Interview: Dick Cavett at Chicago Museum of Broadcast Communications

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CHICAGO – Saturday, June 21st, 2014, marked a special night at the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago – “A Salute to Dick Cavett.” The iconic talk show host, who seemingly knew every celebrity and newsmaker of the 20th Century, was honored for his broadcasting career, which has spanned over 50 years.

Richard Alva “Dick” Cavett was born – like his fellow talk show host Johnny Carson – in Nebraska. Like Carson, he began his entertainment career as a magician, right before he began college at Yale University. Shortly after graduating from Yale in the late 1950s, he was working at Time Magazine when he saw a notice in the newspaper that Jack Paar – then the host of “The Tonight Show” –was having difficulties with his opening monologues. Cavett wrote some jokes, and hand delivered them to Paar, who used them that night. The door to his career was open for Cavett, as he was hired by Paar and worked on “The Tonight Show” through the transition to Johnny Carson in 1962.

Dick Cavett
Dick Cavett at the Chicago Museum of Broadcast Communications, June 21st, 2014
Photo credit: Joe Arce of Starstruck Foto for HollywoodChicago.com

While he worked on various TV shows throughout the 1960s, he would hone his material as a stand-up comedian, playing clubs throughout the country. His interest in show business past had him attending playwright George S. Kaufman’s funeral, and it was there he met comic actor and movie star Groucho Marx, and the two struck up a friendship that lasted until Marx’s death. It was this combination of writing, performance and celebrity connections that sparked the interest of ABC-TV, who hired Cavett in 1968 and eventually gave him a late night talk show opposite his old boss Johnny Carson.

Cavett’s talk show career would last through six incarnations up until the 1980s between the various networks and PBS. In the 1960s, he was often cast as the counter to the older generation of “The Tonight Show” and would have guests like John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, during an era in which the other shows would not touch the counterculture raging at the time. He would also dip into his pool of notable celebrity friends, often devoting the whole 90 minutes of his shows in that era to one guest. The 77 year old Cavett continues to write a popular blog on the New York Times website, and appears on behalf of his books and DVD retrospectives of his talk shows.

The Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago used the “Salute to Dick Cavett” – hosted by WGN-TV Entertainment Reporter Dean Richards – to launch a major overview of his career. “Dick Cavett: A Retrospective,” will include a video exhibition that will run Tuesday-Saturday from 10am-5pm through September 27th, 2014. Click here for more details.

HollywoodChicago.com was on the Red Carpet for this event, and interviewed Dick Cavett, with photographer Joe Arce providing the Exclusive Portrait.

HollywoodChicago.com: You were doing stand-up in the last faded golden age of the nightclub. Since you had experience around the country, what characterized the Chicago scene, as opposed to Greenwich Village and the West Coast comedy clubs?

Dick Cavett: Somehow – and it will seem as if I’m currying favor – when I worked at “Mr. Kelly’s” in Chicago, I seemed to get a smarter and sharper audience than I was used to in New York City.

HollywoodChicago.com: You recently told an anecdote about Johnny Carson, in which you acted many times as a go-between between him and his fans, because of his inherent difficulties in dealing with real life. Do you think his difficulties were due to or exacerbated by the power of ‘The Tonight Show,’ or was it just the inexplicable private inner life that everyone possesses?

Cavett: You should write a book on the subject, that’s good stuff. [laughs] In all seriousness, Johnny was happiest when he doing his show. He was a man with such tension and social ineptitude off camera, and couldn’t really talk comfortably with anyone, and yet he made his fame being as charming as anyone could possibly be hosting a talk show. It has been said through other sources that he had a wretched mother, and I think she crippled him in some way.

HollywoodChicago.com: Groucho Marx was underrated as an intellectual, because he was such a high level comedian. What is the smartest or most astute observation he ever gave you, that wasn’t necessarily funny?

Cavett: Interestingly enough, it was about the playwright George S. Kaufman. It was through Kaufman’s funeral that I first met Groucho. Later he told me that when he was working with Kaufman in the 1920s on the stage plays ‘Cocoanuts’ and ‘Animal Crackers’ – and the playwright was famously particular about doing his written dialogue precisely – that it was he, Groucho, who was the only actor Kaufman ever allowed to ad-lib. Of all of his accomplishments, I think Groucho was very proud of that honor.

The video exhibition “Dick Cavett: A Retrospective” runs through September 27th, 2014. at the Museum of Broadcast Communications, 360 North State Street, Chicago. On Friday, September 19th, 2014, the museum will present “An Evening with Larry King.” Click here for complete information.

HollywoodChicago.com senior staff writer Patrick McDonald

By PATRICK McDONALD
Senior Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com

© 2014 Patrick McDonald, HollywoodChicago.com

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