January 28, 2004 - Jack
Paar had died earlier in the day at his home in Greenwich.
The words “talk show” came into the language because
of him and fostered a cottage industry of “talk show
hosts,” not one of whom would ever be his peer. I have
never seen another achieve the intimacy with his audience that
Jack Paar did. He was a performer with a genius understanding
of his medium.
When I was in college in the early
60s, Jack Paar and his Tonight Show
(“live from New York ...”) were the
hottest thing on television. At 11:15 I’d
stop whatever I was doing go down to the television
room in the fraternity house to watch him.
It was probably the first time (and probably the closest) America ever
got to sitting in a celebrity’s living room surrounded by other celebrities.
The college kid always fantasized the tourist’s notion of being a
guest at Jack Paar’s dinner table where I could luxuriate in his
witty conversation and story-telling, and then grow up and go out into
the world and be clever and funny and smart like him.
Years later, at just about this week of the year,
in 1975, I did meet him, in Pound Ridge, New
York where I had a small retail business. He came into the
shop one day with his daughter Randy to look
for a birthday present for Miriam. A few months
later I met him, through Randy, and was invited to lunch.
The off-camera Jack was pretty much like the one on TV. He’d been
away from the spotlight for a few years, with the brief exception of a
kind of “comeback” one week a month on ABC which he later regretted.
He’d been lured against his better judgment by the big money the
network offered for so little time.
He was a man who loved information, knowledge, and wit. Those without it
bored him. Almost instantly. After his great success gave him access to
so much of it, his life was, in many ways, like that of a kid in a candy
store. That is, whenever he wished to visit the candy store. Because at
the core, he was a homebody.
Lunches and dinners at the Paars, be it three or four or fourteen, were
dominated by his presence just as it was on the show. It was impossible
not to be: it was a big, energetic presence. There was always a handsome
sofa flanked by two chairs, in one of which sat Jack. If you were invited
for noon, it was expected you be on time. In the broadcasting business,
time is money; time is everything. Jack was never late.
On arrival he’d be sitting in his chair, with a glass of white wine
and Miriam, small, blonde, with a lovely serene countenance and blue eyes,
would be in the opposite chair. We’d start out discussing books we
were reading or wanted to read. Or something we’d seen or heard in
the past couple of days. Which would lead in to anecdotes and recollections,
and Hollywood stories and Washington stories, and television stories, and
forelore and gossip, all scintillating, all of which were dessert for these
hungry ears. And most of which was provided by the host’s uniquely
brilliant conversation.
It was a high demonstration of the art of the anecdotalist.
Like many men and women in his profession, he knew that all good stories
were created for the denouement. “Where’s the denouement, kid?” he’d
clap his hands and ask, interrupting a story that was malingering. “The
denouement!”
Then when the luncheon or dinner was over, Jack got up and left the room,
and it was over.
His life was really Jack-and-Miriam. They were as close to being one as
I have ever seen in a marriage. Miriam, nee Wagner, a little girl from
Hershey, Pennsylvania (which was founded, along with the chocolate business,
by her uncle Milton Hershey) was the cosmic ingredient in the great success
of her husband.
She married Jack in 1943 just before he went off to the South Pacific to
entertain the troops. She was the Executive Producer in their lives — his
rock, his helpmeet, bookkeeper/financial adviser, chief-cook-and-bottlewasher,
mother of his child, and his faithful, loyal, unswerving audience. Devoted
barely describes it. And she carried out everything effortlessly and well,
including all the cooking for their frequent entertaining (her food was
superior).
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Jack Paar. The
original Talk Show host.
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He
was an avid reader of newspapers, magazines, and popular literature
especially non-fiction. Their life was quiet and orderly. They
traveled. They came to the city for dinners with friends (although
he liked to eat early – five-thirty, six). They’d
go to theatre, to movies, see what was new in town. After he
retired permanently, he’d often be in bed as early as
eight-thirty or nine, maybe even earlier if they weren’t
having dinner guests. He’d also be up at the crack of
dawn.
He loved puttering around the house. He loved gadgetry, especially electronic.
He watched a fair amount of television and saw a lot of movies. He loved
cars and often indulged himself in changing models, trying everything from
Rollses on down. He also liked the occasional visit to Hollywood with perhaps
an “appearance,” such as the annual visit on one of Merv
Griffin’s Specials.
As much as he was naturally drawn to performing, the actual going “on” created
enormous inner tension. The moments that led up to the delivery were excruciating
for him. That tension played itself out compellingly before an audience
and was part of his magic. The other part was: he knew what he was doing.
His personality was his art.
It was a meteoric career in retrospect, but long in the coming together.
The first twenty years were a struggle. He started out in radio in Ohio.
His career got its first boost in the Pacific during the War, performing
stand-up. His idol was Jack Benny but with the brashness
and bravado of youth. The gigs in the Army led to a movie contract with
RKO and radio work in Hollywood.
However, it was all promise. Nothing took; the career was going nowhere.
They went back to New York. It was the mid-50s and daytime television was
just flourishing. Jack was hired to host the CBS Morning Show,
replacing a young man named Walter Cronkite who then went
into the television news business. The Paar talent with all its amusing,
astonishing quirks came into the bright light. And it shone. But the show
went nowhere. The attention, however, brought him to the Tonight Show and
suddenly the world was at his feet.
He did the Tonight Show (eventually called the Jack Paar Show)
for five years and sometime in there became the most famous man on television.
In that time he leveled the enormous decades-long power of Walter
Winchell (in a feud, his side of which was conducted on air);
met Fidel Castro when he first came to power in Havana,
interviewed Kennedy and Nixon before
the election of 1960, went to the Berlin Wall, visited Albert Schweitzer in
Africa, saw the world (always with Miriam and Randy — and making
home movies to bring back for the show) all the while entertaining late-night
America with comedy, music and laughter and Jack Paar.
At
the peak of his career, he had a reputation for being
volatile, difficult and hard to predict.
He could be impatient and turned off by people who
did not provide some interest for him. Away from the
pressures of his work, much of that eased, (except
those who bored him) although that “edge” that
the world saw, was still there. Years later he told
me in amazed reflection: “There was a time in
those days when I’d would sit up there in my
office at 30 Rockefeller Center and actually think
the world revolved around me!”
My luncheons and dinners at Jack and Miriam’s in
New Canaan were fun and interesting for the same reason his show was.
Jack held forth. Conversation was lively, informative, amusing. There
was a coterie of old friends and new, old staff and performers, friends
made early on in his broadcasting career and even Sidney Carroll who
first wrote about Jack in Esquire during the War years, and
garnered him important notice. (Sidney’s wife, June Carroll was
a co-writer of Jack’s theme song: Love Is A Simple Thing)
There were often people passing through who wanted to meet or to see
the great man again, as well as new friendships yet to come.
In 1979, I moved from Connecticut to California, setting out on a new
life path as a writer. I got the feeling Jack didn’t think much
of the idea of giving up a nice business for a new pursuit in a new place.
The night before I left, I went to dinner at their house. “Well
kid,” he said as we were saying our good-byes, “Hollywood’s
a great place to be a star but an awful place if you’re a failure.” His
tone had the kindly but regretful concession of a wise uncle. I knew
he was also reflecting on his own experience – he’d found
his stardom in New York.
The move effectively marked the end of our relationship. There were occasional
but rare correspondences between me and Miriam, exchanging of cards,
but in time, over distance, that was dispelled too. This, as we know,
happens in life, and especially on the higher, faster tracks, which are
far more transient. Hermes Pan had phrase for it, which
he always recalled with a chuckle: “I loved ya honey but the show
closed.”
Jack Paar was one of the most remarkable media personalities of his time,
a power still reflected, indeed, even ingrained in our culture. He was
also a genuine piece of late 20th-century Americana, a blessed pleasure
for me to know, and for many many millions of others too. In the words
of Noel Coward as sung by one of Jack’s favorites, Bea
Lillie, I went to a mah-velous party. It was his. And
Miriam’s.
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