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Morton Downey Jr. | |
|---|---|
 Downey in the 1980s | |
| Born | Sean Morton Downey[1] (1932-12-09)December 9, 1932[2] Los Angeles,California, U.S. |
| Died | March 12, 2001(2001-03-12) (aged 68) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Occupations | Talk show host, actor |
| Spouse(s) | |
| Children | 4 |
| Parents | |
| Relatives | Tony Downey (brother) Richard Bennett (grandfather) Adrienne Morrison (grandmother) Lewis Morrison (great-grandfather) Constance Bennett (aunt) Joan Bennett (aunt) |
Morton Downey Jr. (bornSean Morton Downey; December 9, 1932 – March 12, 2001) was an American televisiontalk show host and actor who pioneered the "trash TV" format in the late 1980s on his programThe Morton Downey Jr. Show.[3][4]
Downey's roots were in show business; his father,Morton Downey, was a popular singer, and his mother,Barbara Bennett, was a stage and film actress and singer and dancer. His aunts included Hollywood film starsConstance andJoan Bennett, and his maternal grandfather wasmatinée idolRichard Bennett. His wealthy family spent their summers next door to theKennedy compound inHyannis Port, Massachusetts.[5] Downey attendedNew York University.[6]
Downey worked as aprogram director andannouncer at radio stationWPOP inHartford,Connecticut, in the 1950s.[citation needed] He went on to work as adisc jockey, sometimes using the moniker "Doc" Downey, in various markets around the U.S., includingPhoenix (KRIZ),Miami (WFUN),Kansas City (KUDL),San Diego (KDEO) andSeattle (KJR). He had to resign from WFUN after drawing ire from theFCC for announcing a competing disc jockey's home phone number on the air and insulting his wife.[citation needed] Like his father, Downey pursued a career in music, recording in bothpop andcountry styles.[citation needed] He sang on a fewrecords and then began to write songs, several of which were popular in the 1950s and 1960s.[citation needed] In 1958, he recorded "Boulevard of Broken Dreams", which he sang on national television on a set that resembled a dark street with one street light.[citation needed] In 1981, "Green Eyed Girl" charted on theBillboard country chart, peaking at No. 95.[citation needed]
In the 1980s, Downey became atalk show host atKFBK-AM inSacramento, California, where he employed an abrasive style.[7] He was fired in 1984, and was subsequently replaced byRush Limbaugh. He also had a stint onWMAQ-AM in Chicago where he unsuccessfully tried to get other on air radio personalities to submit to drug testing.[citation needed] Downey's largest effect on American culture came from his popular, yet short-lived, syndicated late-1980s television talk show,The Morton Downey Jr. Show.[3]
On January 22, 1980, Downey, a devotedanti-abortionist, hosted the California State Rally for Life at the invitation of theCalifornia ProLife Council and United Students for Life. At that time, he was also running for President of the United States, as aDemocrat.[citation needed][clarification needed] The United Students for Life, atCalifornia State University, Sacramento helped organize his California presidential rallies. Downey worked to help promote anti-abortion candidates in California and around the country.[8]
| American Independent Party – California Presidential Primary, 1980[9] | ||
|---|---|---|
| Candidate | # Votes | % Votes |
| Morton Downey Jr. | 10,838 | 51.11 |
| John R. Rarick | 10,358 | 48.85 |
| Others | 9 | 0.04 |
| Total | 21,205 | 100.00 |
Downey headed toSecaucus, New Jersey, where histelevision programThe Morton Downey Jr. Show was taped. Starting as a local program onNew York–New JerseysuperstationWWOR-TV in October 1987, it expanded into nationalsyndication in early 1988. The program featured screaming matches among Downey, his guests, and audience members. Using a large silver bowl for anashtray, he wouldchainsmoke during the show and blow smoke in his guests' faces. Downey's fans became known as "Loudmouths", patterned after the studiolecterns decorated with gaping cartoon mouths, from which Downey's guests would go head-to-head against each other on their respective issues.[10]
On a few occasions, his attempts to provoke outbursts on his show resulted in physical confrontations.[3] One such incident occurred on a 1988 show taped at theApollo Theater, involvingAl Sharpton andCORE National ChairmanRoy Innis. The exchange between the two men culminated in Innis shoving Sharpton and knocking him to the floor, and Downey intervening to separate the pair.[11]
Because of the controversial format and content of the show, distributorMCA Television had problems selling the show to a number of stations and advertisers. Even Downey'saffiliates, many of which were low-ratedindependent television stations in small to medium markets, were so fearful of advertiser and viewer backlash that they would air one or even two localdisclaimers during the broadcast.[12]
During one controversial episode Downey introduced hisgay brother, Tony Downey, to his studio audience and informed them Tony wasHIV positive. During the episode Downey stated he was afraid his audience would abandon him if they knew he had a gay brother, but then said he did not care.[13]
The Washington Post wrote about him, "Suppose a maniac got hold of a talk show. Or need we suppose?"[14]
David Letterman said, "I'm always amazed at what people will fall for. We see this every ten or twelve years, an attempt at this, and I guess from that standpoint I don't quite understand why everybody's falling over backwards over the guy."[15]
The success of the show made Downey a pop culture celebrity, leading to appearances onSaturday Night Live in 1988,[16]WrestleMania V in 1989 in which he traded insults withRoddy Piper andBrother Love onPiper's Pit, and later roles in movies such asPredator 2 andRevenge of the Nerds III: The Next Generation.[3] He was also cast in several television roles, often playing tabloid TV hosts or other obnoxious media types.[3] Downey notably starred in theTales from the Crypt episode "Television Terror" which utilized several scenes shot by characters within the story, a format which became popular in horror films a decade later with thefound-footage genre. In 1993, on the Canadian crime-fighting seriesCounterstrike, Downey portrayed Monroe Park, host of the controversial news-talk showThe Raw Truth, which he uses to slander Senator David Carmichael (Stephen Young) who dies on an icy road while being chased by a journalist named Betty, played by Downey's wife Lori Krebs.
In 1989, Downey released an album of songs based on his show entitledMorton Downey Jr. Sings.[17][18] The album's single, "Zip It!" (a catch-phrase from the TV show, used to quiet an irate guest), became a surprise hit on some college radio stations. However, over the course of the 1988–89 television season, his TV show suffered a decline in viewership, resulting in many markets downgrading its time slot; even flagship station WWOR moved Downey's program from its original 9:00 p.m. slot to 11:30 p.m. in the fall of 1988. Beginning in January 1989, the time slot immediately following Downey's program was given to the then-newArsenio Hall Show. Following Hall's strong early ratings, however, the two series swapped time slots several weeks later, thus relegating Downey to 12:30 a.m. in the number-onetelevision market.[citation needed]
In late April 1989, Downey was involved in an incident in aSan Francisco International Airport restroom in which he claimed to have been attacked byneo-Nazis who painted aswastika on his face and attempted to shave his head.[19] Some inconsistencies in Downey's account (e.g., the swastika was painted in reverse, suggesting that Downey had drawn it himself in a mirror), and the failure of the police to find supportive evidence,[20] led many to suspect the incident was ahoax and a ploy for attention.[5][21] In July 1989, his show was canceled, with the owners of the show announcing that the last episode had been taped on June 30, and that no new shows would air after September 15, 1989.[22]
At the time of its cancellation, the show was airing on a total of 70 stations across the country, and its advertisers had been reduced primarily to "direct-response" ads (such as 900 chat-line andphone sex numbers).[23] In February 1990, Downey filed forbankruptcy in the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey.[24]
In 1990, Downey resurfaced onCNBC with an interview program calledShowdown, which was followed by three attempted talk radio comebacks: first in 1992 onWashington, D.C. radio stationWWRC; then in 1993 onDallas radio stationKGBS, where he would scream insults at his callers.[25] He was also hired as the station's VP of Operations. The following year, he returned to CNBC with a short-lived television show,Downey, which was also carried by some broadcast stations; in one episode, Downey claimed to have had apsychic communication withO. J. Simpson's murdered ex-wife,Nicole Brown Simpson.[5]
His third—and final—attempt at a talk radio comeback occurred in 1997 onCleveland radio stationWTAM in a late evening time slot.[26] It marked his return to the Cleveland market, where Downey had been a host for crosstown radio stationWERE in the early 1980s, prior to joining KFBK.[27] This stint came shortly after the surgery for lung cancer that removed one of his lungs. At WTAM, Downey abandoned the confrontational schtick of his TV and previous radio shows, and conducted this program in a much more conversational and jovial manner.
On August 30, 1997, Downey quit his WTAM show to focus on pursuing legal action againstHoward Stern. Downey had accused Stern of spreading rumors that he had resumed his smoking habit, to which publicist Les Schecter retorted, "He hasn't picked up a cigarette."[28] His replacement was former WERE host Rick Gilmour.[29]
Following his death, news reports and obituaries incorrectly (according to theOrange County Register)[30] credited him as the composer of "Wipe Out."[21] As of 2008, Downey's official website (and others) continue to make this claim.[31] Prior to Downey's death,Spin in April 1989 had identified theWipe Out authorship as a myth.[32]
In 1984, at KFBK radio, Downey used the word "Chinaman" while telling a joke.[33] His use of the word upset portions of the sizable Asian community inSacramento. One Asian-American city councilman called for an apology and pressured the station for Downey's resignation. Downey refused to apologize and was forced to resign.[34]
Downey was sued for allegedly appropriating the words and music to his theme song from two songwriters.[35] He was sued for $40 million after bringing then-stripperKellie Everts onto the show and calling her a "slut", a "pig", a "hooker", and a "tramp", saying she hadvenereal diseases, and banging his pelvis against hers.[36]
In April 1988, he wasarraigned on criminal charges for allegedly attacking a gay guest on his show, in a never-aired segment.[37] In another lawsuit, he was accused of slandering a newscaster (a former colleague), and of indecently exposing himself to her and slapping her.[38] Downey punchedStuttering John during an interview done forThe Howard Stern Show, while also shouting verbal insults at John,[39] referring to him as an "uneducated slob". The situation then began to evolve into a brawl between the two until Downey had to be pulled off of John by security; the entire incident was caught on camera. When anInside Edition camera crew approached Downey in 1989 to question him about his involvement in an alleged business scam, Downey grabbed the boom mike and struck thesoundman's head with it.[40]
In his later years, Downey expressed remorse for some of the extreme theatrics of his TV show,[21] as well as various incidents outside the studio, including theInside Edition confrontation.[41] However, he also said his show was of a higher quality than and not as "sleazy" asJerry Springer'sshow.[5]
Downey was married four times and had four children from three of those marriages.[5] With wife Helen, he had daughter, Melissa; with Joan, he had daughters, Tracey and Kelli; and, with fourth wife Lori Krebs, he had daughter, Seanna Micaela. He and Lori met when she appeared as a dancer in a show he attended inAtlantic City.[3] According toTerry Pluto's book,Loose Balls, Downey (going by Sean at the time) was one of the owners of theNew Orleans Buccaneers basketball team in theAmerican Basketball Association in the late 1960s. He was also president and co-founder of the proposed World Baseball Association in 1974.[42]
In June 1996, while being treated forpneumonia, Downey was diagnosed withlung cancer and had part of his right lung removed.[43] His views on tobacco use changed substantially, going from a one-time member of theNational Smokers Alliance to a staunch anti-smoking activist.[44] He continued to speak against smoking until his death from lung cancer and pneumonia on March 12, 2001.[45]
After being diagnosed with lung cancer, he commented:
I had spawned a generation of kids to think it was cool to smoke a cigarette. Kids walked up to me until a matter of weeks ago, they'd have a cigarette in their hand and they'd say, 'Hey, Mort,' or, 'Hey, Mouth, autograph my cigarette.' And I'd do it.[3]
He also blamed tobacco companies for lying to consumers about cigarettes.[3]
In 1998, a Golden Palm Star on thePalm Springs, California,Walk of Stars was dedicated to him.[46]
Released in 2012, the documentary filmÉvocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie[47] touches upon Downey's upbringing and formative years in radio and politics before launching into the history ofThe Morton Downey Jr. Show and Downey's influence on trash TV.[48] The film also looks at Downey's relationship withAl Sharpton and other important 80s figures.[49]
TheSuper Mario character, Morton Koopa Jr. was named after him. The character first made his debut in the 1988 gameSuper Mario Bros. 3 as a member of the Koopalings, who are boss characters who work forBowser, the main antagonist.[50]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1978 | Born Again | Classroom Guard | Theatrical film | [51] |
| 1989 | 1st & Ten | TV Show Host | 1 episode | [52] |
| 1990 | Tales from the Crypt | Horton Rivers | Episode: "Television Terror" | [52] |
| Predator 2 | Tony Pope | Theatrical film | [51] | |
| Thanksgiving Day | Unknown | Television film | [52] | |
| 1991 | Monsters | Ray Brigh | Episode: "A Face for Radio" | |
| Driving Me Crazy | Taj | Theatrical film | [51] | |
| Legal Tender | Mal Connery | [53] | ||
| 1992 | Revenge of the Nerds III: The Next Generation | Orrin Price | Television film | [53] |
| Body Chemistry II: The Voice of a Stranger | Big Chuck | Theatrical film | [53] | |
| The Silencer | Michael Keating | [53] | ||
| 1993 | Counterstrike | Monroe Park | Episode: "The Raw Truth" | |
| 1995 | The Rockford Files: A Blessing in Disguise | Himself | Television film | [52] |
| 1997 | Meet Wally Sparks | Theatrical film | [53] | |
| 1999 | Palmer's Pick-Up | Dick Cash | Theatrical film; final screen role | [53] |
'Can you prove that you're Morton Downey Jr.?' he asked. I had an idea. 'Do you have a morgue here, a file of old articles?' I asked. I dug into old issues of theExaminer from the days following my birth on December 9, 1932. Sure enough, in the December 11th issue I found a picture of Morton Downey and Barbara Bennett, holding a little baby. Me.
20 great rock 'n roll events that never really happened... 11. Morton Downey Jr. did not cowrite "Wipeout", the surf instrumental bythe Surfaris.
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