Jack Paar

Early career

He first worked near home as a radio announcer at WIBM in Jackson, Michigan, and later as a humorous disc jockey at Midwest stations, including WJR in Detroit, WIRE in Indianapolis, WGAR in Cleveland, and WBEN in Buffalo. In his book P.S. Jack Paar, he recalled doing utility duty at WGAR in 1938 when Orson Welles broadcast his famous simulated alien invasion, The War of the Worlds, over the CBS network (and its WGAR affiliate). Attempting to calm possibly panicked listeners, Paar announced, "The world is not coming to an end. Trust me. When have I ever lied to you?"

Paar was drafted into the military in 1943 during World War II, interrupting his tenure as host of WBEN's morning show The Sun Greeter's Club (he opted not to return to the station at war's end, instead seeking opportunities in network radio and film). He was assigned to the U.S.O. in the South Pacific to entertain the troops.^[1][4][5] He was a clever, wisecracking master of ceremonies whose impersonations of officers^[4] nearly got him into trouble.

Radio and films

After World War II, Paar worked in radio as a fill-in on The Breakfast Club show and appeared as a panelist on The $64 Question.^[4] He got his big break when Jack Benny, who had been impressed by Paar's U.S.O. performances, suggested that Paar serve as his 1947 summer replacement.^[4] Paar was enough of a hit on Benny's show that Benny's sponsor, the American Tobacco Company, decided to keep him on the air, moving him to ABC for the fall season. Paar later refused American Tobacco's suggestion that he come up with a weekly running gag or gimmick, saying he "wanted to get away from that kind of old-hat comedy," the kind being practiced by Benny and Fred Allen."^[6] The show was then terminated, earning Paar the enduring image of "a spoiled kid." A profile of Paar by the Museum of Broadcast Communications suggests that Paar later emulated Benny's mannerisms.^[4]

Paar also signed as a contract player for Howard Hughes' RKO Pictures studio in the immediate postwar period,^[4] appearing as the emcee in the movie Variety Time (1948), a compilation of vaudeville sketches.^[7] He later recalled that RKO producers had trouble figuring out what kind of screen characters he could play until one of the executives dubbed him, "Kay Kyser [a popular bandleader of the time], with warmth." Another compared his leading man appearance with Alan Ladd. Paar projected a pleasant personality on film, and RKO called him back to emcee another filmed vaudeville show, Footlight Varieties (1951). He also appeared in the 1950 film Walk Softly, Stranger, starring Joseph Cotten.^[4] In 1951, he played Marilyn Monroe's boyfriend in the 20th Century Fox film Love Nest.^[4]

Paar returned to radio in 1950, hosting the $64 Question for one season, then quitting in a wage dispute after the show's sponsor pulled out and NBC insisted everyone involved take a pay cut. In 1956, he gave radio one more try, hosting a disc jockey effort on ABC called The Jack Paar Show. Paar once described that show as "so modest we did it from the basement rumpus room of our house in Bronxville."

Television

Paar got his first tastes of television in the early 1950s, appearing as a comic on The Ed Sullivan Show and hosting two game shows, Up To Paar (1952)^[5] and Bank on the Stars (1953), before hosting The Morning Show (1954) on CBS. He guest-starred twice in 1958 on Polly Bergen's short-lived NBC comedy/variety show, The Polly Bergen Show.

The Tonight Show

Main article: Tonight Starring Jack Paar

NBC asked Paar to succeed Steve Allen as host of The Tonight Show in July 1957. With Allen's success as the first host of The Tonight Show, NBC gave him his own primetime variety hour in June 1956. Over the next seven months, Allen's Tonight duties were limited to three nights a week, with Ernie Kovacs filling in on Mondays and Tuesdays. With this heavy work load and his new show a success, Allen departed Tonight in January 1957. For the next six months, NBC renamed and replaced its late-night programing with a multihosted, multicity-based talk show which became a huge, embarrassing failure. In need of a hit, the network soon returned to a proven formula by reviving Tonight and hiring Jack Paar. He remained as host until 1962. At first it was entitled Tonight Starring Jack Paar; after 1959, it was officially known as The Jack Paar Show. Paar often was unpredictable, emotional, and principled. When network censors cut a joke about a "water closet" (the British term for a toilet) from the show's February 10, 1960, broadcast tape before airtime without warning, he received national attention by walking off the program the following evening in protest. He did not return until three weeks later, after the network apologized and he was allowed to tell the joke.^[1] Paar's emotional nature made the everyday routine of putting together a 105-minute program difficult to continue for more than five years. As a TV Guide item put it, he was "bone tired" of the grind, although he later confided to interviewer Dick Cavett that leaving the program was the greatest mistake of his life.^[8] He signed off the show for the last time on March 29, 1962, spending much of that final program ripping his enemies in the press, notably gossip columnists Walter Winchell and Dorothy Kilgallen.^[9]

Later career

Paar appears on Dick Cavett's show to announce his return to television in January 1973.

Paar came back to television on a regular basis beginning in January 1973, with Jack Paar Tonite which aired monthly as one of several rotating shows on ABC's Wide World of Entertainment. Paar noted that it was the most he was willing to appear, and that he would not have appeared at all unless ABC had committed to keeping Dick Cavett, one of his former writers, on the air. Paar's announcer for this series was comic actress Peggy Cass, and perhaps its most notable aspect was the national television debut of comic Freddie Prinze. Paar stayed on the show, which was in direct competition with Tonight, for one year before he quit. Dissatisfied with the one-week-per-month formula, he complained that even his own mother did not know when he was on. Paar later expressed discomfort with developments in the television media and once said he had trouble interviewing people dressed in "overalls", a reference to young rock acts.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Paar made rare guest appearances on Donahue, The Tonight Show (hosted by Johnny Carson, then Jay Leno), and Late Night with David Letterman, as well as on Charles Grodin's CNBC talk show.

Retrospectives

Paar (left) with John F. Kennedy on The Tonight Show in 1959

In 1984, Paar came out of retirement once again for the Museum of Broadcasting's "Tribute to Jack Paar", produced by Kevin Doherty, making two live appearances in New York. This led to his 1986 NBC special Jack Paar Comes Home. The following year, a second special, Jack Paar Is Alive and Well, was broadcast by the network. Both were largely made up of black-and-white kinescoped clips used at the tribute from Tonight and from Paar's primetime program, to which he maintained the copyright. Although most of Paar's Tonight Shows were taped (in color from 1960), only a few moments are known to exist in this format.

In 1997, PBS television devoted an edition of the American Masters series to Paar's career, and in 2003 revisited the topic with another hour-long examination of the Paar phenomenon, entitled Smart Television. That program featured clips of Paar with such guests as Jonathan Winters, Woody Allen, Judy Garland, Bill Cosby in his first network appearance, Peter Ustinov, Richard Burton, John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy in his first interview after his brother's assassination, Richard Nixon, Barry Goldwater, and others compiled from the 1950s and 1960s, as well as more recent interviews with people who worked with Paar.

In the spring of 2004, a memorial for Paar was held at the Museum of Television and Radio in New York City. Ron Simon, one of the museum's television and radio curators, was host and moderator, with appearances and speeches by television talk show host Dick Cavett, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) television host Robert Osborne, and Paar's daughter, Randy.