Dallas Radio/TV | Flashback : Dallas

June 4, 2024

KVIL: The “VIL” Stands for Village

Northeast corner of Preston & Mockingbird…

by Paula Bosse

Sewell Village Used Cars and a Mobil station were at the northeast corner of Preston and Mockingbird (Sewell was at 5460 Preston Road), catty-corner from Highland Park Village. The KVIL studios were right around the corner, at 4152 Mockingbird Lane, across the street from the Dallas Country Club — you can see the jauntily-lettered sign in the background of this undated.photo. I am really bad at determining car-model years, but let’s say this is about 1960. What does this corner look like these days? It looks like this.

I just learned (from the KVIL Wikipedia page) that the “VIL” in the station’s call letters stood for “Village,” as in Highland Park Village. Who knew? The AM station began broadcasting on March 1, 1960, and the FM station hit the airwaves on Aug. 25, 1961. I believe both stations had a strict “no-rock-and-roll” policy. In the early days, a block of programming was aimed directly at housewives:

The program policy followed by the station is designed to fit the various hours of the day. For the driving hours when listeners drive to work (5:45 to 9 a.m.) and return (4:30 to 6:55 p.m.) the music is livelier. “Sing Along” is the order of the day from 9 a.m. to noon for the housewife’s work hours. (“KVIL Mark’s First Birthday Wednesday,” Dallas Morning News, March 1, 1961)

Here are a couple of hep, caffeinated KVIL ads from those early days:

1961 ad

1962 ad

1962 logo

Most of my sort of generally vague awareness of KVIL was in the 1980s, when it was an absolute powerhouse in the ratings. But even its most stalwart fans would probably not describe its playlist as “bright,” “exciting,” or “swinging.” But look how much fun the promotions department imagined the effect on “young adults” was!

And what about Sewell Village Cadillac and its selection of “Village Fine” used cars? If circa-1960 Highland Park is going to have a used car lot, you better believe it’s going to be populated with Cadillacs. (UPDATE: Thanks to Peter K’s link in the comments, check out what appears to be the original photo by Squire Haskins, with a wider view, at the UTA Libraries website, here.)

March 1958

***

Sources & Notes

Photo from eBay.

KVIL ads from the 1961 and 1962 Highland Park High School yearbooks.

KVIL logo is a detail from an ad that appeared in the Dec. 24, 1962 issue of Broadcasting magazine.

This post appeared in an abbreviated form on the Flashback Dallas Patreon page.

9 Comments

April 20, 2024

Jimi Hendrix in Dallas, 4/20/69

Doug, Mitch, Noel, and Jimi

by Paula Bosse

Today is 4/20 Day. An alternate (or parallel) way to celebrate the already alternative “holiday” is to mark the anniversary of one of Jimi Hendrix’s best interviews, on the Love Field tarmac on April 20, 1969, given to Dallas reporter Doug Terry (still a college student when he was at WFAA-Channel 8). The band was in Dallas for a show at Memorial Auditorium. It’s just a fantastic, laid-back, cool interview.

I had tried contacting Doug several years ago to let him know this clip was racking up the hits on YouTube, in case he wasn’t aware it was there, but I didn’t hear back from him until this week! He had seen the post I had written about this interview and wrote a bit about that momentous occasion in the email. He also adds some interesting behind-the-scenes tidbits I always find interesting (the following is used with Doug’s permission):

I was still a college student most of the time I worked at WFAA. I handed in my resignation after covering the north Texas pop festival in that same year. [Watch one of Doug’s reports from the Texas International Pop Festival here.] Your comment about being in a large city and its advantages was something that I did not fully grasp until years later. The access was wonderful, I saw Hendrix at least three times, on one occasion being in the dressing room with a camera when he warmed up for a show (that footage is nowhere to be found).

There are two aspects to mention about that interview. First, I was a weekend reporter and late night news anchor at Ch. 8 and I assigned myself to go interview him. In those days, one could call up the airlines when a notable person was coming in and they would give the flight number and arrival time. Amazing. Most of the people at the station at that time probably had no idea who Jimi was and wouldn’t have cared if they did know.

The other interesting point is the work of the photographer. Ordinarily, we did over the shoulder interviews, the camera to the back and side of the reporter. The fact that this was shot from the side made all the difference. As a shooter, he was not otherwise outstanding but this interview would be much less interesting if it had been shot in the traditional line-up sort of way. The two bandmates goofing around was distracting but great.

Thank you so much for getting in touch, Doug!

My original 2017 post about this interview (with the film clip of Jimi, Mitch Mitchell, and Noel Redding at Love Field) — which includes additional info about Jimi’s other performances in Dallas — is here: “Jimi Hendrix, Glen Campbell, Tiny Tim — In Dallas (…Separately), 1969.”

jimi_WFAA_042069_SMU_b

***

Sources & Notes

Screenshots from the WFAA Collection, G. WIlliam Jones Film and Video Collection, Hamon Arts Library, SMU.

Excerpt from Doug Terry’s email to me (April 16, 2024), used with permission.

jimi_WFAA_042069_SMU_a

2 Comments

December 28, 2023

Some-Context Channel 8 Screenshots: 1971

WFAA Collection/Jones Film Collection/SMU

by Paula Bosse

I have been working as part of a 3-person team (led by Jeremy Spracklen and Scott Martin) on the WFAA archive of news film, housed in the G. William Jones Film and Video Collection at the Hamon Arts Library at SMU. I have been working on 1970 and 1971, going through daily footage shot for Channel 8 News. I get a bit bogged down by all the sports and car crashes, but at this point, I am so all-consumed by these two specific years that I feel I would do well on Jeopardy if the categories were things like “Minor League DFW Hockey Teams of the Early ’70s,” “Internecine Squabbles of the Dallas City Council, the Dallas School Board, and the Dallas County Commissioners Court,” and “So What’s the Deal with the Sharpstown Scandal?” My 2023 has been spent immersed in 1971, where the chaos of the implementation of court-ordered school busing, the huge securities fraud scandal that involved some very powerful Texas politicians (Sharpstown), and the battle between Craig Morton and Roger Staubach to become the Cowboys’ #1 quarterback were some of the stories that dominated the headlines. And, lordy, there were some pretty exotic hairstyles, fashions, and interior design trends hammering away relentlessly throughout this post-hippie (it might really still have been current-hippie), pre-disco period.

Here are a few of my favorite moments from this 1971 DFW-centric news footage from the WFAA archives. Links to the pertinent clips on YouTube are included at the end of the descriptions. These clips are rarely the full reports that would have been seen on the nightly news — they are often just silent footage or B-roll, without any identification of people or clues as to where they were filmed or even why they were newsworthy. It’s (mostly) a lot of fun to dig through and watch the unfolding of history from more than 50 years in the future.

Above, from JUNE 1971

One of my favorite human-interest stories from the past year (meaning 1971!) was the profile of one of the few “lady mailmen” in Dallas at the time. She’s utterly, utterly charming, has a supportive and interesting husband and family, and loves her job. The Channel 8 cameraman shows her as she sorts her mail in the Beverly Hills Station post office in Oak Cliff and follows her as she walks along her route on West Davis. The only problem with this 7 minutes of interesting footage is that the woman is never identified. I dove in, really wanting to identify her. I thought I had cracked the mystery of her identity, only to find myself at a dead end again. If only her children could see this wonderful profile of their mother. If you know who this woman is, please let me know, and we’ll add her name to the YouTube description and try to track down any family members. I would LOVE her children to be able to see this.

The “lady mailman” is interviewed here (this first bit is in three short segments, totaling 4 minutes); a later clip shows her on her route, here (about 3 minutes). The old post office building still stands at 509 N. Barnett.

JANUARY 1971

So, yeah, fashion and interior design trends were pretty… in-your-face in 1971. In the three screenshots below, you’ll see some retina-abusing images of with-it decor. The first features the always beautiful Phyllis George, the Denton native who was in the midst of her Miss America reign. In this clip, she has come back home to DFW for an appearance at an event in which a room designed with her in mind is unveiled (by decorators C. John Megna and William Farrington). She is wearing a dress designed by Carlo Bitetto specifically for her to wear IN THAT ROOM (!). You don’t often see sparkles and plaid cheek-by-jowl.

The clip with the super-color-saturated room and its battling patterns is here.

FEBRUARY 25, 1971

Before Lion Country Safari, Mesquite had World of Animals, a drive-thru safari park. World of Animals had a wild-animal veterinarian who visited regularly from California: Dr. Martin Dinnes. Below, Dinnes is seen providing dental care to popular attraction Harold the Chimp. This is not really something I expected to see, but there you are. (Dinnes was later engaged to actress and wildlife preservation activist Tippi Hedren for several years.)

The clips of Dinnes being interviewed and preparing Harold for a tooth extraction (and I grimaced a bit, because the camera keeps rolling during the procedure, so be warned!) are here and here. (The last clip has a shot of Harold’s hand, which, understandably, appears to be gripping the chair.) That is one well-behaved, chill chimp!

MAY 18, 1971

In 1971, there was an ongoing battle between old quarterback Craig Morton and NKOTB Roger Staubach over who would be named the team’s official starting QB. Coach Tom Landry worked for months with a two-quarterback system, alternating them from game to game — he was fine with this, but everyone else hated it. Below are screenshots of Morton and Staubach at the Cowboys practice field. I know virtually nothing about sports training, but this, um, extremely low-tech gadget struck me as weird. And funny. I mean, okay, it was 1971, but surely there was something more technologically advanced than this? It’s a football on a string, tied to a post. And maybe there’s a spring or something in there. This must have been effective. Rog looks like he’s straining. I don’t know. But I love it.

See Craig in an interview with Verne Lundquist from May 18, 1971 about his elbow and shoulder injuries here, and then using the football-on-a-string thing (and then training with Staubach) here; and see Roger interviewed on the same day about really, really wanting to be the starting QB here, and then he hits the string thing here before working out with Morton in what must have been a fairly tense period of both of their careers.

JUNE 1971

Medical examiners used to be on the news a lot. One who popped up frequently was Tarrant County M.E. Dr. Feliks Gwozdz. I was amused more than I should have been when I saw the skull-and-crossbones coffee mug on his desk. I hope it said “World’s Greatest Coroner!” on the back.

The silent footage of Dr. Gwozdz at his desk is here.

JULY 14, 1971

Back in 1971 there was what seemed like the threat of a union strike every 10 minutes. I enjoyed the footage of a bunch of Southwestern Bell employees who look like they were probably a lot of fun to hang out with. Their t-shirts read “Ma Bell Is a Cheap Mother,” which is just great.

Strike footage is here (about 2½ minutes) and here.

JULY 1971

One of the top stories of 1971 was the endless furor set off by court-mandated school busing in attempts to desegregate schools. It was a mess. The man seen below is attorney Bill Brice, a leader of one of the many anti-busing groups. …Surely the cameraman noticed the monkey.

Man with monkey can be seen here.

AUGUST 29, 1971

When the Dallas School Board and Supt. Nolan Estes weren’t pulling their hair out over desegregation, they tackled other issues. One of which was so overshadowed by anti-busing demonstrations that it barely got any play, but I find it really interesting. It concerned Crozier Tech High School downtown. At the end of the 1970-71 school year, the landmark school was closed, and there was lots of discussion on what the DISD should do with the building/land, which they owned (2218 Bryan). This press conference was supposed to be about Estes’ vision of a 40-story school-office complex, which he suggested be built on the land — the first 10 floors would be for school use, and the top 30 floors would be leased to businesses as office space, with leases, theoretically, paying for construction and maintenance of the building. The building was never built (and thankfully, old Tech still stands). School board president John Plath Green and Supt. Estes sit in front of an architectural drawing of the envisioned DISD skyscraper. Too bad no one wanted to talk about it.

Footage from the press conference where reporters only want to ask about busing, is here.

SEPTEMBER 23, 1971

The Sharpstown Scandal was a bigger story than busing, but, even though political scandals are juicy, it just didn’t get everyday people mobilizing, marching in the streets, and shouting each other down in public forums the way busing did. But it was a massive story, and several political careers bit the dust because of it. The sprawling and confusing securities-fraud scandal mostly involved drab politicians and business executives. But one part of it involved, bizarrely, six celebrated — if not beloved — NASA astronauts and an insurance company pension fund.

In this Channel 8 footage, you can see something you don’t see every day: five NASA astronauts walking together down the street (a sixth one was nearby, on his own). James Lovell, Pete Conrad, Fred Haise, Ken Mattingly, Richard Gordon, and Alan Bean were in Dallas on Sept. 23, 1971 to testify as witnesses before a federal grand jury that was investigating the activities surrounding the Sharpstown Scandal. These are screenshots of the five (minus Lovell), carrying briefcases through grubby downtown Dallas, and of Lovell on his own, exiting the Federal Court House. When I first watched this footage, it just seemed really odd: five internationally (galactically!) famous astronauts — heroes! — walking together down the street, without any kind of security or entourage. If you were a NASA freak (and there were a lot back then, at the height of the Apollo-Gemini programs) and you just happened to have walked past this group, your head would have exploded.

See Lovell exiting the sterile- and dystopian-looking courthouse on his own (that woman he holds the door open for has no idea who he is), and the others walking somewhat playfully down the street here (I love this footage!); a confusing wrap-up of the day’s events is here.

OCTOBER 14, 1971

In footage from the State Fair of Texas, I was really taken by this building, which I swore I had never seen. It was the home of the “lost children” center during the fair, in the Dallas police HQ in Fair Park. It looks different to me now, but it’s still there, near the Aquarium. It looked better in 1971!

Lots of footage of crying children and harried parents, here and here.

OCTOBER 1971

This young dandy is named John Ott (I’m not 100% sure about the spelling). He was a real estate developer in Euless. He couldn’t have been more on top of the 1971 fashion wave. Represent, Euless!

It’s a story about replanting trees (with, admittedly, interesting footage of trees being uprooted and replanted). Here and here.

OCTOBER 31, 1971

In the screenshots below, Channel 8 reporter Judi Hanna (who had recently debuted an unfortunate hairdo) interviews Dallas City Councilman Garry Weber about City Council things. I don’t know where this was filmed, but I only hope it wasn’t his home. It’s hard to focus on what anyone is saying, because of the tidal wave of stuff coming at you. (Ironically, he was being interviewed about sponsoring a change to the city charter in order to crack down on the “visual pollution” of unenforced sign ordinances.) I was so overwhelmed by this vista, that I somehow assumed I was seeing cupid-studded wallpaper. But no. Check out the second screenshot, which also includes a peek at the room’s drapes. I can’t tell where the wallpaper ends and the drapes begin.

Appropriately shown on Halloween night, clips from this report are here (followed by footage of signs-galore along Lemmon Avenue) and here.

OCTOBER 1971

Lastly, a shot of Mingus, Texas, a small West Texas town near Thurber. I just love this image. I think I found the location — here’s what it looks like now.

Why was the tiny town of MIngus being featured on a Dallas news report? The Greater Mingus-Thurber Metropolitan Area was in the news because it was the location of a commune of the controversial Children of God (i.e. “cult”). Actually, the “Children” were in the process of being evicted by the landowner, who, interestingly, was a TV preacher in Los Angeles (I guess even TV evangelists have a breaking point). Members of this group splintered, and a few moved to Big D for a while, where they continued to be newsworthy until they moved elsewhere.

The shot of Mingus is from one of the many clips contained in this Oct. 7 package, here (it is specifically at the 1:08 mark). Below that is a shot from a week later, after some of the self-described “Jesus Freaks” had landed in Dallas — a group member is seen walking through Exposition Park to their new HQ, at 639½ Exposition — it and other CoG footage from Oct. 14, 1971 is here (this specific shot is seen at the 17:18 mark). (If you are considering a documentary on the Children of God, there’s lots of footage for you in the WFAA archives at SMU.)

AUGUST 1971

This is a bonus.

As I worked my way through 1971, there was one truly amazing story. It involved the kidnapping of a toddler in Fort Worth. On Aug. 25, 1971, 21-month-old Melissa Suzanne Highsmith disappeared. Her 22-year-old mother, Alta, had hired a new babysitter, who was supposed to watch her for the day while Alta was at work. The babysitter picked Melissa up in the morning as planned, but she never returned the child. The babysitter and Melissa disappeared without a trace. There were no leads in the case for years. …And YEARS.

In 2022, the Highsmith family learned of an online DNA match, which would indicate they had found Melissa. Eventually, it was determined that a 50-something-year-old woman named “Melanie” was actually the long-missing Melissa. The woman who kidnapped her raised her as her own daughter, and Melissa never suspected she wasn’t the woman’s child (although she says she never felt really “connected” to her).

Melissa (she now uses “Melissa” again) was reunited with her family at the end of 2022. One report I read said that she grew up only 10 minutes from the Fort Worth apartment her mother lived in. Despite the Highsmith family’s 51 years of loss, grief, worry, and suffering, there has ultimately been a happy ending!

In the screenshot below from an Aug. 26, 1971 Channel 8 story, Alta Highsmith shows a photo of her missing daughter to the camera. The report is here.

If you managed to get all the way through this, you deserve an award! This might be the longest thing I’ve written all year! I’m more than ready for my 1971 Jeopardy challenge (Dallas edition)!

***

Sources & Notes

All screenshots are from news film in the WFAA Collection, held by the G. William Jones Film & Video Collection, Hamon Arts Library, SMU. Clips are posted regularly from this Channel 8 collection on YouTube, here.

My previous collection of WFAA screenshots can be found in the post “No-Context Channel 8 Screenshots: 1970-1971.”

lady mailman june 1971 WFAA_sm

8 Comments

July 26, 2023

Sinead O’Connor — 1990

oconnor-sinead_rolling-stone_june-1990_ebay

by Paula Bosse

Sinead O’Connor died today. I loved her. When she came to Dallas to play the Bronco Bowl on May 25, 1990, I was there. She sang “Nothing Compares 2 U” a capella. The audience was so quiet while she sang you could hear a pin drop. It was one of the most memorable live music moments I’ve ever experienced.

In the early days of alternative radio station KDGE, I spent a lot of time at the Edge studios and provided a surprising amount of (uncredited, unheralded, and uncompensated) “comedy” writing for one of the on-air personalities. I even did a few on-air bits.

One night, out of the blue, I got a phone call at home, and was told to call the station’s answering machine and give ridiculous directions to a secret Sinead O’Connor party which was supposedly being given in her honor while she was in town for her show at the Bronco Bowl. So I did. The sound quality is atrocious, but I had to scramble to find a tape recorder before the bit aired a few minutes later. I’m still waiting for my Peabody.

So here’s one of the improvised stealth comedy bits I did on The Edge (and, yes, I really do give directions like this). It is followed by a commercial for Sinead’s appearance at the Bronco Bowl, produced by 462 (pure ’90s nostalgia). I’ve been told by a friend that he could access this link on his laptop but not his phone, but I’m going for it anyway.

Listen to it here.

I wish Sinead hadn’t had such a hard life. She made many of our lives better. She made my life better. RIP.

***

Sources & Notes

Rolling Stone cover, June 1990, from eBay.

Recording from collection of Paula Bosse.

oconnor-sinead_rolling-stone_june-1990_ebay_sm

3 Comments

March 8, 2023

Uncle Scooter Reads the Funnies: 1940-41

Little Man and Uncle Scooter…

by Paula Bosse

Several years ago, I was flipping through a promotional booklet for radio stations WFAA, WBAP, and KGKO, and I came across the photo above. I think about this photo a lot. It shows radio personality “Uncle Scooter” lying on the floor next to a KGKO microphone, reading the comics over the air to a vast audience of children and pointing out something pertinent to his trusty companion, a fox terrier named Little Man. I love this photograph. It makes me smile every time I see it. Wouldn’t it be great if this was how he actually conducted his broadcasts — on the floor with his doggie next to him? Here’s the caption:

uncle-scooter_dog_wfaa-wbap-kgko-combined-family-album_1941_caption

Clarence E. Tonahill (1904-1954) — known to everyone as “Scooter” — appears to have begun his radio career in Waco at the appropriately named station WACO. He then worked at KGKB in Tyler, then returned for a few years to WACO, and then to KTSA in San Antonio. Like most people in broadcasting in those days, he did a little bit of everything: he was an announcer, a newsreader, a sportscaster, and an entertainer. One of his most popular shows was just him reading the Sunday comics over the air for children. Below, a WACO ad from 1937 showing Uncle Scooter, again, lying on the studio floor (no dog, though).

Waco Tribune-Herald, Jan. 3, 1937

Around September 1939, he moved to Fort Worth to begin a busy stint at KGKO, a DFW station co-owned by The Dallas Morning News and The Fort Worth Star-Telegram (this was part of the very unusual WFAA-WBAP radio broadcasting partnership). He started as an “announcer” (which might well have included cleaning up the studio!), but he quickly graduated to doing a lot of sports-announcing and color commentary (football and boxing), man-on-the-street interviews, and personal appearances. He also hosted several shows, including a weekday morning show called “Sunrise Frolic.” But Sundays… Sunday mornings were set aside for his funnies-reading.

1940_radio_uncle-scooter_FWST_090840 Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Sept. 1940

1940_radio_uncle-scooter_FWST_091540 FWST, Sept. 1940

1941_radio_uncle-scooter_FWST_031641 FWST, March 1941

The Sunday lineup on KGKO, before and after the funnies:

Bryan Eagle, Dec. 1940

I see listings for the show in 1940 and 1941 — and then, briefly, in 1947. His obituary says that Tonahill retired from his career as a broadcasting personality in 1946 and opened his own business in Fort Worth, Scooter’s Radio Supply (a supplier of broadcasting equipment to stations around the country).

He must have been a bright, friendly voice on the radio. I’d love to know the role Little Man played (Little Man was Scooter’s real-life pet and was described in a magazine profile as Scooter’s “favorite hobby”). I have fond (if somewhat vague) memories from my childhood of Bill Kelley reading the comics on The Children’s Hour on Channel 5 — but I can say without hesitation that things on The Children’s Hour would have been a whole lot more interesting if he’d just had a cute little dog with him!

1940_scooter-tonahill_FWST_042040_kgko-ad_det_photo 1940_scooter-tonahill_FWST_100940_kgko-ad_det_photo 1940

1954_tonahill-clarence-e_FWST_072654_obit_photo 1954

kgko_1939 1939

***

Sources & Notes

Top photo from “WFAA, WBAP, KGKO Combined Family Album” (Dallas-Fort Worth, 1941).

radio_uncle-scooter_wfaa-wbap-kgko-combined-family-album_1941_sm

8 Comments

January 9, 2022

Dallas Entertainment Awards — 1961

And the winner is…

by Paula Bosse

Here’s an interesting piece of Dallas entertainment history: a program for the 1961 Dallas Entertainment Awards, held in the Century Room, the swanky nightclub in the Adolphus Hotel. The awards were nicknamed “the Billy award,” or “the Billys.” Dresscode: “semi-formal.” Here are a few highlights.

BEST RADIO PERSONALITY

Nominees are: Nick Ramsey (KVIL), Ted Cassidy (“Profile of an Orchestra,” WFAA), Meg Healy (KIXL), Hugh Lampman (“Music ’til Dawn,” KRLD — the previous year’s winner), Irving Harrigan & Tom Murphy (“Murphy and Harrigan Show,” KLIF), Jim Lowe (WRR), and Chem Terry (KRLD).

So – Ted Cassidy? Yes, that is the same Ted Cassidy who later played “Lurch” on TV in The Addams Family (he also played “Thing”). He worked for WFAA radio for a few years and is a trivia answer in JFK-related quizzes regarding Dallas media coverage of the assassination.

BEST MALE VOCALIST

Nominees are: Mark Carroll, Marty Ross, Earl Humphreys (the previous year’s winner), Skip Fletcher, Charlie Applewhite, Ron Shipman, and Trini Lopez.

Skip Fletcher? Yes, a member of those Fletchers. When he wasn’t frying up corny dogs he did a little singing, and even released at least one 45.

R. J. O’DONNELL MEMORIAL AWARD FOR SHOWMAN OF THE YEAR

Nominees are: Tom Hughes, Paul Baker, Raiberto Comini, Lanham Deal, Norma Young, Pearl Chappell, and Lawrence Kelly. (The previous year’s winner was Charles R. Meeker Jr.) A few names there which should be familiar to aficionados of Dallas live theater.

Producers of the event were Breck Wall and Joe Peterson, creators of the naughty “Bottoms Up” revue, which is probably still running somewhere. Some biographical information on the pair (click for larger image):

Master of Ceremonies was Tony Zoppi, who wrote a column about the local nightclub scene for The Dallas Morning News. Whenever I read his old columns, I think that he must have had the BEST job in town — writing about the Dallas nightlife scene when it was at its sophisticated and sometimes seedy Mad Men-era apex.

And — a bit of a change of pace — a little bio of real estate titan Leo Corrigan, who owned the Adolphus, where the show was being held — he was, unsurprisingly, receiving an “Appreciation Award.”

And a couple of drawings of Dallas entertainment notables: Pappy Dolson, owner of Pappy’s Showland and legendary agent of strippers, and Joe Reichman, the leader of the Century Room orchestra who was billed as “the Pagliacci of the piano.”

A few interesting ads include a little “howdy” from Jack Ruby (who was well known to several of the people mentioned above, some of whom testified to the Warren Commission about their relationships with him).

An ad for Villa Fontana, a gay club, formerly known as Le Boeuf Sur Le Toit (The Bull on the Roof), then managed by Bob Strange. Gay clubs were illegal at the time, so you didn’t see a lot of ads for them. (I wrote an article for Central Track about some of the gay clubs in Dallas in the early ’70s — with photos — here.)

And, the 24-hour greasy spoon known to generations of Dallasites, Oak Lawn’s Lucas B & B.

Here’s the photo enlarged. Unless something earth-shattering has happened that I don’t know about, that great sign is still standing on Oak Lawn near Lemmon, long after the restaurant closed.

See the rest of the 44-page program — lots more photos, lots more nominees — in a PDF from the DeGolyer Library at SMU, here.

***

Sources & Notes

All images are from “Dallas Entertainment Awards — 1961,” from the Diane Wisdom Papers, Archives of Women of the Southwest, DeGolyer Library, SMU Libraries; more information and a link to the fully-scanned program is here.

dallas-entertainment-awards_1961_cover_SMU_sm

9 Comments

February 7, 2021

Wes Wise, Dallas Texans, WFAA — 1961

A future mayor interviewing future Kansas City Chiefs

by Paula Bosse

The photo above shows future Dallas mayor Wes Wise in 1961 (when he was sports director for WFAA-Channel 8) interviewing players of the Dallas Texans. Wes Wise served as Mayor of Dallas for three terms, from 1971 to 1976. The (second iteration of the) Dallas Texans played in the AFL from 1960 to 1962 until owner Lamar Hunt relocated them to Kansas City where they became the Kansas City Chiefs. (Read about the first, sad, Dallas Texans in the post “The 1952 Dallas Texans: Definitely NOT America’s Team.”)

Below is the full ad. (Click for larger image.)

***

Sources & Notes

Ad from Sponsor, “the weekly magazine Radio/TV advertisers use” (Oct. 16, 1961).

3 Comments

March 28, 2020

Magnolia Gas Station No. 110 — 1920

Dallas’ finest filling station…

by Paula Bosse

The building seen above turns 100 this year. You know it — you’ve probably said, “I love that building!” at some point in your life. It was built by the Magnolia Petroleum Co. on the triangular piece of land where Commerce Street, Jackson Street, and Cesar Chavez Blvd. meet (Cesar Chavez was originally Preston Street). Before the building’s construction, this intersection was known as “Five Points” — after its construction, it was known as “Pershing Square” (notable for its inconveniently placed middle-of-the-street horse- and dog-watering fountain, which I will write about in the future).

This distinctive brick and terra cotta “semi-Gothic” building was built in 1920, with two stories and a basement; Magnolia service station #110 was on the ground level, and regional offices of the company were above (the massive Pegasus-topped Magnolia Building had not yet been built). Lang & Witchell, Dallas’ premier architects, designed the building.

Dallas Morning News, Sept. 19, 1919

DMN, Nov. 30, 1919

After the 10-pump service station opened, The Dallas Morning News noted that there were 64 gas stations in Dallas (18 were Magnolia stations) — this station was the largest and most expensive to build. Cost of the land and construction was estimated at $175,00 — the equivalent today of about $2.5 million dollars.

Businesses seen in the photo occupying the three-story building across the street at 2114-16 Jackson are Service Truck Co. of Texas, Tigert Printing Co., and Merchants Retail Credit Association. That building was sandwiched between residences (the house on the left is out of frame). All the way at the right of the photo is a glimpse of rooming houses. Across Commerce was an entire block of auto dealerships and auto supply houses (not seen in this photo). See the service station and environs on a 1921 Sanborn map here.

Let’s zoom in on this great Frank Rogers photo to see some of the details. First, a better look at that three-story office building on Jackson. (All photos are larger when clicked.)

Pulling back a bit, you can see the rooming houses through the arches. You can also see details of the gas station as well as decorative elements of the exterior of the building, including sculptural depictions of magnolias. (I love this cropped detail. Taken out of context, you’d never guess you were looking at Dallas.)

Moving up, you can see the word “Magnolene,” the Magnolia Petroleum Co.’s brand of motor oil; you can also see the words “Commerce Street” (“Jackson Street” is carved into the Jackson side of the building — see here).

Here’s a closer look — “Magnolene” is, I think, long gone (as are those cool windows), but “Commerce Street” and “Jackson Street” live on today. Also, check out that very appealing street light.

And another, closer look at the gasoline pumps and customers. There is so much incredible detail in the design of this building — when was the last time you saw such an aesthetically appealing gas station?

Here’s a photo from a 1922 ad for Atlanta Terra Cotta Co., which supplied several Magnolia stations in Texas with building materials — this was taken from the Jackson Street side (see the full ad here).

Here’s the building a couple of decades later:

And here it is as many Dallasites remember it, as the studios of KLIF radio, “The Mighty 1190,” where the DJ’s booth was at the “point” and passersby could watch from the street. Later it was the home of the Dallas Observer for many years. (I’m not sure of the original source of this photo, but if anyone knows or has a better quality image, let me know!)

This shows the building a little earlier — it’s a cropped photo that appeared on the album cover “KLIF — KLIFF Klassics,” from about 1969 — you can see the DJ’s booth lit up.

via Flickr

Today the building is part of an “adaptive reuse” development called “East Quarter” — I read that the building was slated to house a restaurant (or two), but I don’t know what the current status of that project is.

It’s nice to know that a favorite building from my childhood is still around. Happy 100th!

***

Sources & Notes

Top photo is titled “Magnolia Filling Station, Pershing (Dallas, Tex.): exterior view of front entrance, corner perspective” by Dallas photographer Frank Rogers; it is from the Atlantic Terra Cotta Company Architectural records and photographs, 1914-1941, Architectural Terra Cotta, Alexander Architectural Archives, University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin; more info can be found here.

The same photo appeared uncredited accompanying the Dallas Morning News article “Filling Stations of Dallas Are Finest” (DMN, April 10, 1921).

The photo taken from the Jackson Street side is from an ad for the Atlanta Terra Cotta Co. which appeared in Manufacturers Record (Dec. 14, 1922). (The Atlanta Terra Cotta Co. of Georgia and the Atlantic Terra Cotta Co. of New York were separate companies but were under the same management.)

The photo from the 1940s/1950s is “[Pershing Square in downtown Dallas, Texas]” — I have cropped it; from the Ford Motor Company Building Collection, Dallas Public Library (call number: PA85-39/16).

Here is another photo from the same collection as the main photo in this post — this shows another Magnolia filling station in Dallas, this one a smaller, more traditional station (more info here).

magnolia-gas-station_atlantic-terra-cotta-co-coll_UT_frank-rogers_sm

23 Comments

December 17, 2018

Pat Boone, Host of Channel 5’s “Teen Times” — 1954

“Handsome teen-ager” Pat Boone, host of WBAP’s “Teen Times”

by Paula Bosse

In January, 1954, soon-to-be pop-star Pat Boone transferred from a college in Nashville to North Texas State College (now the University of North Texas) in Denton — he was 19 years old and recently married with a baby on the way. An entertainer since childhood, he had recently appeared on (and won) Ted Mack’s nationally televised “Amateur Hour” and had a few minor recordings under his belt. He entered the Denton college in the middle of the school year, majoring in speech and minoring in music.

In an interview with the college newspaper, The Campus Chat, student reporter Bill Moyers (yes, that Bill Moyers) asked the scrupulously clean-cut Boone what career he saw for himself. His answer: “I want to preach on Sundays at churches that can’t afford pastors, and perhaps I’ll even become a full-time pastor.” He said that even though he had devoted years to being an entertainer and his father-in-law was a bona fide star, he did not envision a career as a professional singer because, for one reason, he did not approve of night clubs, on moral grounds: “I don’t want to sing at night clubs, and that’s where most of the singers do much of their work” (Campus Chat, Feb. 24, 1954).

The reason he was being interviewed in the first place — after only a couple of months in town — was because he had been named as the host of a Dallas-Fort Worth television show called “Teen Times,” sponsored by Foremost Dairies and broadcast on Saturday afternoons on WBAP-Ch. 5; the show premiered in February, 1954. Boone acted as host, dressed as a soda jerk behind a drugstore soda fountain, with teenaged guests who represented one Dallas school and one Fort Worth school (the schools changed each week), competing in a sort of talent show. Boone kept things moving, performed a few songs, and, in between, sang the praises of Foremost milk and ice cream.

Boone hosted the show through the spring of 1955. During the run of this local show, his popularity grew quickly on a national level, the result of several national TV appearances and ever-increasing record sales. After his year-and-a-half time in Denton, he moved to New York in the summer of 1955 and enrolled at Columbia University; before the end of the year, Pat Boone’s fame exploded: he had a huge hit with a cover of Fats Domino’s “Ain’t That a Shame” and was appearing regularly on national TV. By the late ’50s his record sales were reportedly second only to Elvis Presley’s, even though Boone’s squeaky-clean and sincere wholesomeness was the polar opposite of the suggestive, hep-cat abandon of Elvis’ earthier style.

Even though Pat Boone was a North Texas student for only a short time, whenever he has returned to Denton over the years he has always received something of a hero’s welcome. With formative years spent here, and with his star-turn in the 1962 filmed-at-Fair-Park movie State Fair, Pat Boone has every right to be considered an honorary Texan.

During his time in Denton, Pat Boone hosted two television shows for WBAP-Channel 5: the Foremost Dairies-sponsored “Teen Times” (often referred to as “Teen Time”) on Saturday afternoons, and the Bewley Mills-sponsored “Barn Dance” on Friday nights. (It looks like “Teen Times” was revamped a few years later and returned to Channel 5 in a somewhat similar format as “Teen-Age Downbeat” in January, 1958.)

1954

Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Feb. 7, 1954 (click to read)

Feb. 13, 1954

FWST, Feb. 12, 1954

Below, a super-blurry excerpt from Bill Moyers’ article in The Campus Chat (read the full interview here):

Campus Chat (North Texas State College newspaper), Feb. 24, 1954

FWST, June 20, 1954

In June, 1955, Les Handy — a voice teacher at Texas Wesleyan College — took over as emcee at “Teen Times.”

1955

And in September, 1955, Pat and Shirley and their new baby moved from Denton to New York City.

Denton Record-Chronicle, Sept. 11, 1955

Pat Boone photos from the 1955 NTSC yearbook, The Yucca:

Junior class photo, 1955

Kappa Alpha fraternity photo

Student Religious Council (detail from group photo)

***

Sources & Notes

Top photo of Pat Boone behind a soda fountain holding a microphone appeared in the Feb. 24, 1954 edition of Campus Chat, the college paper of what was then North Texas State College; it is from the UNT Libraries Special Collections, and may be accessed on UNT’s Portal to Texas History, here.

Pat Boone’s wife, Shirley, was the daughter of the legendary Nashville “hillbilly” singer, Red Foley. Here’s a video of a nervous Boone and his father-in-law on Foley’s “Ozark Jubilee” TV show, two weeks after Pat and Shirley had left Denton for New York. They are singing “Tennessee Saturday Night,” Red Foley’s big hit from 1949 (hear his great original hillbilly boogie version here).

Because it involves Pat Boone and UNT, check out the 20-minute informational film all about the college, made for students by students in 1963, available to watch on the Portal to Texas History, here — Pat Boone offers a few enthusiastic bits of narration.

And, why not, here’s a photo of journalist Bill Moyers from the 1953 North Texas yearbook.

4 Comments

November 22, 2018

The JFK Assassination and Television Firsts — 1963

Ruby shooting Oswald on live TV

by Paula Bosse

The assassination of President John F. Kennedy was not only one of the most sobering moments in American history, it was also a turning point for broadcast journalism, particularly in the way television covers breaking news.

The Kennedy assassination and the later captured-live-on-television shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby put broadcast journalists to the test as never before. News coverage was a solid days-long block — with NBC devoting almost 72 straight hours to the assassination and its aftermath. The immediacy of live television and the ability to learn of breaking-at-this-minute news was something that had never been experienced by Americans before — and something which pushed radio and television news reporting to new heights. It was reported that CBS alone used 80 newsmen to cover the story. The Nielsen ratings estimated that an unbelievable 93% of American households with televisions were tuned in to watch live coverage of the President’s funeral procession.

Perhaps the grisliest “first” of this new era of TV news was that millions of Americans watched a murder happen live as they watched from their living rooms: when Jack Ruby lunged from the phalanx of reporters gathered in the parking lot beneath the Municipal Building to shoot Lee Harvey Oswald as he was walking to an armored vehicle to be transported to the county jail, millions witnessed the shooting as it happened, stunned. NBC was the lone network to have broadcast live coverage of this unforgettable moment of 20th-century American history. The other networks followed soon after with recorded footage, but NBC got the scoop.

NBC ad in Broadcasting magazine, Dec. 2, 1963

Broadcasting — an industry trade magazine — devoted an entire 25-page “Special Report” on how television had covered — and shaped — JFK’s presidency and his assassination. Below is the article which specifically focused on the wall-to-wall broadcast news coverage, post-Nov. 22.

OSWALD SHOOTING A FIRST IN TELEVISION HISTORY

For the first time in the history of television, a real-life homicide was carried nationally on live TV when millions of NBC-TV viewers saw the Nov. 24 fatal shooting in Dallas of the man accused of assassinating President John F. Kennedy two days earlier.

Less than a minute after the shooting occurred, CBS-TV telecast the episode on tape, which was made as the homicide took place. Network executives in New York viewed the tape and officially directed that it be placed on network immediately.

The setting for the live NBC-TV coverage of the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin who died a short time later, was this: Oswald, flanked by detectives, stepped onto a garage ramp in the basement of the Dallas city jail and was taken toward an armored truck that was to take him to the county jail. Suddenly, out of the lower right corner of the TV screen, came the back of a man. A shot rang out and Oswald gasped as he started to fall, clutching his side.

UNBELIEVABLE

NBC News correspondent Tom Pettit, at the scene, exclaimed in disbelief: “He’s been shot! He’s been shot! Lee Oswald has been shot!”

The TV screen showed shock on the faces of police officers as they swarmed over the back of the assailant, Jack Ruby, a Dallas night club operator. The coverage showed Ruby hustled away by policemen and Oswald being sped to the Parkland Hospital in Dallas, the same hospital to which President Kennedy had been taken.

CBS-TV’s coverage of the sudden shooting, relayed a minute after the episode, was reported by Robert Huffaker, staff newsman of KRLD-TV Dallas, the network affiliate. Mr. Huffaker cried: “He’s been shot! Oswald’s been shot!”

ABC-TV did not have live cameras at the scene, having moved them to the Dallas county jail in preparation for Oswald’s planned arrival there. But ABC newsman Jack Lord reported the news flash of the Oswald shooting. The episode also was recorded by film cameras and was telecast subsequently on the network.

JAPAN’S KILLING

Broadcasters were certain the episode marked the first time in 15 years of global television that a homicide was telecast as it happened. It was recalled that in October 1960 Inejiro Asanuma, a Japanese political leader, was knifed on a public stage in Tokyo. Tape recordings of this incident were played back on Japanese TV stations 10 minutes later.

The capturing by TV of the Oswald homicide was one indication of the extensive, though quick, preparations by the networks for coverage of the disaster. Networks had made arrangements for quick switching to Dallas, as well as other focal points of the developing story, and were able to pick up the homicide episode once they had been alerted that Oswald was being ushered out to the garage ramp. (Broadcasting magazine, Dec 2, 1963)

Broadcasting, Dec. 2, 1963 (click to see larger image)

NBC was the only network to carry Ruby’s shooting of Oswald on live TV. The footage — as it was aired — can be watched in the video below (the Dallas footage begins at about the 5:00 mark).

KRLD, the local CBS affiliate, captured the shooting live, but it was not broadcast live. Here is the KRLD footage, helmed by Bob Huffaker (the shooting takes place near the 13:00 mark).

In 2007, Bob Huffaker, Bill Mercer, Wes Wise, and George Phenix — reporters for CBS-affiliate KRLD-TV news — recalled the blur of days on the beat following the assassination in their book When the News Went Live: Dallas 1963. Watch a panel discussion on those days, below, recorded at the Sixth Floor Museum in 2008. (I found Wise’s recollections, beginning at the 39:00 mark to be most interesting.) (RIP, Bob Huffaker, who died June 25, 2018.)

ABC came in late, with reports from affiliate WFAA-Ch. 8 (about the 7:20 mark), but their coverage was certainly no less exciting — in fact, this might be my favorite reporting by local broadcast journalists that day.

Another “first” in these days immediately following that awful day in Dallas was the very first showing of 8mm home-movie footage showing the assassination of the president. The film was shot by Dallasite Marie Muchmore, who reportedly sold the footage — sight unseen (it hadn’t even been developed) — to UPI for $1,000 (roughly about $8,000 in today’s money); the film was then shown on WNEW-TV in New York on Nov. 26. (The short footage, restored in recent years, can be watched on the Associated Press Archive site, here.)

Broadcasting, Dec. 2, 1963

***

Sources & Notes

A “Special Report” on the broadcast coverage of the Kennedy assassination and the shooting of Oswald by Ruby appeared in the Dec. 2, 1963 trade magazine Broadcasting; the issue may be read in its entirety here (pp. 36-61); the photo at the top of this post (showing Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald) is from that issue.

More Flashback Dallas posts on the Kennedy assassination can be found here.

10 Comments

Category: Dallas Radio/TV

Sources & Notes

Share this:

Sources & Notes

Share this:

Sources & Notes

Share this:

Sources & Notes

Share this:

Sources & Notes

Share this:

Sources & Notes

Share this:

Sources & Notes

Share this:

Sources & Notes

Share this:

Sources & Notes

Share this:

Sources & Notes

Share this: