I really wish I had met Earl Pomerantz, especially after reading Ken Levine’s wonderful tribute to his friend and fellow television writer. Pomerantz, a Canadian whose writing credits read like a Paley Centre tribute to the Golden Age of American sitcoms, died Saturday at 75. The Emmy award winner got his first TV writing gig
In the excellent new HBO documentary “Ali: vs. Cavett: The Tale of the Tapes,” civil rights activist and MSNBC host Al Sharpton observes that Dick Cavett “was the whitest of white guys in America. But he gave blacks that had been considered outside of the mainstream – like Ali – a chance to be heard,
I was there the day Robert Conrad ended his network television career. It was way back in my early days at TV Guide magazine, sometime in the late ’80s. Conrad, who died Saturday in Malibu at 84, was trying to make a TV comeback at the time. The macho TV star, who came to fame
Usually I beg off radio requests to pay homage to celebrities who have just died unless I have a personal story to tell. The latest request came with news of the passing of Kirk Douglas. The Hollywood legend passed away Wednesday at 103, and so many others have better stories to tell. Still, it was
By the time I started covering television in the mid-’80s, one of the titans of the industry was already switching sides — Fred Silverman. The native New Yorker, who passed away Thursday at 82, did what nobody before or since has ever accomplished — he was the top programming exec at each one of the
In recent years, American networks have revived such classic TV games shows as Pyramid, Card Sharks and To Tell the Truth. Jeopardy! remains one of the hottest draws in supper hour television. Even CBC are in on the games revival with the launch of Family Feud Canada. So how come there hasn’t been a reboot
It’s getting to the point now where I hate getting a call from a producer at the CTV News Channel. Almost invariably, it means that someone of note in television has passed away. Such was the case Wednesday when Murtz Jaffer called to say that Terry Jones had died. Jones, who suffered from a rare
I can’t think of a single Buck Henry appearance or writing credit on TV or at the movies that didn’t make whatever it was better. That includes Captain Nice, an otherwise wretched series from 1967. The silly superhero spoof, created by Henry and starring a young William Daniels, made me laugh. What do you want,