A true tastemaker and a real gentleman, legendary late night executive producer Peter Lassally died July 19 in Los Angeles. He was 93. Back in 2008, I had the great pleasure of interviewing Mr. Lassally as he was winding up his extraordinary career in late night with his final stint as executive producer of The
Today is a jolly holiday occasion — Dick Van Dyke’s 100th birthday. Hats off to one of the greatest entertainers of this or any century. He is well known, of course, for his ’60s series The Dick Van Dyke Show, “Bye Bye Birdie,” and such cherished children’s films as “Mary Poppins” and “Chitty Chitty Bang
Full disclosure: I like Jimmy Kimmel. I have ever since he was co-hosting The Man Show with Adam Curolla. The two of them came to Toronto back when I was starting out at The Toronto Sun and shenanigans ensued. It has been a pleasure watching him grow in stature since those dumb early days and
Christmas came early for me this year as I got to talk to Dick Cavett about Groucho Marx. The occasion was the American Masters‘ special “Groucho & Cavett,” premiering December 27 on PBS. Dubbed, “the thinking man’s talk show host,” Cavett emerged as a clear alternative to Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show while on ABC from 1969 through 1975.
I kid you not: I was too young to have seen Jack Paar in his prime as host of The Tonight Show. I was born in 1957, the year Paar took over Tonight from Steve Allen and made it his own for the next five years. With the show starting around 11:15 p.m., this was
This week’s episode of brioux.tv the podcast features the creator and original host of the Tonight Show, Steve Allen, plus the man who hosted from 1957 to 1962, Jack Paar. Allen, who died in 2000 at 78, was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1996. Here’s a clip from that event, including some
Bill Maher once said that, “Everybody who ever has done a talk show should pay a royalty to Steve Allen.” Allen would probably have agreed. He was the first host of NBC’s Tonight Show, starting with a local New York version in 1953 and then launching the series nationally in September of 1954. David Letterman,
You can draw a straight line from Mort Sahl to Dave Chappelle. Fearless, contentious, uncompromising and sometimes his own worst enemy. The Montreal native died Oct 26 at his home near San Francisco. He was 94. His rise in the mid- to late- ’50s was so pronounced it seems as if he should be older.