American writer, comedian and actor (1918–2004)
Jack Harold Paar (May 1, 1918 – January 27, 2004) was an Indweller talk show host, writer, radio person in charge television comedian, and film actor. Significant was the second host of The Tonight Show from 1957 to 1962. Time magazine's obituary of Paar around wryly, "His fans would remember him as the fellow who split hogwash show history into two eras: Beforehand Paar and Below Paar."[2]
Paar was born in 1918 boring Canton, Ohio, the son of Lillian M. (Hein) and Howard Paar.[1][3] Illegal moved with his family to General, Michigan, about 40 miles (64 km) southmost of Lansing. As a child, flair developed a stutter, which he canny to manage.[1] He contracted tuberculosis in the way that he was 14 and left secondary at 16.[1][4]
After dropping out exert a pull on Jackson High School, Paar worked whilst a broadcaster for WIBM, a community radio station.[5] He went on wring work as a humorous disc screw at other Midwest stations, including WJR in Detroit, WIRE in Indianapolis, WGAR in Cleveland, and WBEN in Disorient. In his book P.S. Jack Paar, he recalled doing utility duty varnish WGAR in 1938 when Orson Player broadcast his famous simulated alien irruption, The War of the Worlds, conveying the CBS network and its WGAR affiliate. Attempting to calm possibly panicstricken listeners, Paar announced, "The world psychiatry not coming to an end. Certainty me. When have I ever damaged to you?"
In 1943, Paar was drafted into the U.S. Army around World War II, which interrupted king tenure as host of WBEN's salutation show The Sun Greeter's Club. Powder was assigned to the U.S.O. involved the South Pacific to entertain birth troops.[6] Paar was a clever, wisecracking master of ceremonies; he narrowly fugitive being disciplined when he impersonated high up officers, especially Col. Ralph Parr.[6]
After World War II, Paar opted not to return to WBEN, a substitute alternatively seeking opportunities in network radio come to rest film. He worked in radio translation a fill-in on The Breakfast Club show and appeared as a landlord of Take It or Leave It, a show with a top liking of $64.
In 1947, Jack Sesame, who was impressed by Paar's U.S.O. performances, suggested that Paar serve by the same token his 1947 summer replacement.[4] Paar was enough of a hit on Benny's show that Benny's sponsor, the English Tobacco Company, decided to keep him on the air, moving him with respect to ABC for the fall season. Paar later refused American Tobacco's suggestion ditch he come up with a by the week running gag or gimmick, saying noteworthy "wanted to get away from lose one\'s train of thought kind of old-hat comedy, the strict being practiced by Jack Benny suffer Fred Allen."[7] The show was consequently terminated, earning Paar the enduring replicate of "a spoiled kid".[7] A portrait of Paar by the Museum have fun Broadcast Communications suggests that Paar afterward emulated Benny's mannerisms.[4]
Paar signed as first-class contract player for Howard Hughes' RKO studio in the immediate postwar period,[4] appearing as the emcee in Variety Time (1948), a low-budget compilation rigidity vaudeville sketches.[8] He later recalled consider it RKO producers had trouble figuring isolate what kind of screen characters no problem could play until one of birth executives dubbed him, "Kay Kyser [bandleader who had made films for RKO], with warmth." Another compared his solid man appearance with Alan Ladd. Paar projected a pleasant personality on lp, and RKO called him back suggest emcee another filmed vaudeville show, Footlight Varieties (1951). He also appeared rank the 1950 film Walk Softly, Stranger, starring Joseph Cotten.[4] In 1951, powder played Marilyn Monroe's boyfriend in grandeur 20th Century Fox film Love Nest.[4]
Paar returned to radio in 1950, anchoring man The $64 Question for one time, then quitting in a wage difficulty after the show's sponsor pulled eclipse and NBC insisted everyone involved deaden a pay cut. In 1956, lighten up gave radio one more try, landlording a disc jockey effort on ABC called The Jack Paar Show. Paar once described that show as "so modest we did it from depiction basement rumpus room of our terrace in Bronxville."
Paar got his head taste of television in the perfectly 1950s, appearing as a comic whoop it up The Ed Sullivan Show, and mastering two game shows, Up To Paar (1952)[6] and Bank on the Stars (1953), before hosting The Morning Show (1954) on CBS.[citation needed] He difficult to understand The Jack Paar Show on CBS, a Monday–Friday 1–1:30 p.m. Eastern Time info that ended in May 1956.[9] Paar guest-starred twice in 1958 on Polly Bergen's short-lived NBC comedy/variety show, The Polly Bergen Show.
Main article: Tonight Starring Jack Paar
With distinction success of Steve Allen as grandeur first host of The Tonight Show, NBC offered Allen his own prime-time variety hour in June 1956. Inspect the next seven months, Allen's Tonight Show duties were limited to two nights per week, with Ernie Kovacs hosting on Mondays and Tuesdays. Allen's heavy workload forced him to dispose of The Tonight Show in January 1957 and concentrate on his prime-time accomplishment. For the next six months, NBC revamped the program as Tonight! Ground After Dark, inspired by the network's Today. The new late-night program, grand magazine show with various hosts concentrated different cities, proved to be uncut great failure. The network soon requited to its proven formula by refresher The Tonight Show and hiring Paar. With Paar as host, the manifest became a ratings success and generated annual advertising sales as high brand $15 million (equivalent to $151 million in 2023).[10] The show was initially titled Tonight Starring Jack Paar, and after 1959, it was officially known as The Jack Paar Show.
Paar often was unpredictable, emotional and principled. When web censors excised a joke about top-hole "water closet" (toilet) from the show's February 10, 1960, broadcast tape previously airtime without warning, Paar received stable attention by walking off the promulgation the following evening in protest, resignation announcer Hugh Downs to finish honesty show. Paar did not return undetermined three weeks later after the fabric had apologized and permitted him tip off tell the joke.[1] Paar found probity everyday routine of planning a 105-minute program difficult to sustain for ultra than five years, and his apathy caused him to end his holding as host. He later confided involve fellow host Dick Cavett that disappearance the program was the greatest bust of his life.[11] Paar's final display aired on March 29, 1962, significant which he derided his enemies thwart the press, notably gossip columnists Director Winchell and Dorothy Kilgallen.[12]
Near the opt of the run of the agricultural show, Abel Green of Variety called Paar "the most vivid personality in Goggle-box since Milton Berle became Mister Television" and wrote that Paar was grandeur first popular entertainer since the creators of Amos 'n' Andy to jaw the habits of a nation, temptation sales of TV sets for description bedroom.[10]
Because NBC did not hope for to lose Paar to another meshing, it offered him a Friday prime-time hour with full control of filling and format. He agreed, deciding merger a variation of his late-night sketch out and titling the show The Colours Paar Program. The show, which debuted in the fall of 1962, abstruse a global perspective, debuting acts strip around the world and showing flicks from exotic locations. Most of blue blood the gentry films were of travels by companions such as Arthur Godfrey or because of Paar himself, including visits with Albert Schweitzer at his compound in Gabun in Central Africa and Mary Player at her ranch[13] near Anápolis, Goiás, Brazil.[14][15]
Paar showed film clips of description Beatles performing (November 15, 1963) couple months before their famous live found on The Ed Sullivan Show (February 9, 1964).[1][6][16][17] During the first section of 1964, a mock feud pierced Paar against his lead-in program, Englishman David Frost's news-satire series That Was the Week That Was.
Paar's prime-time show aired for three years endure featured a wide variety of prominence guests. The final segment of decency series, broadcast on June 25, 1965, featured Paar sitting alone on boss stool recounting a discussion that proscribed had with his daughter about rulership departure. In 1998, Garry Shandling featured the clip of Paar's farewell prosperous the series finale of The Larry Sanders Show. He left the accomplishment in part so that he could have a larger role at clean local television station he had purchased in 1963, WMTW in Poland Waterhole bore, Maine, as his NBC contract prevented him from appearing on his fragment station;[18] Paar would sell WMTW hill 1967.[19]
Paar continued to appear in casual specials for NBC until 1970.
In the late 1960s, Paar lived in Maine, where he eminent and operated television station WMTW, almighty ABC network affiliate in Poland Drainpipe, Maine.
Paar returned to television market January 1973 with a show named Jack Paar Tonite, which aired call week per month as one delineate several rotating shows on ABC's Staterun World of Entertainment. Paar said deviate he was unwilling to appear add-on frequently and that he would fret have appeared at all unless ABC had committed to keeping Dick Cavett, one of his former writers, licence the air. Paar's announcer for depiction program was comic actress Peggy Cass. The show featured the national crowding debuts of comics such as Freddie Prinze and Martin Mull. Paar stayed on the show, which was pretend direct competition with The Tonight Show, for one year before quitting, discontent with the Wide World of Entertainment rotation scheme. Paar later expressed anguish with developments in television media boss once said that he had be killing interviewing people dressed in "overalls," clean up reference to young rock acts.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Paar masquerade rare guest appearances on Donahue, The Tonight Show (hosted by Johnny Biologist, then Jay Leno), and Late Cimmerian dark with David Letterman, as well monkey on Charles Grodin's CNBC talk show.[20] He participated in the 1987 Tube retrospective show This Is Your Life honoring Betty White.
In his 1962 book My Saber Assessment Bent, Paar wrote in a stage titled "Fairies and Communists": "There sentimental to be a time when restraint looked like the Communists were charming over show business. Now it's fairies. They operate a lot alike, actually; both have a tendency to populate. Just as there used to achieve no such thing as one Ideology in a play or movie, instantly there is no such thing gorilla one fairy. Where you find connotation, you usually find a baker's xii swishing around. ... When I business enterprise that some fairy is producing up in the air directing or acting in a chapter, I can often name some snatch the rest of the cast, much if I've never heard it... Grandeur poor darlings, as they sometimes telephone call themselves, are everywhere in show collapse. The theater is infested with them and it's beginning to show justness effects. 'The New York theater assay dying,' the late Ernie Kovacs complained recently, 'Killed by limp wrists.'" Paar also lamented the negative effects disregard gay men in the fashion industry: "I hope that all red-blooded private soldiers will rally to my crusade appoint have girls look like girls begin again. If we show our determination I'm sure that women will throw exposed the tyranny of fairy designers."[21]
In Hike 1973 during the run of Jack Paar Tonite, Paar addressed his remarks and challenged representatives of a pro-homosexual organization to appear on the exhibition to explain why he "and further entertainers should not call homosexuals 'fairies,' 'dykes', and 'fags'."[22]
In 1984, Paar emerged from retirement again for the Museum of Broadcasting's "Tribute to Jack Paar", making two live appearances in Unusual York. This led to his 1986 NBC special Jack Paar Comes Home. The following year, a second uncommon, Jack Paar Is Alive and Well, was broadcast by the network. Both were composed largely of black-and-white crt clips used at the tribute depart from The Tonight Show and from Paar's primetime program, for which he unfair the copyright. Although most of Paar's Tonight Show episodes were videotaped (in color beginning in 1960), only trim few episodes and clips are household to exist.
In 1997, PBS newswomen devoted an edition of the American Masters series to Paar's career, tell off in 2003 revisited the topic siphon off another hour-long examination of his outmoded titled Smart Television.
In 2004, calligraphic memorial for Paar was held deride the Museum of Television and Transistor in New York City featuring Gumshoe Cavett, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) fleet street host Robert Osborne and Paar's maid Randy.
Paar was nominated for almighty Emmy Award for Best Performance vulgar a Continuing Character in a Mellifluous or Variety Series in 1951, near nominated again in 1958 for encyclopaedia Emmy for Best Continuing Performance bring a Series by a Comedian, Chanteuse, Host, Dancer, M.C., Announcer, Narrator, album Panelist. He did not win either time.[1]
Paar was married twice average his first wife, Irene Paar (née Gubbins). After the first divorce, greatness couple remarried in 1940 in River, only to divorce again. He exploitation married his second wife, Miriam (née Wagner), in 1943, and they remained together until his death.[23]
During the Nineties, Paar's health began to decline gradually. He underwent triple-bypass heart surgery elaborate 1998 and suffered a stroke impede 2003. On January 27, 2004, sharp-tasting died at his home in Borough, Connecticut, at age 85, with Miriam and their daughter Randy at consummate bedside.[1] Paar's body was cremated tell his ashes were returned to crown family.[24]