Obit: Jack Paar

Subject: Obit: Jack Paar
From: wysiwyg
Date: 27 Jan 04 - 02:49 PM

AP & CNN say he's gone.

~S~

Subject: RE: Obit: Jack Paar
From: Walking Eagle
Date: 27 Jan 04 - 02:58 PM

"As I was saying........."


The eagle who walks *J*

Subject: RE: Obit: Jack Paar
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Jan 04 - 04:15 PM

Jack Paar and Captain Kangaroo in one week. Are any of my idols still left? All the tears, all the tears.

Subject: RE: Obit: Jack Paar
From: wysiwyg
Date: 27 Jan 04 - 04:16 PM

CNN:

'Tonight Show' pioneer Jack Paar dead at 85
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
Posted: 2:33 PM EST (1933 GMT)


GREENWICH, Connecticut (AP) -- Jack Paar, who held the nation's rapt attention as he pioneered late-night talk on "The Tonight Show," then told his viewers farewell when still in his prime, died Tuesday. He was 85.

Paar died at his Greenwich home as a result of a long illness, said Stephen Wells, Paar's son-in-law. Paar's daughter and wife were by his side, Wells said.

"We're in a bit of a fog," he said. "There were a lot of people who knew Jack and loved him."

Since the mid-1960s, Paar had kept mostly out of the public eye, engaging in business ventures and indulging his passion for travel.

But Paar's years on NBC enlivened an otherwise "painfully predictable" TV landscape, wrote The New York Times' Jack Gould in 1962. "Mr. Paar almost alone has managed to preserve the possibility of surprise."

Johnny Carson took over "The Tonight Show" in 1962. Paar had a prime-time talk show for three more seasons, then retired from television in 1965.

Paar had taken over the flagging NBC late-night slot in July 1957; Steve Allen had departed some months earlier. Allen's show was a variety show; Paar's a talk show.

"Like being chosen as a kamikaze pilot," Paar wrote in "I Kid You Not," a memoir. "But I felt sure that people would enjoy good, frank and amusing talk."

They did. Viewers loved this cherubic wiseguy, someone once referred to as "like Peter Pan, if Peter Pan had been written by Mickey Spillane."

Soon, everyone was staying up to watch Paar, then talking about his show the next day. Even youngsters sent to bed before Paar came on parroted his jaunty catch phrase, "I kid you not," with which he regularly certified his flow of self-revealing stories.

Just why he walked away from such a breakthrough career at age 47 would become an enduring source of conjecture, possibly even for Paar. His explanation would have to suffice: that he was tired and ready to do other things.

But off the air, as on, he never stopped doing the thing he did best: talk.

"The only time I'm nervous or scared is when I'm NOT talking," he told The Associated Press in 1997. "When I'm talking, I know that I do it well."

What he accomplished with the spoken word -- not only his words but those he wooed from fellow raconteurs like Peter Ustinov, Elsa Maxwell, Hans Conreid and Genevieve -- proved irresistible to his audience.

Paar also played host to Muhammad Ali when he was still known as Cassius Clay, to a pleasantly pickled Judy Garland, and to the outrageous pianist-composer Oscar Levant. Entertainers Paar championed included Jonathan Winters, Bob Newhart, Carol Burnett, Woody Allen and Bill Cosby.

Paar's circle of guests included leading politicians. During the 1960 presidential campaign, John F. Kennedy made a triumphant appearance -- so much so, that a few days after the election, Paar got a letter from Joseph P. Kennedy, the proud father, gushing, "I don't know anybody who did more, indirectly, to have Jack elected than your own good self."

But Paar was a show all by himself, just talking about himself. "I'm against psychiatry -- for me, anyway," he told viewers. "I haven't got any troubles I can't tell standing up."

A man of boundless curiosity and interests, he was charming, gracious and famously sentimental: He could shed tears, as he put it, just from "taking the Coca-Cola bottles back to the A&P."

He could also be volatile, pettish and confounding. And never so much as in February 1960, when, making headlines, he emotionally told his thunderstruck audience that he was leaving his show. It was the night after a skittish NBC executive had judged obscene, and edited out, a story by Paar where the initials "W.C." were mistaken for "wayside chapel" instead of "water closet."

A month later, the network managed to lure Paar back. Returning on the night of March 7, he was greeted with generous applause as he stepped before the cameras. Then he began his monologue on a typically cheeky note: "As I was saying, before I was interrupted ... "

Subject: RE: Obit: Jack Paar
From: wysiwyg
Date: 27 Jan 04 - 04:23 PM

E!-Online:   

"Tonight" Legend Jack Paar Passes
by Marcus Errico
Jan 27, 2004, 12:00 PM PT

Late-night icon Jack Paar, the onetime Tonight Show host who blazed the way for Carson, Letterman and Leno before quitting at the top of his game, died Tuesday at age 85.

His family confirmed the death, saying Paar succumbed to a "long illness" and passed away at his home in Greenwich, Connecticut, surrounded by his daughter and wife.

Paar's health had been declining in recent years. He spent six days in a Greenwich hospital last year after suffering a stroke. In 1997, Paar was hospitalized after undergoing triple heart bypass surgery, complicated by an embolism discovered during the operation.

The legendary entertainer, who introduced the sofa-and-desk format to late-night television, hosted NBC's Tonight Show from 1957 to 1962, serving as the bridge between original host Steve Allen and Johnny Carson.

Outwardly humble, Paar once told listeners, "It's almost impossible to dislike me because I do nothing." But a quick look at his résumé proves him wrong.

Born in 1918 in Canton, Ohio, Paar got his start in local radio. After a stint in the army entertaining troops with his parodies of WWII brass, Paar scored a summer-replacement gig in 1947 on the Jack Benny radio show.

For the next 10 years, he bounced between hosting duties on quiz and variety shows like Up to Paar and The Morning Show and the occasional stint as an actor. In 1951, Paar had a bit part as the boyfriend of young ingénue Marilyn Monroe in Love Nest.

Paar was brought in to rescue the ailing Tonight Show in 1957, six months after the departure of original host Steve Allen. He wasted no time bringing the show up to, well, par, changing the format from variety to talk and bringing a who's-who guest list to his sofa, including Richard Nixon and Judy Garland and newcomers like Woody Allen, Bill Cosby, Bob Newhart and the Smothers Brothers..

Paar helped pioneer the current format of late-night shows, inspiring the likes of Johnny Carson, David Letterman and Jay Leno and spawning countless imitators. The Paar-fronted show soon became so wildly popular that its name was changed to The Jack Paar Tonight Show, but success was not without its hitches.

A straight shooter (and edgy for his era) whose trademark phrase was "I kid you not," Paar was a controversy magnet, drawing ire for taking the show on the road and broadcasting from Cuba and the Great Wall in China. Famous for his long-running feuds with newspaper columnists and rivals like Ed Sullivan, Paar once stormed off mid-show after the network censored a joke using the term "water closet." Paar returned after a four-week absence, opening with, "As I was saying before being interrupted..."

He walked away from Tonight in 1962, leaving at the height of popularity and ceding the show to youngster Carson. Paar produced a Friday-night variety show the following season before leaving network TV in 1965 to run a Maine TV station.

He briefly returned to the airwaves in early 1975 as host of the monthly ABC Wide World of Entertainment, which ran against Carson. The experiment lasted just a few months before Paar quit showbiz for good and virtually disappeared, suffering no comebacks and rarely making public appearances. His last came as the guest of honor at a Museum of Radio and Television gala in 1997.

He is survived by his wife of six decades, Miriam, and daughter Randy.

Subject: RE: Obit: Jack Paar
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Jan 04 - 04:49 PM

My mother loved his program--and in later years used to recite stories of his antics. I must admit, I'm both surprised that he was only 85--I thought he was older, and I also thought he'd already died some time ago. He must have spent a very quiet retirement.

SRS

Subject: RE: Obit: Jack Paar
From: Bill D
Date: 27 Jan 04 - 06:11 PM

heck, I remember him from the Morning Show! That's where I got my taste of folk music, listening to Burl Ives singing "Goober Peas"..(who would put a *folk singer* om in priime time these days?)

Jack was a catalyst...he had a good sense for what was interesting and combined people in fascinating variety.

RIP

Subject: RE: Obit: Jack Paar
From: Walking Eagle
Date: 27 Jan 04 - 08:17 PM

Though their timing was different, Paar delivered his opener a lot like Jack Benny.

T.V. took more risks in those days. Pete Seeger even had his own show!

Subject: RE: Obit: Jack Paar
From: open mike
Date: 27 Jan 04 - 08:38 PM

many of the subsequent hosts of the tonite show were from Nebraska.
Johhny Carson, Dick Cavett, Joey Bishop....I do not think i watched
the show when Jack Parr was on it..but he did pave the way for a
long standing tradition..

Subject: RE: Obit: Jack Paar
From: Sorcha
Date: 27 Jan 04 - 10:06 PM

I did watch Parr, but somehow thought he was already dead...oh well.( I was pretty young when I watched him)

Subject: RE: Obit: Jack Paar
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 28 Jan 04 - 06:32 PM

After Jerry Lester came Steve Allen on the Tonight show.   Allen brought intelligent humor and a wonderful musical presence. THEN came Paar.

He created, to me, the most intelligent and viewable talk show ever. No pandering and no hype for product by the guests. He was emotional, clever, and--yes, sometimes irritating as hell---and other times you empathized with him. Paar brought the likes of The Beatles, JFK, RFK, RMN, Jonathan Winters, Liza Minnelli (under a pseudonym insisted on by her mom--and in a wheelchair), and the wit and charm of Oscar Levant, Alexander King, Dodie Goodman, among so many others. Let us not forget Cliff Arquette---you know who's dad he is.

Jack Paar wept effusively on stage and laughed at his emotionalism. He cried about the comments about his daughter's weight problems, he cried about his job---you name it---he wept.

In the end, however, his turned out to be the basis for all late night talk shows--and, sadly, they have evolved into product pitches and short visits by guests with no in depth conversation. Looking beatiful and saying nada.

Yes, the hosts (Leno/Letterman/etc;) are clever. But extended interesting conversations with guests are not on==forgive the pun--on a par with Paar.   Dick Cavett, one of his writers, probably carried the Paar tradition on for a short time on ABC

Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: Obit: Jack Paar
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 28 Jan 04 - 07:28 PM

One correction to Bill's lovely note, Jerry Lester hosted a show called "Broadway Open House" that aired on NBC between 1950 and 1951. Morey Amsterdam was the co-host. That show is recognized as the first late night talk show, but it wasn't The Tonight Show.

Steve Allen started a local late night show on WNBC in New York in 1953, which was picked up by NBC in September of 1954 which they called "The Tonight Show". Allen was so successful that he began hosting a show on Sunday nights, and NBC brought in Ernie Kovacs to host the Tonight Show on Monday and Tuesday nights. Eventually NBC decided to have Allen concentrate on the Sunday Night show and Paar was brought in, and he really revolutionzed the show.

I had the honor of meeting both Steve Allen and Jack Paar when I worked for CNBC a few years ago. They were both real gentleman, unlike many of the "stars" that followed in their footsteps. The hard part for me was that most of the crew at CNBC had no idea who either person was.   I am sure if it wasn't for the work they did, most of that crew would not have had jobs. Allen and Paar turned TV into an industry AND an art, something that has been lost in this age of reality television.

ROn