John Charles Daly

Radio

Daly began his broadcasting career as a reporter for NBC Radio, and then for WJSV (now WTOP), the local CBS Radio Network affiliate in Washington, D.C., serving as CBS' White House correspondent.^[4] He appears on the famous "One Day in Radio" tapes of September 21, 1939, in which WJSV preserved its entire broadcast day for posterity.

Through covering the Roosevelt White House, Daly became known to the national CBS audience as the network announcer for many of the President's speeches. In late 1941, Daly transferred to New York City, where he became anchor of The World Today. During World War II, he covered the news from London as well as the North African and Italian fronts. Daly was a war correspondent in 1943 in Italy during Gen. George S. Patton's infamous "slapping incidents". After the war, he was a lead reporter on CBS Radio's news/entertainment program CBS Is There (later known on TV as You Are There), which recreated the great events of history as if CBS correspondents were on the scene.

Television

Daly's first foray into television was as a panelist on the game show Celebrity Time.^[4] This led to a job in 1950 as the host and moderator on a new panel show produced by Goodson–Todman, What's My Line? The show lasted 17 years with Daly hosting all but four episodes of the weekly series.

Moderator John Charles Daly in CBS publicity photo for What's My Line? (1950)

In 1954–55, in addition to his duties with What's My Line?, Daly also hosted the final year of the NBC Television game show Who Said That?, in which celebrities tried to determine the speaker of quotations taken from recent news reports.^[7]

On What's My Line?, each panelist introduced the next in line at the start of the show. Upon Fred Allen's death in 1956, Random House book publisher co-founder and humorist Bennett Cerf became the anchor panelist who would usually, but not always, introduce Daly. Cerf usually prefaced his introduction with a pun or joke that over time became a pun or joke at Daly's expense. Daly would then often fire back his own retort. Cerf and Daly enjoyed a friendly feud from across the stage for the remainder of the history of the program. The mystery guest on the final CBS program (aired September 3, 1967) was Daly himself. Daly had received many letters over the years asking him to fill that role; until the finale he never could, because Daly served as the "emergency mystery guest", in case the scheduled celebrity failed to show on the live program.^[8][9][10]

Daly and fellow broadcaster Quincy Howe at Presidential convention coverage

Daly and Howe covering a Presidential convention for ABC News

According to producer Gil Fates, Daly was resistant to changes that would have appealed to a younger audience but might have diminished the show's dignity. For example, Daly usually referred to the panelists formally, e.g., as "Mr. Cerf." The producers, Fates said, were unable to challenge Daly for fear of losing him as the show's moderator.^[11] The series spawned a brief radio version in 1952 that was also hosted by Daly. The series also inspired a multitude of concurrent international versions and a syndicated U.S. revival in 1968 in which Daly did not participate. He was a vice president at ABC during the 1950s. He did hosting duties on Who Said That?, It's News to Me, We Take Your Word, and Open Hearing and was a narrator on The Voice of Firestone starting in 1958.^[12]

He also had several television and movie guest appearances from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s, including an uncredited role in Bye Bye Birdie (as the reporter announcing the title character's induction into the Army) and as the narrator, in a mock documentary style, on the premiere episode of the rural comedy series Green Acres. In 1949 he starred in the short-lived CBS Television newspaper drama The Front Page, where it was thought that his presence and journalistic experience would give the series more authenticity.

During the 1950s, Daly became the vice president in charge of news, special events, and public affairs, religious programs and sports for ABC and won three Peabody Awards.^[4] From 1953 to 1960, he anchored ABC News broadcasts and was the face of the network's news division, even though What's My Line? was then on competing CBS.^[13] In addition, he provided the voice of a Conelrad radio announcer on the May 18, 1954 broadcast of The Motorola Television Hour on ABC entitled Atomic Attack, which showcases a story about a family in a New York City suburb dealing with the aftermath of an H-bomb attack fifty miles away.^[14] At the time, this was a very rare instance of a television personality working on two different US broadcast TV networks simultaneously. (Daly did not work for CBS but for the producers of What's My Line?, Goodson-Todman Productions. He also filled in occasionally on NBC's The Today Show, making Daly one of the few people to work simultaneously on all three networks.) His closing line on the ABC Newscast was "Good night, and a good tomorrow." Daly resigned from ABC on November 16, 1960, after the network preempted the first hour of 1960 presidential election night coverage to show Bugs Bunny cartoons and The Rifleman from 7:30 to 8:30 pm while CBS and NBC were covering returns from the Kennedy–Nixon presidential election and other major races.^[15]

Daly continued on What's My Line? until 1967. In the 1962–63 season, the program was in competition with Howard K. Smith's News and Comment program on ABC News. A former CBS correspondent, Smith switched networks early in 1961, by which time Daly had already resigned from ABC. Smith later took over Daly's former role as anchor of ABC Evening News. In May 1967,^[16][17] during the final year of What's My Line?, it was announced that Daly would become the director of the Voice of America after the show ended. He assumed the position on September 20, 1967,^[18] but lasted only until June 6, 1968, when he resigned over a claim that Leonard H. Marks, his superior at the U.S. Information Agency, had been making personnel changes behind Daly's back.^[19]

”The First Family” President Kennedy impersonator Vaughn Meader’s appearance as the “Mystery Guest” on CBS Television’s ‘’’What’s My Line’’’ the evening of the 1962 NFL Championship Game, December 30, 1962. John Charles Daly is on the right.

Daly did not host the syndicated version of What's My Line?, although he did co-host a 25th-anniversary program about the show for ABC in 1975. Daly was a member of the Peabody Awards Board of Jurors from 1966 to 1982.^[20] He was a frequent forum moderator for the conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute throughout the 1980s.

Death

Daly died at his home in Chevy Chase, Maryland, of cardiac arrest, 4 days after his 77th birthday.^[4]