Word: cullen
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Every Wednesday night, Bill Cullen plays a parlor game in Manhattan. Then he flies to Los Angeles to play a parlor game there on Thursday nights. Then he flies back to New York to spend four hours chatting on NBC-Radio. For these jmd similar radio-TV chores, Master of Ceremonies Cullen earns about $150,000 a year. He says wonderingly: "I guess I'm the luckiest guy in the world...
...Sugar & Caustic. Fifteen years in the industry have honed Bill Cullen to the supersharpness required of a good M.C. His patter is sometimes irrelevant, but it is always fast; his smile gleams as brightly as the lens of his eyeglasses; and, whatever else may happen, he is never speechless. In making his way up to a top network job, 34-year-old Bill Cullen has closely analyzed his profession and decided that there are three kinds of masters of ceremonies: "There's the Drooler, who sugars out 'God bless you and that sort of stuff; there...
Though he aims at being the man in the middle, Cullen thinks he has not quite hit it yet: "A few years ago, I was pretty disagreeable. To avoid the drooling, I'd bite 'em. I did it too much. Groucho Marx can get away with it but me. I couldn't. I'm not that good." But if he has to choose, Cullen would rather be snide than syrupy. He has had to lick another tendency-overenthusiasm: "You know. Bert Parks and John Reed King started this routine of building up a climax and shouting...
...Cullen credits most of his good luck to a disaster that struck him at the age of 18 months. A polio attack left him with a permanent limp. Always drama-minded, Bill decided that radio "was the one place that a ham like me-and, believe me, I'm a ham-could limp and still get a job." He started as an unpaid announcer at Pittsburgh's station WWSW. Within five years, he was getting $300 a week. In 1944, he headed for New York and CBS: "But I don't kid myself. All the good announcers...
Serious & Sad. Cullen underestimated TV cameramen. On Place the Face he is continuously on his feet, but few viewers are aware of his limp. Says Cullen: "To show you how good the camera work is. I've had people stop me on the street and say, 'Hey, Bill, what happened to your leg?' like it happened . over the weekend...