John Charles Daly | |
|---|---|
 Daly as the host ofIt's News to Me in 1952 | |
| Born | John Charles Patrick Croghan Daly (1914-02-20)February 20, 1914 Johannesburg, South Africa |
| Died | February 24, 1991(1991-02-24) (aged 77) |
| Other names | John Daly |
| Alma mater | Boston College |
| Occupation(s) | Reporter, newscaster Game show host |
| Years active | 1937-1987 |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 6 |
| Signature | |
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John Charles Patrick Croghan Daly[1][2] (February 20, 1914 – February 24, 1991)[3] was an American journalist, host, CBS radio and television personality,ABC News executive, TV anchor, andgame show host, best known for his work on the CBS panel game showWhat's My Line?
Daly was the first national correspondent to report theattack on Pearl Harbor and the death ofFranklin D. Roosevelt. During World War II, Daly covered front-line news from Europe and North Africa.
Daly was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1914, where his father was working as a geologist; after his father died oftropical fever, Daly's mother moved the family to Boston, Massachusetts. At that time, John was 11 years old, and attended theTilton School, where he later served on the board of directors for many years, contributing to the construction or restoration of many buildings on campus. He did his post-secondary education at a junior college and graduated fromBoston College.[3] Daly worked for a time in a wool factory, and at a transit company inWashington, D.C., before becoming a reporter forNBC Radio, and later forCBS.[3]
Daly began his broadcasting career as a reporter for NBC Radio and thenWJSV, the localCBS Radio Network affiliate in Washington, D.C., as CBS'White House correspondent.[3] He appears on the famous "One Day in Radio" tapes of September 21, 1939, in which WJSV preserved its entire broadcast day for posterity. In this presentation, Daly has a mid-morning show as a man-on-the-street reporter asking quiz questions of passersby.
While covering theRoosevelt White House, Daly became known to the national CBS audience as the network announcer for many of the President's speeches. In late 1941, Daly transferred to New York City, where he became anchor ofThe World Today. DuringWorld War II, he covered the news from London as well as the North African and Italian fronts.[citation needed] Daly was awar correspondent in 1943 in Italy during Gen.George S. Patton's infamous "slapping incidents." After the war, he was a lead reporter on CBS Radio's news/entertainment programCBS Is There (later revived for television as theWalter Cronkite-hosted seriesYou Are There), which recreated the great events of history as if CBS correspondents were on the scene.[citation needed]
As a reporter for the CBS radio network, Daly was the voice of two historic announcements. He was the first national correspondent to deliver the news of theattack on Pearl Harbor on Sunday, December 7, 1941,[4] and he was also the first to relay the wire service report of the death of PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt on April 12, 1945, interrupting the programWilderness Road to deliver the news. Those bulletins have been preserved on historical record album retrospectives and radio and television documentaries.
In July 1959, along with theAssociated Press writerJohn Scali, Daly reported fromMoscow on the infamousKitchen Debate betweenFirst SecretaryNikita Khrushchev and Vice PresidentRichard M. Nixon.
Daly's first foray into television was as apanelist on the game showCelebrity Time.[3] This led to a job in 1950 as the host and moderator on a new panel show produced byGoodson–Todman,What's My Line? The show lasted 17 years, with Daly hosting all but four episodes of the weekly series.
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EachWhat's My Line? panelist introduced the next in line at the start of the show. OnFred Allen's death in 1956,Random House book publisher and humoristBennett Cerf became the anchor panelist who would usually introduce Daly. Cerf usually prefaced his introduction with a pun or joke that over time became a pun or joke at Daly's expense. Daly would then often fire back his own retort. Cerf and Daly enjoyed a friendly feud from across the stage for the remainder of the history of the program. The mystery guest on the final CBS program (aired September 3, 1967) was Daly himself. Daly had received many letters over the years asking him to fill that role; until the finale he never could, because Daly served as the "emergency mystery guest" in case the scheduled celebrity failed to show on the live program.[5]
According to producerGil Fates, Daly was resistant to changes that would have diminished the show's dignity. Daly insisted on a formal procedure; for example, he addressed the panelists as "Miss" or "Mister", and both Daly and the panelists always wore formal attire in keeping with the moderator's scholarly bearing. Toward the end of the network run, in the mid-1960s, Fates broached the idea of expanding the usual format to include playful, on-stage demonstrations of the contestants' products or services, for the sake of variety, only to be met with Daly's "Look, kiddo. If you want to do stuff like this, do it onI've Got a Secret."[6] The producers, Fates said, were unable to challenge Daly for fear of losing him as the show's moderator, and the format remained sedentary with Daly presiding from his desk. Only after Daly's departure was Fates able to expand the format, when the retooledWhat's My Line? was revived for syndication in 1968.
The series spawned a brief radio version in 1952, also hosted by Daly. The series also inspired a multitude of concurrent international versions and a syndicated U.S. revival in 1968 in which Daly did not participate. He was a vice president atABC during the 1950s. He did hosting duties onWho Said That?,It's News to Me,We Take Your Word, andOpen Hearing. Daly was a narrator onThe Voice of Firestone starting in 1958.[7]
He also had several television and movie guest appearances from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s, including an uncredited role inBye Bye Birdie (as the reporter announcing the title character's induction into the Army) and as the narrator, in a mock documentary style, on the premiere episode of the rural comedy seriesGreen Acres. In 1949 he starred in the short-livedCBS Television newspaper dramaThe Front Page, where it was thought that his presence and journalistic experience would give the series more authenticity.
During the 1950s, Daly became the vice president in charge of news, special events, and public affairs, religious programs and sports for ABC and won threePeabody Awards.[3] From 1953 to 1960, he anchoredJohn Daly and the News each weeknight and other ABC News broadcasts and was the face of the network's news division, even thoughWhat's My Line? was then on competing CBS.[8] In addition, he provided the voice of aConelrad radio announcer on the May 18, 1954, broadcast ofThe Motorola Television Hour on ABC titledAtomic Attack, which showcases a story about a family in a New York City suburb dealing with the aftermath of an H-bomb attack fifty miles away.[citation needed] At the time, this was a very rare instance of a television personality working on two different US broadcast TV networks simultaneously. (Daly did not work for CBS but for the producers ofWhat's My Line?,Goodson-Todman Productions. He also filled in occasionally on NBC'sThe Today Show, making Daly one of the few people to work simultaneously on allthree networks.)
One of his most memorable days as host of NBC'sToday Show was whenHarpo Marx was a guest promoting his bookHarpo Speaks. Marx caused chaos on-camera for Daly. Daly became completely convulsed in laughter during the live telecast on the NBC network.
In addition to the Harpo Marx segment and most of the live telecasts of “What’s My Line?” preserved viakinescope, at least a few of Daly's 15-minute live newscasts for the ABC network survive.[9][10]
Daly's closing line on the ABC newscasts was "Good night, and a good tomorrow." He resigned from ABC on November 16, 1960, after the network preempted the first hour of 1960 presidential election night coverage to showBugs Bunnycartoons andThe Rifleman from 7:30 to 8:30 pm while CBS andNBC were covering returns from theKennedy–Nixon presidential election and other important vote counts.[11] Daly stated that "the last straw"[12] that led to his resignation was the decision of the then-president of ABC, Leonard Goldenson, to bring inTime Inc. to co-produce documentaries that had previously been under Daly's direction for the network.[13]
In May 1967,[14][15] during the final year ofWhat's My Line?, it was announced that Daly would become the director of theVoice of America after the show ended. He assumed the position on September 20, 1967,[16] but lasted only until June 6, 1968, when he resigned over a claim thatLeonard H. Marks, his superior at theU.S. Information Agency, had been making personnel changes behind Daly's back.[17]
From December 1968 to January 1969, Daly hosted the arts and humanities program "Critique" onNET. Funded by theNational Endowment for the Humanities, the Old Dominion Foundation (later theAndrew W. Mellon Foundation), and the Louis Calder Foundation (paper industry leader), “Critique” was originally scheduled for 26 weekly programs. However, Daly resigned after only five programs because the producing station of the program,Newark, New Jersey-licensedWNDT, declined to delete a remark by WCBS radio reporter David Goldman that Daly considered obscene from a taped program in the series titled "Huui, Huui," an opening production of theNew York Shakespeare Festival Public Theater.[18] The most notable and last guest on a "Critique" program hosted by Daly was Bronx-born singer/songwriter/pianistLaura Nyro, probably recorded on December 4, 1968,[citation needed] and originally broadcast on January 1, 1969, in which she performed demos of "And When I Die," "The Man Who Sends Me Home," "Captain Saint Lucifer," "Mercy on Broadway," "You Don't Love Me When I Cry," and "Save the Country," and also featured an interview with her managerDavid Geffen. Following Daly's resignation, only one more episode of "Critique" was produced and broadcast, an April 1969 episode featuringThe Doors as the musical guests.
Daly did not host thesyndicated version ofWhat's My Line?, although he did co-host a 25th-anniversary program about the show for ABC in 1975. Daly was a member of thePeabody AwardsBoard of Jurors from 1966 to 1982.[19] He spent most of the 1980s as a frequent forum moderator for theAmerican Enterprise Institute, a conservativethink tank.
At his alma mater, theTilton School, there is an award named for Daly given to "persons whose pursuit of excellence and deep commitment as a member of the school family resembles that of John Daly's involvement with Tilton: continuous and widely known expressions of support in word and deed, inspiring others to reach goals that common experience dictates are impossible."Every year during Alumni Weekend Tilton School recognizes outstanding alumni during School Meeting on Saturday. Four awards for consideration are Alumnus of the Year, George L. Plimpton Award, John Charles Daly Award, and Artist Hall of Fame.[20]
He married twice, first to Margaret Criswell Neal (1913–1967) in January 1937.[21][22] The marriage resulted in two sons, John Neal Daly and John Charles Daly III, and a daughter, Helene Grant "Bunsy" Daly.[23] It ended in divorce in April 1959.[21]
On December 22, 1960, Daly married Virginia Warren (1928-2009), daughter of then–chief justiceEarl Warren, atGlide Memorial Church[24] in San Francisco.[21] They were married for more than 30 years, until Daly's death. Their marriage yielded three children: John Warren Daly, John Earl Jameson Daly, and Nina Elisabeth Daly.[25]
Daly died of cardiac arrest at his home inChevy Chase, Maryland, on February 24, 1991, at the age of 77.[3] His widow, Virginia Warren Daly, died on February 19, 2009, at the age of 80.
| Media offices | ||
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| Preceded by N/A (first host) | Host ofWhat's My Line? 1950–1967 | Succeeded by Wally Bruner (1968) |
| Preceded by N/A (first anchor) | ABC EveningNews anchor 1953–1958 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | ABC EveningNews anchor 1959–1960 | Succeeded by |
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