Every Sunday night back in the 1950s and ’60s families would gather around their living room TV and watch The Ed Sullivan Show.
The variety hour ran 23 seasons, ending 54 years ago in 1971. Now streaming on Netflix, the documentary Sunday Best: The Untold Story of Ed Sullivan is not just another “best of” blast of nostalgia. It recognizes Sullivan as a social game-changer. As network television’s top-rated variety showman he introduced Black entertainers into living rooms across North America.
On this episode of brioux.tv: the podcast, I speak with Sullivan’s granddaughter and the driving producer of the documentary, Margo Precht Speciale. She spent 10 years researching and lining up interviews with Harry Belafonte, Dionne Warwick, Smokey Robinson, Tito and Jackie Jackson from The Jackson 5, as well as Motown Records founder Berry Gordy. Thanks to the involvement of executive producer and Sullivan library rights holder Andrew Solt, there are also clips from the CBS variety hour featuring everyone from Ray Charles, Billy Preston, Bo Diddley, Elvis Presley, Ike & Tina Turner, James Brown, Nat King Cole, Gladys Knight and The Pips, The Supremes, Jackie Wilson and many others.
Speciale had some help on the documentary from the offspring of other famous people associated with The Ed Sullivan Show. Kerry Gordy, grandson of Motown’s Berry Gordy, is an executive producer. Also contributing was Suzanne Kay, daughter of Diahann Carroll (remembered for Julia; Dynasty and, as a singer, her nine appearances on the Sullivan Show). The late Sacha Jenkins directed Sunday Best.
Speciale also shares memories of her father, Sullivan Show producer Bob Precht, who went on to a career producing other top network live events. Among them The Emmy and Golden Globe Awards and, right into the ’90s, The Country Music Awards. There’s also the story of how Elizabeth Taylor introduced Speciale’s father to her future mother. Find out if she also had a Toppo Gigo doll — and whether she still collects them today.
