Ed Sullivan was born September 28, 1902, in New York City. Early in his career, Sullivan was a reporter covering high school sports. In 1920 he became a reporter and columnist for the New York Evening Mail. As his writing career bloomed, Sullivan eventually launched a radio program in 1932, which led to a radio program for CBS called Ed Sullivan Entertains in 1942. In 1948, Toast of the Town, the variety show that later became The Ed Sullivan Show, aired on CBS.

Though Ed Sullivan lacked charisma and often appeared to be at ill ease in front of the camera, he was able to gain a wide audience for his show with his ability to showcase up and coming talent. Sullivan’s variety show served as a launch pad for several would-be entertainers, comedians, and singers. The Beatles, George Carlin, Bob Hope, Joan Rivers, and Elvis Presley were but a few performers who showed up on his stage. Though some performers had appeared on television before taking Sullivan’s stage, an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show was a springboard to future appearances elsewhere.

A variety show in the true sense of the word, Ed Sullivan would not only host future fame, but also an eclectic mix of poets with dancing dogs. There was no mistaking that Ed Sullivan’s show was his own. In the rare instances that the show didn’t go quite right, such as the November 20, 1955, appearance of Bo Diddley, who elected to sing a song other than the one Sullivan requested, guests would find themselves permanently banned from his show. Bo Diddley was banned after singing "Bo Diddley" instead of "Sixteen Tons" like Sullivan had asked.

Sullivan’s show paved the way for future variety shows and also late night television. At a time when country music was not embraced by television, Sullivan remained adamant about featuring country and western singers. In fact, Sullivan had a way of deciding for himself what people would or would not want to see, and between the years of 1948 and 1971 Ed Sullivan achieved exactly that. In 1971, CBS decided that Ed Sullivan, on the verge of seventy years old, could no longer hold the interest of the younger American population and the show was canceled.

Ed Sullivan’s long and successful career was accompanied by a long and successful marriage to Sylvia Weinstein. They had but one daughter, Betty, born in 1930. Two years after the cancellation of The Ed Sullivan Show, in 1973, Sullivan’s wife died. Ed Sullivan died of esophageal cancer a year later. The CBS studio location at 50 Broadway in New York, where Sullivan’s show was broadcast, was aptly named The Ed Sullivan Theater in 1967. It is presently the home stage for The Tonight Show with David Letterman. In many ways, the name of the studio and the entertainment David Letterman brings to his own show pay greater homage to the legendary Ed Sullivan than his star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.

YUDDY