"Lonesome George" Gobel is often thought of as a professional guest on shows like Johnny Carson, but he was star of his own The George Gobel Show from 1954-60. It was nationally rated Top 10 and had writers like Norman Lear and was directed by Freddie De Cordova, Carson's director. Gobel also gets feature and starring credit in about two dozen movies, but his early years were spent as a working musician at WLS (Chicago) show National Barn Dance. He was a good enough guitar player to have Gibson offer his special version of the Gibson L-5 jazz guitar (archtop) for public sale.