Of Walter Cronkite and Show Business

How perfect that Walter Cronkite (1916-2009) shared a birthday with Will Rogers, for they were both among the most trusted, beloved and admired Americans of their day.

Cronkite was the anchor of the CBS Evening News throughout most of my childhood. He served in that capacity from 1962 through 1981. He didn’t just report the news: many moments on his broadcasts are now remembered as history themselves. There was his tearful reporting of the death of John F. Kennedy. His 1968 op-ed about the Vietnam War that communicated his accurate assessment (arrived at by traveling to ‘Nam after the Tet Offensive) that no outcomes but quagmire and stalemate were possible. After this, his reporting of lunar landings and Watergate and the Iran Hostage Crisis (memorable for his counting off the days as the crisis went on).

I was too young to have experiened Edward R. Murrow, but in my day Cronkite possessed a Murrow-like authority. Like Murrow, he was a seasoned newsman who had made his bones as a radio journalist covering World War Two — directly from the battle zones. He flew in bombing missions over Germany, and landed with the 101st Airborn in Operation Market Garden, the botched initiative dramatized in A Bridge Too Far (1977). Kronkite was of Dutch extraction; it must have been meaningful to him to accompany U.S. troops to the Netherlands for that effort. He also accompanied Patton’s army at the Battle of the Bulge. After the war, he covered the Nurememberg Trials.

In 1950, Murrow finally hired Cronkite for CBS. And prior to taking the anchor job, he hosted a variety of shows and telecasts, some of which are quite surprising. The best known of these was the show You Are There. Originally created by Goodman Ace for radio, this was a show in which the reporter took listeners back in time to experience historical events, starring actors playing famous historical characters. Cronkite hosted the television version of You Are There from 1953 through 1957. Many well known actors appeared on the show early in their careers, such as Paul Newman, Rod Steiger, James Dean, and John Cassavetes. Ernie Kovacs parodied the show once in a sketch called Vas You Dere? — a comic reference to Jack Pearl’s catchphrase.

In 1954, Cronkite became the first host of The Morning Show, CBS’s attempt to compete with NBC’s Today Show. On the show, the famously dry Cronkite was obligated to banter with the lion puppet Charlemagne (puppeteer Bil Baird). After a few months Cronkite was replaced with a succession of others as host of The Morning Show, including Jack Paar,John Henry Faulk,Dick Van Dyke, Will Rogers Jr, and Jimmy Dean. It went off the air in 1958.

Also in 1954, Cronite took over for John Charles Daly as host of the game show It’s News to Me. That is correct. Walter Cronkite was once a game show host! Over the years, Cronkite also anchored coverage of special events such as Presidential nominating conventions and the 1960 Olympics.

Occasionally, Cronkite would play himself to guest star on sit-coms! You can see him, for example in episodes of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Murphy Brown, both of which of course were set in newsrooms.

Cronkite was only 65 when he left the nightly news desk, handing the mic over to Dan Rather, who is today the same kind of trusted elder statesman as Cronkite used to be. Cronkite never did retire completely. He continued to narrate documentaries and to anchor special events like award ceremonies right up until the eve of his death.

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