RETRO: New York City TV - Friday, Nov. 22, 1963 (Network O&O's)

[wbhist]

[SOURCE: TV Guide, New York-Metropolitan edition, Nov. 16-22, 1963;
additional info from New York Times and Daily News TV listings, TV.com and IMDb]
All listings from 2:00 PM onward cancelled due to JFK assassination;
listings up to 1:30 will be separated from the cancelled entries by three lines ( - - - )
(C) - in color

WCBS-TV 2 (CBS)

6:15 Previews
6:20 Give Us This Day
6:25 The Early News
6:30 Sunrise Semester
7:00 News and Weather
8:00 Captain Kangaroo (Grandfather clock talks backwards)
9:00 My Little Margie - "Miss Whoozis" [original airdate 1/5/55]
9:30 Our Miss Brooks - "Angela's Wedding" [original airdate 11/5/54]
10:00 CBS Morning News with Mike Wallace
10:30 I Love Lucy - "Mertz and Kurtz" [original airdate 10/11/54]
11:00 The McCoys - "McCoys Ahoy" [original airdate 10/6/60]
11:30 Pete and Gladys - "The Six Musketeers" [original airdate 2/20/61]

12:00 Love of Life
12:25 CBS News - Robert Trout
12:30 Search for Tomorrow
12:45 Guiding Light
1:00 Burns and Allen
1:30 As the World Turns (NOTE: This edition was interrupted by recurring bulletins from an off-camera Walter Cronkite pertaining to the events unfolding in Dallas.)
- - -
2:00 Password (guest celebrities: Lena Horne and Douglas Fairbanks Jr.)
2:30 Art Linkletter's House Party
3:00 To Tell the Truth (panel: Orson Bean, Joan Fontaine, Chester Morris and Phyllis Newman)
3:25 CBS News - Douglas Edwards
3:30 The Edge of Night
4:00 The Secret Storm
4:30 Love That Bob! (Chuck again threatens to give up his pre-med studies.)
5:00 The Early Show: The Snow Creature (1954) - Paul Langton, Leslie Denison

6:30 CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite
7:00 Evening Report with Robert Trout
7:30 Great Adventure - "Wild Bill Hickok - The Legend and the Man" [postponed to 1/3/64]
8:30 Route 66 - "Kiss the Monster - Make Him Sleep" [postponed to 1/24/64]
9:30 Twilight Zone - "Night Call" [postponed to 2/7/64]
10:00 The Alfred Hitchcock Hour - "Body in the Barn" [postponed to 7/3/64]
11:00 Late Report with Douglas Edwards
11:20 The Late Show: "Charge of the Lancers" (1954) - Paulette Goddard, Jean-Pierre Aumont
12:55 The Late Late Show I: "Forbidden Alliance" (1934) - Norma Shearer, Fredric March
followed by The Late Late Show II: "Virginia City" (1940) - Errol Flynn, Miriam Hopkins

WNBC-TV 4 (NBC)

6:25 Sermonette
6:30 Education Exchange
7:00 Today Show (scheduled guest: Inga Swenson)
9:00 Birthday House
9:55 News - Bob Wilson
10:00 Say When
10:25 NBC News: Edwin Newman
10:30 Word for Word (C)
11:00 Concentration
11:30 Missing Links (C)

12:00 Your First Impression (C) (panelists: Kathy Nolan, Michael Jackson - no, not that Michael Jackson)
12:30 Truth or Consequences (C)
12:55 NBC News - Ray Scherer
1:00 Tell Us More (profiles of Fred Allen and Jack Benny)
1:30 Bachelor Father - "Bentley and the Beach Bum" [original airdate 5/26/60]
(NOTE: This was the episode that was interrupted for the first bulletins about the shooting in Dallas)
- - -
2:00 People Will Talk (C)
2:25 NBC News: Floyd Kalber
2:30 The Doctors
3:00 Loretta Young Show - "Big Jim" [original airdate 12/5/54]
3:30 You Don't Say! (C) (panelists: Gisele MacKenzie, Herschel Bernardi)
4:00 Match Game (panelists: Shelley Berman, Betty White)
4:30 Make Room for Daddy (Danny gets involved in a friend's strike-it-rich scheme)
5:00 Movie Four: "West of Zanzibar" (1955) - Anthony Steel, Sheila Sim

6:30 The Pressman-Ryan Report (Gabe Pressman, Bill Ryan)
6:55 Weather with Pat Hernon
7:00 The Huntley-Brinkley Report
7:30 International Showtime (Don Ameche introduces the "wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen Circus"; taped in Denmark)
8:30 Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre - "It's Mental Work" (C) [postponed to 12/20/63]
9:30 Harry's Girls - "Bet It All" [postponed to 1/3/64]
10:00 The Jack Paar Program (C) (guests: Liberace, Cassius Clay, Mary McCarthy, Milt Kamen) [postponed to 11/29/63]
11:00 Eleventh Hour News with Frank McGee
11:10 Weather - Tex Antoine
11:15 Local News - Merrill Mueller
11:30 The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (C) (scheduled guest: Henny Youngman) [postponed to 12/3/63?]
1:00 News - Bill Rippe (longtime New York NBC staff announcer)
1:05 13th Hour Movie: "Molly and Me" (1945) - Monty Woolley, Gracie Fields

WABC-TV 7 (ABC)

6:20 News
6:30 Project Know
7:00 Early Bird Cartoons
8:00 Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse
8:25 Billy Bang Bang
8:30 The Little Rascals
9:00 Movie of the Day: Tulsa (1949) - Susan Hayward, Robert Preston
10:25 News
10:30 Girl Talk (panelists: Diahann Carroll, Marta Curro, Annie Farge)
11:00 The Price Is Right
11:30 Seven Keys

12:00 Tennessee Ernie Ford (hymn: "Whispering Hope")
12:30 Father Knows Best - "Man About Town" [original airdate 10/3/56]
(NOTE: Unlike on a widely-circulated aircheck, WABC's airing of this episode was not interrupted for any bulletins)
1:00 General Hospital
1:30 The Ann Sothern Show - "It's a Dog's Life" [original airdate 12/15/58]
(NOTE: In New York, it was this show that was interrupted for bulletins on the Dallas shooting; in New Haven, CT, on WNHC-TV 8, an episode of The Gale Storm Show, "Pat on the Back," original airdate 9/14/57, with guest star Pat Boone, was subjected to frequent interruptions for updates on the JFK shooting)
- - -
2:00 December Bride
2:30 Day in Court
3:00 Queen for a Day
3:30 Who Do You Trust?
4:00 Trailmaster - "The Mark Hanford Story" [original airdate 2/26/58]
(NOTE: Trailmaster was the title for syndicated episodes of Wagon Train.)
5:00 The Big Show: "Cry Baby Killer" (1958) - Jack Nicholson, Carolyn Mitchell

6:30 News - Bill Beutel
6:45 ABC News - Ron Cochran
7:00 I'm Dickens . . . He's Fenster - "A Wolf in Friend's Clothing" [original airdate 11/16/62]
7:30 77 Sunset Strip - "Lovers' Lane" [postponed to 1/3/64]
8:30 Burke's Law - "Who Killed Jason Shaw?" [postponed to 1/3/64]
9:30 The Farmer's Daughter - "The Simple Life" [postponed to 12/18/63]
10:00 Boxing: Maura Mina (Peru) vs. Allen Thomas (Chicago) 10 rounds at Madison Square Garden, NYC
10:45 Make That Spare
11:00 ABC News Final - Murphy Martin
11:10 News - Bob Young
11:20 Best of Broadway: "Halls of Montezuma" (1951) - Richard Widmark, Jack Palance

 

[wbhist]

A major amendment to the WABC-TV schedule:
At 2:55 PM, was usually aired News with the Woman's Touch, then anchored by Lisa Howard.

 

[bpatrick]

That would certainly be politically incorrect today! IIRC,
Purex was the sponsor, and "the woman's touch" was part
of their slogan.

 

[wbhist]

That would certainly be politically incorrect today! IIRC, Purex was the sponsor, and "the woman's touch" was part of their slogan.

That would sound about right, given sponsors' influence in those days.

But a year after the JFK assassination, Miss Howard was given the heave-ho by ABC over a political endorsement during the period of the conventions (she subsequently sued over wrongful termination, but her suit was thrown out and she died in 1965 an apparent suicide), and was replaced on this newscast by Marlene Sanders.

 

[bpatrick]

In 1963 Lisa Howard had gone to Cuba to interview Fidel
Castro; she reported back to JFK, who thought it would
be a good idea to normalize relations with Cuba. However,
he was assassinated before that could happen, and LBJ was
determined not to establish a channel to Cuba, lest he be
considered soft on Communism. What's more, Howard had
apparently fallen in love with Castro and what with her rapport
with him, the CIA was tailing her. There were also right-wingers
who tried to block her original interview with Castro from being
shown, to no avail. In 1964 she did indeed come out in favor
of Bobby Kennedy's opponent for the Senate seat from New
York. The combination of being fired for this, a miscarriage,
and an addiction to sleeping pills contributed to her apparent
suicide in 1965. But like the deaths (ruled suicide) of George
Reeves and Dorothy Kilgallen, we'll never know for sure if it
was suicide or murder; we'll just have to take the coroner's
word for it.

 

[wbhist]

In 1963 Lisa Howard had gone to Cuba to interview Fidel Castro; she reported back to JFK, who thought it would be a good idea to normalize relations with Cuba. However, he was assassinated before that could happen, and LBJ was determined not to establish a channel to Cuba, lest he be considered soft on Communism. What's more, Howard had apparently fallen in love with Castro and what with her rapport with him, the CIA was tailing her. There were also right-wingers who tried to block her original interview with Castro from being shown, to no avail. In 1964 she did indeed come out in favor of Bobby Kennedy's opponent for the Senate seat from New York. The combination of being fired for this, a miscarriage, and an addiction to sleeping pills contributed to her apparent suicide in 1965. But like the deaths (ruled suicide) of George Reeves and Dorothy Kilgallen, we'll never know for sure if it was suicide or murder; we'll just have to take the coroner's word for it.

Of course, George Reeves was the only one of these three who had no connection, directly or indirectly, to the JFK assassination . . . As for Miss Kilgallen, though, she had problems over the years with drug and alcohol addiction (to such a point it sometimes affected her on-air conduct on What's My Line?, not to mention her appearance), and her health had been in a steady decline since the late 1950's, so the other theory out there is that her body finally gave out after years of such issues.

 

[mleach]

In 1963 Lisa Howard had gone to Cuba to interview Fidel
Castro; she reported back to JFK, who thought it would
be a good idea to normalize relations with Cuba. However,
he was assassinated before that could happen, and LBJ was
determined not to establish a channel to Cuba, lest he be
considered soft on Communism. What's more, Howard had
apparently fallen in love with Castro and what with her rapport
with him, the CIA was tailing her. There were also right-wingers
who tried to block her original interview with Castro from being
shown, to no avail. In 1964 she did indeed come out in favor
of Bobby Kennedy's opponent for the Senate seat from New
York. The combination of being fired for this, a miscarriage,
and an addiction to sleeping pills contributed to her apparent
suicide in 1965. But like the deaths (ruled suicide) of George
Reeves and Dorothy Kilgallen, we'll never know for sure if it
was suicide or murder; we'll just have to take the coroner's
word for it.

About Lisa Howard..the story I remember hearing years ago was that she had walked into a Walgreens Drug Store on 7/4/65, bought a bunch pills on her Mastercharge ( Mastercard now ), went out to her car and overdosed. If this was the case, I can't see how her death could be even considered "murder" unless somebody forced her into that Walgreens to buy those pills and forced her to swallow. Wasn't there witnesses to this? I would imagine since we are talking Walgreens on a holiday they would had been. Be sort of like taking pills and killing yourself at a Target store on a Saturday afternoon. Ah somebody would notice it.

But then again stranger things have happened.

 

[bpatrick]

That's the story I've heard, too. The murder theory is
that Ms. Howard was getting too friendly with Fidel
Castro to suit the government, but I've heard and read
too much that suggests suicide. Things were obviously
not going well in her life. Likewise, with Dorothy
Kilgallen, she had been to Dallas and interviewed Jack
Ruby; apparently she was about to go public with what
he had told her re the JFK assassination. However, there
was no evidence of a forced entry into her home the night
she died, and so it's very likely she did die of an accidental
overdose of sleeping pills. Some people love to sensationalize
these things.

And I know someone's kidding about George Reeves and JFK;
the point is that it's still an open question whether any of these
deaths were suicides or murders. I personally think Lisa Howard's
was suicide, Dorothy Kilgallen's was an accident...and I'm still on
the fence about Reeves, but let's not reopen that one.

 

[wbhist]

And I know someone's kidding about George Reeves and JFK

Yep, facetious sarcasm - unfortunately, the "wink" icon can no longer be rendered (on my computer, at least).

 

[bpatrick]

Mine either. Again, let me emphasize that I'm talking
about unsolved mysteries and that basically I'm convinced
of the official explanations of Lisa Howard's and Dorothy
Kilgallen's death. I suspect there will be a lot of debate
about Michael Jackson's death as well: the coroner has ruled
it a homicide and his doctor will probably be charged with
manslaughter. Seems that on the night of June 24-25 he had
given Jackson several medications to induce sleep and had not
been successful...until the last one. It should be in your morning
papers or online.

 

[radioman148]

I'm a little foggy on the Kilgallen situation. What info was it that she was suppose to have that was so controversial?

 

[stevezodiac]

WABC-TV 7 (ABC)

12:30 Father Knows Best - "Man About Town" [original airdate 10/3/56]
(NOTE: Unlike on a widely-circulated aircheck, WABC's airing of this episode was not interrupted for any bulletins)
1:00 General Hospital
1:30 The Ann Sothern Show - "It's a Dog's Life" [original airdate 12/15/58]
(NOTE: In New York, it was this show that was interrupted for bulletins on the Dallas shooting; in New Haven, CT, on WNHC-TV 8, an episode of The Gale Storm Show, "Pat on the Back," original airdate 9/14/57, with guest star Pat Boone, was subjected to frequent interruptions for updates on the JFK shooting)
- - -

If ABC network (based in NY) was showing the bulletins, why wouldn't WABC?

 

[mleach]

That's the story I've heard, too. The murder theory is
that Ms. Howard was getting too friendly with Fidel
Castro to suit the government, but I've heard and read
too much that suggests suicide. Things were obviously
not going well in her life. Likewise, with Dorothy
Kilgallen, she had been to Dallas and interviewed Jack
Ruby; apparently she was about to go public with what
he had told her re the JFK assassination. However, there
was no evidence of a forced entry into her home the night
she died, and so it's very likely she did die of an accidental
overdose of sleeping pills. Some people love to sensationalize
these things.

And I know someone's kidding about George Reeves and JFK;
the point is that it's still an open question whether any of these
deaths were suicides or murders. I personally think Lisa Howard's
was suicide, Dorothy Kilgallen's was an accident...and I'm still on
the fence about Reeves, but let's not reopen that one.

I have to wonder if at least some of these rumors about Kilgallen such as her death, weird moods, ties to the mob, the JFK stuff, her "fighting" with celebrities...wonder if any of this is tied to Dick Clark ? Since Clark flat out HATED Dorothy Killgallen and vowed back in the early 60's to "get back at that bitch !!".

The story goes that in one of her columns ( around 1959 ), Killgallen had "reported" that Dick Clark was having this hot & heavy affair with Connie Francis...even going as far as saying that Connie's hit "Lipstick On Your Collar" was really about the two of them having this fetish of giving each other "hickies" ( Gee..Ihaven't heard that word in awhile ). The thing was Dick Clark was a married man with a son at the time and Connie herself already had "personal issues" such as having a strict tough father who laid down the law with his daughter (once he even chased her then boyfriend Bobby Darin with a loaded gun !! ).

Anyway..this "scandal" more/less destroyed Dick Clark's marriage and I believe for a time he even lost custody of his son and for Connie Francis...this led to a breakdown..the first of many for her over the years. Not sure if Connie ever "forgave" Killgallen but Dick Clark never did. Not at all !!

Some years back I saw of photo in one of my books taken of Dick Clark holding a mic at some movie premier or something..standing right next to Dorothy Killgallen. While Dorothy had a simile on her face..the look on Dick Clark's face..well the "mean look" was a BIG understatement.

 

[Stanislav]

WABC-TV 7 (ABC)

12:30 Father Knows Best - "Man About Town" [original airdate 10/3/56]
(NOTE: Unlike on a widely-circulated aircheck, WABC's airing of this episode was not interrupted for any bulletins)
1:00 General Hospital
1:30 The Ann Sothern Show - "It's a Dog's Life" [original airdate 12/15/58]
(NOTE: In New York, it was this show that was interrupted for bulletins on the Dallas shooting; in New Haven, CT, on WNHC-TV 8, an episode of The Gale Storm Show, "Pat on the Back," original airdate 9/14/57, with guest star Pat Boone, was subjected to frequent interruptions for updates on the JFK shooting)
- - -

If ABC network (based in NY) was showing the bulletins, why wouldn't WABC?

Because the shooting didn't happen until 1:30 EST -- that's why FNB wasn't interrupted in the East. However, the ABC Aircheck that exists came from somewhere else in another time zone where FNB (which was apparently being fed on a one-hour delay) was the program broken into by the bulletins. There was a whole long discussion of where that video may have come from, with no firm conclusions, in this thread (the relevant discussion starts with the last post on this page):

http://boards.radio-info.com/smf/index.php?topic=82761.20

 

[wbhist]

I have to wonder if at least some of these rumors about Kilgallen such as her death, weird moods, ties to the mob, the JFK stuff, her "fighting" with celebrities...wonder if any of this is tied to Dick Clark ? Since Clark flat out HATED Dorothy Killgallen and vowed back in the early 60's to "get back at that bitch !!".

The story goes that in one of her columns ( around 1959 ), Killgallen had "reported" that Dick Clark was having this hot & heavy affair with Connie Francis...even going as far as saying that Connie's hit "Lipstick On Your Collar" was really about the two of them having this fetish of giving each other "hickies" ( Gee..Ihaven't heard that word in awhile ). The thing was Dick Clark was a married man with a son at the time and Connie herself already had "personal issues" such as having a strict tough father who laid down the law with his daughter (once he even chased her then boyfriend Bobby Darin with a loaded gun !! ).

Anyway..this "scandal" more/less destroyed Dick Clark's marriage and I believe for a time he even lost custody of his son and for Connie Francis...this led to a breakdown..the first of many for her over the years. Not sure if Connie ever "forgave" Killgallen but Dick Clark never did. Not at all !!

Some years back I saw of photo in one of my books taken of Dick Clark holding a mic at some movie premier or something..standing right next to Dorothy Killgallen. While Dorothy had a simile on her face..the look on Dick Clark's face..well the "mean look" was a BIG understatement.

I have to wonder if this backstory explains why Mr. Clark only made two appearances on What's My Line? (as a guest panelist, alongside Miss Kilgallen, interestingly enough) within a month of each other in 1958, and none thereafter, not appearing on the program again until the 1970's on the syndicated version when he was a mystery guest.

But even before the Clark brouhaha, Miss Kilgallen had been in Arthur Godfrey's crosshairs, dating back to the period after his 1953 firing of Julius LaRosa. Not to mention Frank Sinatra, who didn't appear on WML? until a year after Miss Kilgallen's death.