Longtime Agent Berle Adams has Died at Age 92

Berle Adams, interviewed by the Archive in 2003, was an agent for many years at MCA, created a sports department at the William Morris Agency, and later distributed the Emmy Awards show internationally.

Interview excerpt:



Interview description:

Berle Adams talked about his early career in the music industry as a band booker, working with artists such as Louis Jordan, and then as a founding executive at Mercury Records. He described in detail his work as a Hollywood talent agent at MCA, first as a band booker and then later in the television department. He talked about working with MCA heads Jules Stein and Lew Wasserman, and described MCA’s rise to dominance in the entertainment industry. He spoke of MCA’s famous “uniform” for executives, and it’s methods for signing top-level clients. Adams explained the process of packaging clients with television shows and his technique in structuring a deal. He recalled many of the programs he represented, including The Jack Benny Program, This Is Your Life, The Ford Show, and The Colgate Comedy Hour. He spoke about his career after his acrimonious departure from MCA, creating a sports department at the William Morris Agency, and later distributing the Emmy Awards show internationally.

Dominick Dunne Dies at Age 83-- Archive Interview Online Soon

Known for his journalism in such publications as Vanity Fair, Dunne's early career was spent in "live television" in New York and Los Angeles and later filmed TV and feature films.

Dunne' Archive interview was conducted by Allan Neuwirth on May 3, 2006 and will be posted soon.


Interview Description:

Dominick Dunne talked about his formative years during which he made associations with such notable figures as Gore Vidal and Anais Nin. He described his first job in television as a stage manager at NBC. He reminisced about working with the children on Howdy Doody, calling out “One minute Mr. Montgomery” for the opening of Robert Montgomery Presents, and working on such notable Producers Showcase productions as “The Petrified Forest” and “Our Town.” He also recounted the story of how the stage managers were all sent to help pull people from lifeboats when the Italian liner Andrea Dorea sank in 1956. He talked about his move to Los Angeles, where he joined the staff of the prestigious CBS anthology series Playhouse 90. He discussed his work as a producer at 20th Century Fox where he made the series Adventures in Paradise and talked about knowing Marilyn Monroe, the “queen of the lot” in those days. He defined his role as a Vice-President of Four Star Company and identified the participants of the company. He talked about his shift to feature films in the 1970s and commented on a few of the movies he produced including The Boys in the Band, The Panic in Needle Park, and Ash Wednesday. He spoke about the tragic murder of his daughter and his subsequent work as a chronicler of courtroom trials, notably the O.J. Simpson case. Lastly he touched on the Court TV series Power, Privilege, & Justice, for which he serves as host and narrator.

TV Academy Foundation Auction - IT'S ON!

Where in the World is Emmy Magazine? | Emmys.com

It's on! The TV Academy Foundation's auction benefiting the education and preservation programs of the Foundation has begun. Bid on celebrity-signed items and unique TV experiences -- including our personal favorite, attending a table reading of "Family Guy"!

Legendary News Producer Don Hewitt Has Died

Don Hewitt, who created and executive produced 60 Minutes, and whose early credits include producing and directing the "Great Debates" in 1960 between Nixon and Kennedy, has died at the age of 86.



The Archive of American Television interviewed Hewitt on April 15, 1997. The two-and-a-half hour interview was conducted by Michael Rosen. In it, Hewitt spoke articulately about the beginnings of broadcast journalism; the days of Douglas Edwards with the News; the profound influence of Fred Friendly, Edward R. Murrow, and William Paley; and of course, the creation and success of 60 Minutes.

Link to Don Hewitt entire five-part Archive interview.

Legendary Make-up Artist Howard Smit Has Died at age 98-- Archive interview online

Howard Smit helped found IATSE Local 706 and had a fifty year career in the make-up field, starting in television in the mid-1930s at experimental station W6XAO. He was profiled earlier this year by Byrd Holland in the Make-Up & Hair Stylists Guild's journal The Artisan. Holland also conducted the Archive of American Television interview with Smit in 1997 (photo, right).

I will tell you that we all read and heard about this infant television. And those of us who knew what could happen, were very interested in getting involved in it to see if we could help to make it happen. And I feel that, well for instance, there was a love scene in one of these little skits, they were all little minute, two-minute skits. There was a love scene and in those days you could put red on any part of a human body and you couldn’t see it at all. So we tried lipstick, in those days, lipsticks were red. You put it on red, absolute washout. So I finally went to black. And the producer, I will never forget, raked me over the coals. How’s this man gonna kiss a woman with black lips? And I said if you want to see it on the screen, that’s what it’s gonna have to be. And I will tell you that very shortly thereafter, whatever they did in their transmission, we were able to get by with a little bit of red and, and it would pick up. But those were the things and the problems that we had in the early days of television.— from Part 2 of Howard Smit's Archive interview

Link to Howard Smit's 8-part Archive of American Television Interview.

Interview description:
Howard Smit was interviewed for three-and-a-half hours in North Hollywood, CA. In addition to his motion picture career ("Wizard of Oz" and "The Birds"), Mr. Smit talked about the developments of makeup for television shows, including: The Gene Autry Show, Dragnet, The Red Skelton Show, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Rifleman, and The Mod Squad, to name a few. The interview was conducted by Byrd Holland on November 21, 1997.