Word: guested
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...surrounded by a band, singers, guest comedians, skits. But what really gives the Paar show its shape is the L formed by a scarred desk and a well-worn couch. Behind the desk, Jack is barricaded; the couch supports a "panel" of regular or irregular conversationalists. Says Paar: "The show is nothing. Just me and people talking. Historic naturalness. We don't act, we just defend ourselves...
...After a long, embarrassing interview with an English actress who was scheduled for a guest appearance, Jack comes onstage again, explains with a sour face: "She made a movie with Noel Coward, she did this, she did that. I said, 'Can you talk about these things?' She said she wanted to be a cook, a creative cook. That's not believable. A good-looking girl with a build wants to be a cook? The audience would think she was lying, that I was lying. It would destroy the naturalness of the show...
Tough Damn Job. From this moment on, Paar is assured, professional, unfaltering. During each station break, after every commercial, whenever he is off camera, he finds a moment to lean over to chat with a guest, give instructions to an assistant director, and check the time schedule. The peering cameras, the prodding teleprompters, the signaling technicians seem not to bother him; he is at home. With Jack Douglas, head writer of his show, whom he puts on as a guest from time to time, he ad libs quickly and surely. With other guests, he is gentle, humble, anxious...
...talking on a shortlived CBS radio show called Bank on the Stars. Then he moved into TV as a replacement for Arthur Godfrey, finally replaced Walter Cronkite on the Morning Show, which he quit after eleven months ("Too much pressure for me to help soften up sponsors"). After that, guest appearances with Ed Sullivan kept him going until NBC signed him up to take over the Tonight show...
...found a way of being unobtrusive in the somnolent, night-time living room, of providing just enough surprises to keep the audience from falling asleep but not so many shocks as to jolt them really wide awake. He has developed a knack for picking good guest performers, has made his show one of the prized showcases for new talent. The program can be dull and pointless but, as Paar himself says, "there's nothing like it." He adds with a wry smile, "I'm so lovable, I have a love affair with this whole continent...