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RIP: Bill Nimmo

C

Cincinnati Kid

Bill Nimmo - an announcer and M.C. on a number of network TV shows in the 1950's - has died. Nimmo passed away on Tuesday in Milford, Ohio just east of Cincinnati. He was 93.

Originally an announcer on local TV and radio in Cincinnati, Nimmo went on to announce for Jackie Gleason and Johnny Carson as well as host many other network programs. Perhaps he is most remembered for being "Bill the Bartender" as he advertised Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer on the Wednesday Night Fights on network TV in the 1950's. Nimmo returned to Cincinnati in the 1960's and was seen on local TV. Most recently, he has been heard on WMKV Radio, a non-commercial outlet in the Cincinnati area.
 
Seems that whenever I think or write about some well-known person,
that person ups and passes away. The other day, when Turner Classic
Movies was showing "The Jolson Story" with Larry Parks, I remembered that
he and Betty Garrett were married and victims of the blacklist of the '50s,
then a day or so later I saw she had passed on.

Yesterday I was writing a review of "Who Do You Trust?" for IMDB; someone
mentioned that Bill Nimmo was Ed McMahon's predecessor as announcer. "The
Encyclopedia of TV Game Shows" mentions that Nimmo returned as the show's
announcer when Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon left for "The Tonight Show"
and Woody Woodbury became host of "Who Do You Trust?".

Nimmo hosted a couple of short-lived game shows in the '50s: "Keep It In The
Family," a sort of forerunner of "Family Feud" that had a brief primetime run on
ABC in the fall of 1957; and the daytime show "For Love Or Money" on CBS in
1958. That one got caught in the scandals; it had something called the "dancing
decimal machine". When a contestant answered a question correctly, he or she
could take a prize of known value, or the value of the prize would be put on the
machine, with decimal points between each number, to the left of the leftmost number,
and to the right of the rightmost number; for example, if the prize was worth $250,
the numbers 25000 would be placed on the machine, the decimal pojnt would jump around
like the lights on the "Press Your Luck" board until the contestant hit a button to stop it, and
doing so would determine a prize worth anywhere from 25 cents to $25,000. It turned out that
a stagehand had instructions to give the button an extra jump if it looked like it was
going to land in the far-right-hand space, which would give the contestant the maximum
cash prize (which could go into the thousands). CBS pulled the show after that came out.

Some of you may have seen on my Kentucky postings from the '60s that he co-hosted a
local show on WLWT, "Be Our Guest". I was surprised to learn a few years ago that he
was still active in Cincinnati radio.

Godspeed and R.I.P., Bill.
 
bpatrick said:
Seems that whenever I think or write about some well-known person,
that person ups and passes away. The other day, when Turner Classic
Movies was showing "The Jolson Story" with Larry Parks, I remembered that
he and Betty Garrett were married and victims of the blacklist of the '50s,
then a day or so later I saw she had passed on.

Yesterday I was writing a review of "Who Do You Trust?" for IMDB; someone
mentioned that Bill Nimmo was Ed McMahon's predecessor as announcer. "The
Encyclopedia of TV Game Shows" mentions that Nimmo returned as the show's
announcer when Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon left for "The Tonight Show"
and Woody Woodbury became host of "Who Do You Trust?".
Click to expand...

Please don't mention my name in your next post. ;D
 
I also remember Bill serving as the host on CBS-TV during weekday afternoons in the 1950's for network re-runs of "Our Miss Brooks". I'm not sure why the network saw the need to have a host for those shows although Bill was always warm and friendly in that role.
 
Nimmo will also be remembered for the trouble he caused at Southern State which led to the resignation of a fine man, Dr Lewis C Miller. He should have been ashamed of himself for that
 
During Nimmo's late-1950's sojourn in New York, he also anchored the 11 P.M. Daily News Report on WPIX Channel 11 for a time in 1958. The sports report was handled by another controversial figure (by dint of his running the AFL New York Titans to the ground, before it was sold to a consortium including Sonny Werblin that turned the team into the Jets), Harry Wismer.
 
FRR said:
Nimmo will also be remembered for the trouble he caused at Southern State which led to the resignation of a fine man, Dr Lewis C Miller. He should have been ashamed of himself for that
Click to expand...

I've heard and seen Southern States' commercials on UK basketball games, but I'm not familiar with this story. What did Nimmo say or do?
 
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