Of John Charles Daly and “What’s My Line?”

Having frequently come across clips of the original CBS broadcasts of the game show What’s My Line?, which ran from 1950 through 1967, I grew curious about its host John Charles Daly (1914-1991).

The original iteration of the show was before my time, though I knew the later, syndicated version, which ran from 1968 through 1975. The show was basically a variation on 20 Questions. Four panelists would ask a series of questions in order to guest the contestant’s job. The occupations were frequently fascinating and offbeat, and usually shed light on contemporary American society in some way. The climax would be the “mystery guest”, a celebrity of some sort, where the panelists would be blindfolded and have to guess their identity. This aspect of the show is of course why I’ve checked out so many old episodes.

But I’ve also been drawn to the show by my interest in the panelists. Fred Allen was on the show from 1954 until his death in 1956. A young Steve Allen, briefly from 1953 to 1954. Two of the core, long time panelists were actress Arlene Francis and columnist Dorothy Kilgallen. Astonishingly, from the point of view of our own era, another was the publisher Bennett Cerf. And this helps brings us closer to what intrigued me about Daly. One very noticeable quality you observe on What’s My Line? is an aura of dignity and class and politesse. The participants are conspicuously well dressed and well spoken and even address each other by honorifics. Watching the show, you may get the impression, as I did, that that was the tone of ALL culture in the ’50s and early ’60s, though a more accurate assessment would be that some of it was still that way, still maintained those standards of an earlier age. And the truth is that What’s My Line? was conspicuously stringent in that regard. And the reason for that was its host John Daly. He insisted that the show uphold that formal tone. And there is an explanation for why he’d be the type of person to do that.

Some are born game show hosts, some achieve game show hosting, and some have game shows thrust upon them. It’s a peculiar sort of gig, and people who wind up doing it have come from all manner of previous careers, including comedians and actors (more common nowadays) but also, more commonly in the early days, announcers and broadcast journalists. The latter is seeming less crazy nowadays since the line between entertainment and what is called journalism has grown beyond blurry in recent decades. I grew up in the 1970s when there was a pretty substantial wall between the two. But in the early days, in radio and early television, there were people who bounced around between announcing, acting, and emceeing. Walter Cronkite, for example, had hosted game shows.

And all this goes to the point that Daly was the opposite of Wink Martindale. His name out to be mentioned in the same way we continue to remember Murrow and Cronkite. Starting out as a local Washington DC correspondent for CBS radio in the late ’30s, he quickly became the network’s White House correspondent, covering all of the President’s speeches and related news. He was the guy who broke the news to the nation about Pearl Harbor and Roosevelt’s death. During World War Two, he had assignments in London, North Africa, and Italy. He covered, for example, Patton’s famous face-slapping incident.

From 1953 to 1960 he was the ABC news anchor, where his sign off each night was “Good Night — and a Good Tomorrow”. This may be, indirectly, the thing he is best remembered for, because it was tweaked and parodied on the original “Weekend Update” segment on Saturday Night Live by Chevy Chase and Jane Curtin as “Good night, and have a pleasant tomorrow”. At the same time, Daly was vice president in charge of news, special events, and public affairs, religious programs and sports at the network. He resigned from ABC in 1960 when they opted to go ahead and show The Rifleman rather than cover the Nixon–Kennedy debates like the other two networks, which always had the more serious news divisions.

Daly was one of the few people in history who worked on all three networks, often at the same time. For example, he sometimes filled in as the host on NBC’s Today Show. Readers of Travalanche will appreciate (and maybe even already know) the episode where he had Harpo Marx on, to promote Harpo Speaks:

Daly also hosted the panel show It’s News to Me, which combined his profiles as game show host and newscaster, from 1951 to 1954. He hosted several other shows in the ’50s as well. Occasionally he wound up in other corners of pop culture. He was actually part of the cast of the TV version of The Front Page in 1949 (a dramatic role), had a cameo in the movie Bye Bye Birdie (1963), and was in the first episode of Green Acres (1965). He guest starred in episodes of shows like Father Knows Best, Death Valley Days, and Pistols and Petticoats.

After What’s My Line? Daly has two jobs in 1968, both of which he quit within a few months: director Voice of America, and the host on Critique on NET (precursor to PBS), where is most prominent guest of Laura Nyro. Meanwhile a modernized version of What’s My Line? was produced for syndication hosted first by Wally Bruner (1968-1972) and then by Larry Blyden (1972-75). Arlene Francis and on occasion Bennett Cerf were the only holdovers from the original show, with Soupy Sales joining as one of the regular panelists.

Daly went on to become a frequent moderator for live events held by the conservative American Enterprise Institute. Transcripts of those discussions are available here for the morbidly curious.

For more on the history of show business,consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous. And stay tuned for my upcomingElectric Vaudeville: A Century of Radio and TV Variety.