MY TV JOURNEY

I was soon to move on from NJPTV but one of my last assignments was never aired.  A cooking show concept was sent to program director Doug L.  by the two Philadelphia cookbook  authors who were getting a lot of publicity for their new The Italian Cookbook ( Julia Child’s Bon Appetit was currently a big hit and the beginning of a trend in public broadcasting and later commercial TV.  Doug hoped we might produce an EEN network offering that would catch on too). He set up a meeting and I met two totally opposite women - one, a born extrovert, who looked like she loved food a bit too much and the other a shy soul who could stand a few hearty meals! They showed us a clip of their recent appearance on a Philadelphia TV talk show whipping up a tasty dessert - they were not polished performers but I immediately thought they might have potential.  I had proved to have a knack for helping regular folks become television pros.  We left with a basic agreement that we ...

I couldn’t believe that I was going to direct a segment of First Person with Jerry Lewis, one of my idols.  He lived to a ripe old age of 91 but seemed to never grow old.  I was going to spend an afternoon with the Clown Prince of Comedy. Mr. Lewis was born in Irvington NJ to show biz parents and this made him a natural candidate for the NJN network show First Person with Betty Adams which I directed for two seasons until Betty ran out of her list of famous Jerseyians. We were scheduled to shoot in Mr. Lewis’s suite the Rittenhouse Hotel in Philadelphia’s most posh neighborhood.   When we arrived we took a private elevator that opened directly into a suite and we were greeted by Jerry’s personal assistant,  Robert Considine, who I recognized from his brief appearances on the Labor Day telethon.  Mr. Lewis was on the East Coast doing his stand up act first at the Valley Forge Music Circus and now he was starting a week at the Latin Casino in Cherry Hill, NJ, once...