – As by Timothy R. Sullivan. Published in Chrysalis 5, ed. Roy Torgeson, Zebra Books, .
 "Zeke" (October, 1981) – First appeared in Rod Serling's Twilight Zone Magazine, ed. T. E. D. Klein. - Nominated for the 1982 Nebula Award for Best Short Story. - Translated as "Zeke" (in German) in Kopernikus 8 (November 1982). - Reprinted in Nebula Award Stories Seventeen (1983), ed. Joe Haldeman, . - Reprinted in Nebula Award Stories 17 (1985), ed. Joe Haldeman, . - Reprinted in The Savage Humanists (2008), ed. Fiona Kelleghan, . - Reprinted in The Eighth Science Fiction Megapack: 25 Modern and Classic Stories, Wildside Press (2013) 
 "The Army of the Woods" (February, 1982) - Fantasy Newsletter #45, ed. Robert A. Collins (Florida Atlantic University).
 "The Comedian" (June 1982) - First appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. - Reprinted in: The 1983 Annual World's Best SF, ed. Donald A. Wollheim and Arthur W. Saha, DAW Books (DAW Collectors #528), .  - Reprinted in Time Travelers: From Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine (1989), ed. Gardner Dozois, . - Nominated for the 1983 Locus Poll Award - Best Short Story.
 "A Major Game of Hoople" (1984) - Ares #17. A sports story, its title is a pun on Major Hoople.
 "JuJu, Incorporated" (May, 1984) - As by Timothy Robert Sullivan; Fantasy Review, ed. Robert A. Collins and Neil Barron (Florida Atlantic University).
 "Special Education" (January, 1986) - Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine.
 "Stop-Motion" (August, 1986) - Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. - Placed #5 in the 1987 Asimov's Readers' Poll. 
 "Dinosaur on a Bicycle" (March, 1987) - Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. - Reprinted in: Dinosaurs! (June, 1990), ed. Jack Dann, Gardner Dozois, .
 "Knucklebones" (1988) - Ripper!, ed. Gardner Dozois, Susan Casper, Tor Books, . - Reprinted in: Jack the Ripper (1988), ed. Dozois and Casper, .
 "Father to the Man" (October, 1988) - Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine.
 "Midnight Glider" (Autumn, 1990) - Iniquities.
 "Nox Sanguinis" (Spring, 1991) - Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine Issue 11, ed. Kristine Kathryn Rusch.
 "Fantasies" (August, 1991) - Co-written with Michael Swanwick, in Amazing Stories. A unicorn tale with a twist.
 "Snowbanks" (1991) - Cold Shocks, .
 "Los Niños de la Noche" (1991) - The Ultimate Dracula, ed. Megan Miller, David Keller, Byron Preiss, Dell Publishing, . Reprinted in: The Ultimate Dracula (2003), ed. Byron Preiss, ibooks Inc., .
 "Hypnoteyes" (December 31, 1991) - Pulphouse: A Fiction Magazine, ed. Dean Wesley Smith.
 "Anodyne" (November, 1992) - Pulphouse: A Fiction Magazine, ed. Dean Wesley Smith.
 "Atlas at Eight A.M." (Mid-December 1992) - Asimov's Science Fiction - a time loop story.
 "Mother and Child Reunion" (1993) - As by Timothy R. Sullivan; reprinted in The Ultimate Witch, ed. John Gregory Betancourt and Byron Preiss, Byron Preiss Visual Publications, . 
 "Hawk on a Flagpole" (July, 2000) - Asimov's Science Fiction.
 "The Mouth of Hell" (August, 2003) - Asimov's Science Fiction.
 "The Nocturnal Adventure of Dr. O and Mr. D" (April, 2008) - The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. A comedy about John Lennon and Philip K. Dick in the afterlife.
 "Planetesimal Dawn" (October–November, 2008) - The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.
 "Way Down East" (December, 2008) - Asimov's Science Fiction.
 "Inside Time" (December, 2009) - The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.
 "Star-Crossed" (March–April, 2010) - The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.
 "Under Glass" (November–December, 2011) - The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.
 "Repairmen" (March–April, 2012) - The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.
 "The Nambu Egg" (July–August, 2013) - The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. The title refers to the theories of Yoichiro Nambu.
 "Yeshua's Dog" (2013) - The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Sullivan gave a reading of this story at the 2013 Philcon science fiction convention.
 "Through Mud One Picks a Way" (2013) - The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. (Sullivan chose the title from a line in Robert Browning's poem "Red Cotton Night-Cap Country.")
 "The Memory Cage" (May/June 2014) - The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. 
 "Anomaly Station" (2014)

Selected nonfiction 
 "Notables Gather (1980 ICFA)" (April, 1981) - As by Timothy Robert Sullivan; Locus, #243.
 "TZ is Year's Best Fantasy Film" (September, 1983) - As by Timothy Robert Sullivan; Fantasy Newsletter, #62. A film review of Twilight Zone: The Movie.
 "Holy Woody" (October–November, 1983) - As by Timothy Robert Sullivan; Fantasy Newsletter, #63. An essay about the film Zelig by Woody Allen.
 Review of Lyrec by Gregory Frost (March, 1984) - As by Timothy Robert Sullivan; SF & Fantasy Review, ed. Robert A. Collins and Neil Barron (Florida Atlantic University).
 "A Clockwork Worldcon" (October, 1984) - As by Timothy Robert Sullivan; Fantasy Review.
 "Guest Editorial: The New Network Fantasy Series: 'Slick But Stupid'" (October, 1985) - Fantasy Review.
 "Interview: Gardner Dozois" (November, 1985) - Fantasy Review.
 "Right Off the Wall" (June, 1986) - Fantasy Review.
 "Atlanta's Worldcon: The View from the Catbird Suite" (September, 1986) - Co-written with Gregory Frost; Fantasy Review, ed. Rob Latham and Robert A. Collins (Meckler Publishing Corporation).
 "Magazine Fiction in Review" (March, 1987) - Fantasy Review. 
 "Magazine Fiction in Review" (May, 1987) - Fantasy Review.  
 "Magazine Fiction in Review" (June, 1987) - Fantasy Review. 
 "Extra! Extra! Read All About It! Science Fiction Writer Visits Alien World!" (July 27, 1991) - Pulphouse: A Weekly Fiction Magazine, ed. Dean Wesley Smith.

Filmography

Critical response 
John Clute writes that Sullivan "began publishing sf with stories like "Tachyon Rag" ... "My Father's Head" ... and "The Rauncher Goes to Tinker Town" ... tales whose sophistication led to some disappointment when his first-published novels turned out to be three ties to the V Television series, a series of exercises in easy Paranoia set in an America taken over by Aliens... The published order of Sullivan's books was, however, deceptive, as his first-written novel, Destiny's End (1988), had suffered delays and modifications at the hands of the publisher to which it had first been contracted. The book proved to be a complexly moody depiction of humanity at the end of its tether in an array of Dying-Earth venues, as Secret Masters from the stars with quasimagical Technologies manipulate the course of events. Other sf of interest included The Parasite War (1989), which garishly intensifies the premises of V with a few scattered humans engaged in guerrilla warfare against the Aliens who have nearly destroyed the planet; The Martian Viking (1991), in which a prisoner escapes from Mars and roams space and time with stern but rowdy Vikings; and Lords of Creation (1992), which combines palaeontological fantasy including dinosaur eggs and another alien Invasion."

Science fiction scholar Fiona Kelleghan has written that Sullivan "often turn[s] to classical history and mythology to dramatize his concerns about contemporary American culture - although the historical settings suggest a Santayana-esque view of our so-called post-historical era. ... Sullivan cares deeply about his characters. His books are viciously funny in a deadpan way..."

The Locus Index to Science Fiction: 1984–1998 described Destiny's End as a "transcendental, philosophical space opera."

Christine Hawkins, in her online Mars in Science Fiction Bibliography, described The Martian Viking as "reminiscent of Philip K. Dick". The reviewer of the Schlock Value review website said, in a mostly positive review of the same novel:
It's a well-established fact that the two coolest things ever are Vikings and Mars, and now, thanks to Tim Sullivan, we get both of them in one convenient package. How could this book be anything but great? Unfortunately, The Martian Viking deals a lot less with Vikings than we were promised, although Mars does feature quite prominently, and as far as crapsack future societies go, the book does present us with a pretty interesting one... The world we are presented with is a fairly interesting form of dystopia... All-in-all, The Martian Viking was a pretty fun read... Tim Sullivan managed to set up a really interesting future world.

Raymond's Reviews said of The Martian Viking, "it had some moments of warped originality that were hard to forget."

Robert Silverberg, who purchased Sullivan's early story "The Rauncher Goes to Tinker Town" for his New Dimensions series of science fiction anthologies, called it "vivid and energetic".

A reviewer for the Dark Roasted Blend website wrote of Sullivan's short story "Stop-Motion": "Animation, dinosaurs, special effects, a little bit of murder mystery - not bad a combination, solid story in the pulp tradition."

Sullivan's short story "Under Glass" has received much attention. Lois Tilton wrote, "This is a story of friendship and the duty we owe to our friends." Reviewer Sandra Scholes said in a review of the November/December 2011 The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction that the issue "gets straight to it with a tasty novelette, "Under Glass" by Tim Sullivan; who sees everything with a writer's vision of the future we have never known yet or at least until it is too late." Sam Tomaino, another reviewer of the same issue of F&SF, urgently wrote, "The fiction in the issue starts with "Under Glass" by Tim Sullivan... This was an imaginative, moving, wonderful novelette and one that will be on my Hugo short list for next year."

Sullivan's 2013 story "The Nambu Egg" received praise from the SF CrowsNest website: "'The Nambu Egg' by Tim Sullivan is definitely Science Fiction. It is set in the distant future when the Tachtrans Authority can beam people to a distant planet, Cet Four in this case. Adam Naraya has returned to Earth because he has a Nambu egg to sell to the head of a rich corporation, one Mr. Genzler. To tell more of the plot would be to ruin it for it's the kind of tale where things are slowly revealed. Rest assured that the length of this paragraph does not reflect the very high esteem I have for the story."<ref>{{cite web |url= http://sfcrowsnest.org.uk/the-magazine-of-fantasy-science-fiction-mayjun-2013-volume-124-707magazine-review-2/ |author= Murphy, Eamonn |date= June 26, 2013 |title= The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction July/Aug 2013 Volume 124 # 707 (magazine review) |access-date= August 31, 2013}}</ref>

Colleen Chen, writing a review for Tangent magazine of "Through Mud One Picks a Way", said,
"Sullivan revisits a space and time he's written about before — a future in which main characters hail from Cet 4, a heavy-gravity planet tough to live on but with abundant natural resources. In this story, taking place on Earth, Uxanna Venz has been hired by a fellow named Hob to communicate with three Cetians whom he has illegally obtained and wants to use for his own benefit. The Cetians are amorphous, clammy creatures whose home is the bogs of Cet 4, and they communicate with Uxanna by touching her with squidlike tentacles they can form at will. Uxanna earns their trust at the same time as she feels guilty for doing so. They've been so abused on their home planet by humans encroaching on their territory, and she knows Hob can't have good intentions for them. There's more twists to the story, though, as Uxanna learns the truth about their appearance on Earth, and then unveils her own surprises as she tries to do what's best for the Cetians at the same time as earning her money.

I've read one other story by Sullivan that takes place in this universe. I liked this one more — although maybe it's just that the author's particular style, which seems to develop both plot and characters mainly through dialogue, is growing on me. But this story has enough action to keep the story moving despite the lengthy dialogues, and thus it translates into a visual piece that I felt I could watch like a movie in my own head. The characters were likable, the world-building strong, and although the ending is left somewhat unresolved, it stops at a point which promises later continuation."

Eamonn Murphy, writing for the SF Crowsnest'', agreed:
"Through Mud One Picks A Way" by Tim Sullivan ... is genuine Science Fiction about three aliens from Cet Four who have been transported to Earth by a businessman for purposes unknown. He has hired Uxanna Venz to communicate with them by touch telepathy, which they do well. She worked on their home planet and is an expert on the species. A nice parable about colonialism with a couple of decent twists to keep you surprised. It was mostly written in dialogue with very little narration, but Sullivan managed to get all the background information across anyway. A neat trick."

References

External links
 Fantastic Fiction Author Page
 
 
 Tim Sullivan Facebook page

American science fiction writers
20th-century American novelists
1948 births
Living people
Writers from Bangor, Maine
American male novelists
American male short story writers
20th-century American short story writers
People from South Miami, Florida
20th-century American male writers
Novelists from Maine
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction people