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Obit: Eddie Fisher

Coke was the tv and national radio sponsor of Fisher's programs. The radio was certainly aimed at teens of the day.

Mr Gregg, since you have a warped idea of my qualifications, I'd say it's amazing what they've taught you in Truck Drining School.

I'd challenge you to post YOUR qualfications.

Here are mine; After I sold my 4 stations for a milion 3, I've been happily retired from the radio business for 25 years and am presently serving as a nursing home chaplain.

My resume includes 40 years of radio, ownership/management/programming/sales of 4 radio stations, 20 construction permits, a dozen towers, ownership of 2 funeral homes, and a lifelong love of music.

What have YOU got?
 
I vaguely remember the later show Fisher and George Gobel
did together (I was only about three at the time), and I've
heard about his various marriages all my life. But as to the
question of "teen idol," I can only take what I read in the
more mainstream newspapers last week--that girls were paid
to sit in the audience and scream for him.

Keep in mind that Fisher predates Elvis (and Bill Haley, for
that matter), and it's not unthinkable that female teens in
1952 or '53 might have gone wild over him, just as they did
Johnnie Ray (of "Cry" fame), another one few today would
classify as a teen idol, if they even know who he was. I
can remember when the Beatles were on "The Ed Sullivan Show,"
my dad told me that the hysterical reaction from girls in the audience
was just like what Frank Sinatra got 20 years earlier, and I was dumbfounded--
Frank Sinatra, a teen idol? Singing the same kind of songs he always sang?

It just goes to show that everything's relative; by the mid- and late '50s,
teens would be listening to Elvis, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, etc., and Fisher
would be irrelevant, as some of you have mentioned. In fact, a travel writer
visited a Miami restaurant in the '70s; there was a picture of Fisher on the wall,
and the writer classified him as "dead or might as well be."

You'll probably find, however, that in those last years before Elvis, really
hip teens were listening to r&b as played by the likes of Alan Freed on radio.
 
You guys all paint with a verrrrry BROAD BRUSH.

I'd LOVE to introduce you to some ladies in their mid-70's from Chicago, from St. Louis, and from near Indianapolis who "thought the world" (their words) of Eddie Fisher (as a singer). Iff you are in your 70's and don't remember him, you may have not spent much time with a radio. BTW, there were "paid screamers" for Sinatra and Elvis, too.

Fisher was between Johnny Ray and Elvis. Why do you think Coke was his NBC tv and (syndicated) radio sponsor? There may have also been some prejuidice out in the country too,, as Fisher was Jewish.

Of course that is forgotten TODAY. Those ladies are old and may have stopped swooning after Englebert.
 
I guess my rambling didn't make much sense. I was saying
that yes, there were teen idols before rock 'n' roll; it was just
a little hard for me at the age of nine, having just seen the
Beatles on "The Ed Sullivan Show," to believe that girls once
screamed their lungs out for Sinatra, since he was an MOR
singer even in the '40s (no rock 'n' roll yet), and I'm quite sure
Eddie Fisher was a teen idol as well, "paid screamers" or no.
It's strictly a matter of the style of music that was in vogue at
any particular time and who had the charisma (and the press
agent) to put it over with the teens. But I stand by what I
said in my previous posting: the really hip teens in the early '50s
were listening to r&b.

As for Johnnie Ray, his success really came in one year, 1952,
and then he was largely forgotten. "Coke Time," OTOH, ended
primarily (I think) because NBC wanted to use the 7:30-8 PM slot
for shows that could compete with ABC and CBS; it did last four years
(1953-57), then Fisher co-starred with George Gobel on a big-budget
hour-long show for two seasons (1957-59) before fading from the limelight.

BTW, in his autobiography Milton Berle recalled that on the night
of her death in 1954 (of a cerebral hemorrhage), his mother and
two of her friends had been to see Fisher live. Mama Berle was
another who "thought the world" of Fisher.
 
bpatrick said:
BTW, in his autobiography Milton Berle recalled that on the night
of her death in 1954 (of a cerebral hemorrhage), his mother and
two of her friends had been to see Fisher live. Mama Berle was
another who "thought the world" of Fisher.
Click to expand...

I wonder what Mama Berle would have thought of Eddie after his romantic escapades a few years later?
 
Eddie Fisher will most be remembered not for his singing career, but instead his drug habit and marriages to Debbie Reynolds, Liz Taylor and Connie Stevens ( along with a few other non-show business women).
 
It's worth noting that the death of Eddie Fisher was mentioned on a TV board, not any of the radio boards here (at least not yet). That alone should tell you what kind of "teen idol" that he was.

And he will probably be remembered most for being "Princess Leia's" (sp?) father than for anything else.
 
Why not the radio board? Because there are fewer and fewer stations that service Eddie's demographics, and he did do fine on tv. Also, most of the people on radio-info are younger, so they'd say, "Eddie who?"
 
Give us a break, Prais. Most of us would also never have heard of Gloria Stuart if it hadn't been for Titanic. Her last movie before Titanic was in 1933! 30 years before I was born! (By the way, why no thread about her?)

Every once in a while I will hear about the death of some actor or actress that I never heard of whose last movie was in 1940 or something! ::) Is it our fault if they didn't stay active in show business?
 
In my earlier post, I misspelled the name of the great Joanie Sommars, a great talent, a great lady, and a good sport. She took a lot of kidding about her hit Johnny Get Angry and would just laugh it off.


What's ironic about this Eddie Fisher thread is that it's generating more buzz about him in death then he would have gotten alive. It happens. RIP
 
I'm almost sorry I ever used the phrase "teen idol" in describing
Fisher, but I think you'll find in most newspaper accounts of his
passing, as well as in sources like Brooks and Marsh, that he was
indeed the idol of teenage girls circa 1953. As for putting this
on Classic TV, he had two popular shows over a six-year period;
I know that "Coke Time" also aired on radio, but I'm not sure how
many people--even of his generation--know that.

Personally, I'm tired of this subject (and I started it). You guys can
duke it out in print all you want; I have nothing else to say about it.
 
bpatrick said:
I'm almost sorry I ever used the phrase "teen idol" in describing
Fisher, but I think you'll find in most newspaper accounts of his
passing, as well as in sources like Brooks and Marsh, that he was
indeed the idol of teenage girls circa 1953.
Click to expand...

I didn't count but think I saw 4-5 news articles plus at least two obits (not including R-I). He was called a "crooner" and a "pop singer" and even an "icon" but the "teen idol" description only appeared here.

While there were undoubtedly certain female teens that appreciated Fisher's talents he clearly did not fit the image of his predecessor Sinatra or successor Elvis.
 
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