Word: hartman
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...women; Rona Barrett dished up as much of the Hollywood dirt as ABC'S lawyers would let her get away with; and mixing hysteria with sensationalism in equal measure, Geraldo Rivera provided a kind of television version of the National Enquirer. Holding it all together was amiable David Hartman. Says ABC Vice President Squire Rushnell: "David Hartman is the most important single factor in the success of Good Morning America...
...Hartman is probably the most effective host of a morning show since Garroway. A New Englander-he was raised in Pawtucket, R.I.-he is married to a former TV producer and has three children. Although at 6 ft. 5 hi., he is five inches taller than Robert Young, he brings to Good Morning the same concerned but reassuring bedside manner of Marcus Welby, M.D. "We were looking for someone who could elicit information, but who is easy to take in the morning," says Good Morning's executive producer, George Merlis. "That's not a time for human sandpaper...
...Hartman's goal, and the ami of the entire show, is to ease viewers into the day. Bad news is provided almost apologetically, and there is enough good news, or at least entertaining features, to make the world seem less gloomy than it otherwise would. "Good Morning is more comfortable, more loose, more open than Today," says Shirley...
Sometimes, however, it seems that what Good Morning has done away with is not sandpaper but grit, and guests know that they will rarely be asked an embarrassing question. Talking to Ingrid Bergman about her new book, for instance, Hartman ever so delicately moved in to pop the big one: Is she cured of cancer? "Readers want to know how you are now," he said. "Thank you," she replied. "I feel very well indeed...
...start in January. Rushnell, who took over hi May 1978, brags that he cleared out nearly a third of the show's employees, the malcontents, as he calls them. "Now," he says, sounding like ABC'S commissar in charge, "the staff is 100% committed to support David Hartman and the rest of the family...