Read more about Billy Taylor

http://wnew1130.com/music-2/staff/q-r-s-t/billy-taylor-2/

Billy Taylor videos

http://wn.com/billy_taylor

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nat Hiken,  creator of the  hit TV shows,  The Phil Silvers Show and Car 54, Where Are You?,  died in 1968 at age 54.  His widow, Amber, passed more recently.  Their daughter, Dana, going through some family memorabilia, came up with a published notice of her parents wedding in 1941, adding a small but telling fragment to the newlywed’s history and the WNEW story, even though the notice got Nat’s first name wrong and miss-spelled his last name.

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How did it come to pass that we should have received the above wedding notice from Bill Diehl?  Bill got it from  Nat Hiken’s daughter, Dana, whose married name is Buscaglia and whose husband, Frank, is the brother of Bill’s wife, author, Lorry Diehl.  That’s how.  Frank was in broadcast engineering at both WNEW and ABC.

To read more about Nat Hiken, click on link below.

http://www.philsilversshow.com/nathiken.html

To read more about Lorry Diehl’s most recent book,  Over Here! New York City During WWII , click on link below.

http://www.bklynpubliclibrary.org/events/exhibitions/over-here-new-york-city-during-world-war-ii

Gary McDowell, who was WNEW Operations Manager ( 1971-1974) sent along this photo of himself in the middle of Bill Hickock, Gene Klavan, Dick Shepherd and Julius LaRosa.  He dates the photo to 1971, soon after answering the call from WNEW GM George Duncan, to give up his job as Program Director of WIP, Philadelphia (a Metromedia station) to become Big W OM.

 

Jerry Graham, Former

WNEW PD/GM, dies at 78

A Book Notice from Bill Diehl

New York City Radio by Peter Kanse and Alec Cumming. Published by Arcadia. It’s a fun read from the early days of NYC radio right up to an Internet Radio Station in the East Village. Some photos we’ve seen before along with station promotion ads. But a few are new to me.

Broadcast historian Peter Kanze, who has worked at WHN and the ABC Radio Network, also produces WABC “Rewound.”  And with his background, there’s lots of WABC in the book.  Co-author, Alec Cumming, is billed as a pop historian and television writer/producer who has worked for NBC, USA, Syfy, the History Channel, Rhino Records and Nickelodeon.  Currently, he serves as a history consultant for NBC Universal.   In the back flap notes, Kanze, a lifelong collector of broadcast memorabilia, writes that he culled many of the images in this book from his personal collection and a good number I had never seen before.

News gets short shrift in the book, and I guess that’s understandable considering that it’s  geared more to ‘personalities’ who became so popular on New York City radio stations. However,  near the end of the book’s 126 pages, there’s a shot of three of what’s billed  New York’s “Legendary hardworking radio newscasters,” Rich Lamb, (WCBS) Stan Brooks (WINS) and Mitch Lebe (WBBR)   WNEW is represented with a few photos including, of course, William B. Williams, Martin Block,  station GM John Van Buren Sullivan (don’t you love that name) and station manager, Bernice Judis.

 

From the early 60’s. Pete Myers is on hand in a car.  There are a good number of shots of WABC personalities, WMCA, WHN, WMGM, WINS and WOR.  There’s a chapter on the FM stations and their personalities, some of whom like Alison
Steele moved over from the AM side.  Some shots of WINS newsroom (on the eve of it’s transfer to all news–April 18, 1965) Also photo of Jim Donnelly and Lou Adler on the air at WCBS. There’s Imus, Howard Stern…of course.

I got through the book in less than half an hour…photos have some captions and a bit of background. The cover by the way is Long John Nebel broadcasting his all night WNBC talk show out of NBC’s ultra-modern Monitor studios, also known as Radio Central on the 5th fl. at 30 Rock. Nebel’s real name, which I did not know til I read the book, was John Zimmerman.

Anyway, quite a bit to chew over…definitely worth the price if you like to add a book like this to your collection.                                                                        B.D.

 

From Bill Diehl, comments and photos from the memorial service for Rudy Ruderman, March 17 in Larchmont, N.Y.

It was a wonderful farewell to our beloved Rudy and the Larchmont Yacht Club was a beautiful setting.  A good crowd was on hand, family, friends, and former broadcasting colleagues. 

A few surprise guests included WCBS business editor Ray Hoffman and Bill Stoller who is the webmaster for the ABC Radio News site. Bill had only a brief remembrance of Rudy from the early 1970’s, but it was a delightful one. He told of how Rudy helped him get a part time job as a WNEW reporter that lasted for a few weekends, and later gave him a glowing reference for a correspondents slot at ABC Radio News.  Mike Stein (once WNEW News Director) was at ABC as a network manager and said, “if Rudy Ruderman says he’s good, then he’s good for us.”  Because of Rudy’s endorsement, Bill didn’t have to audition.

I told the memorial gathering of an incident in 1967 when I was new to WNEW.  One night, after my news-casting shift ended, Rudy invited me to go with him to the upper east side to a bar called Malachy’s, where he  introduced me to this big, funny, lovable Irishman, Malachy McCourt.  When we left after a few beers Rudy said, “there Bill, now you’ve gotten a real taste of New York.” 

I read messages from Edward Brown, Mike Eisgrau and Carolyn Tanton-Walden-Giatras, which was a real crowd pleaser.  There’s was lots of laughter about how Rudy wired her bra with a hidden microphone and sent her to do a story about shoplifting by actually shop-lifting at Kleins Department Store.  She got caught.  Rudy had told her not to worry about getting caught because that would make an even better ending than if she got away with it.

Rudy’s sons, Jim and Dan and sister Anita all spoke.  Jim began with delightful remembrances of his dad, funny ones, too, including the time Rudy was ‘wounded’ during WWII when he was knocked off a tank.  Jim said he hit a tree branch while riding outside the tank.  Anita, in her version, said, “What really happened was that he was looking at two pretty girls, and didn’t see the branch.  Rudy suffered some head injuries in that incident, not bad enough, however, to send him home. 

 The memorial rooms were filled with Rudy memorabilia including his WWII dog tag.  There were photos of him in uniform, with his beloved late wife, Tully, and on-the-job shots including one with Harry Truman. 

photo above appeared December 23, 1960 in the Journal American

Did you know Rudy co-wrote a song? — Gee, But You Gotta’ Come Home –Guy
Mitchell recorded it.  The sheet music cover was on display. Lots of
recordings were played of Rudy’s work reporting business news, reviewing a couple of plays, and one that  I provided of an October 1968 newscast in which I switched to Rudy in Times Square where he would get public reaction to President  Lyndon Johnson’s decision to halt the bombing of North Vietnam. 

 Rudy had two ten year old cats, a brother and sister, in good health, someone at the memorial adopted them on the spot. There were some emotional moments as brothers Jim and Dan spoke. it even happened to me as I closed my remarks.  I thought I’d be fine, but toward the end, it got to me. 

Andy Fisher

The memorial gathering for Rudy yesterday was, by turns, enlightening, funny, and deeply touching. We gained a new appreciation for Rudy by meeting his family, so clearly touched by his unparalleled graciousness. We met his eloquent and witty sons and their beautiful wives; his devoted sister; his handsome and charming grandsons; and his stunning granddaughter Sophia.

No one who spoke was able to avoid twinges of emotion. Rudy’s impact on us all was that profound. Carolyn Giatras’ remembrance about doing a report on shoplifting shook loose a memory of just how persuasive Rudy could be and was. Rudy could get anyone to do anything. As I listened to Bill Diehl read Edward Brown’s testimonial, I was reminded of my days writing Ed’s 6:00 newscast, how Ed wanted the copy clean, and concise, allowing the news to make the impact and not drawing attention to the writing itself. It was a challenge for me, because clever lead sentences were always my forte. Still, when New York University — whose teams were “the Violets” — canceled its basketball program because of financial problems, Rudy somehow managed to convince Ed to lead the story like this:
Budgets are red,
Violets are blue.
That’s all for basketball
At old NYU.
For years, I had been trying to get a mention in the “Leads I Liked” section of the news director’s weekly memo. That one did it, not in the least because of Ed’s impeccable reading of it or of Rudy’s persuasion in getting him to read it.
I told Rudy’s son Dan that his father had always reminded me of one of the heroic characters from an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel. Style and class came so naturally to him, more naturally than to anyone else I ever worked with in broadcasting or journalism. Rudy was everywhere in yesterday’s gathering in the Gilded-Age surroundings of the Larchmont Yacht Club. My wife, who never knew either Rudy or my own work at WNEW, had tears in her eyes. I was privileged to be there. I was especially privileged to have known Rudy Ruderman.                                    A.F.