Dick Cavett
Richard Alva Cavett (born
November 19,
1936 in
Gibbon, Nebraska) is an American
television talk show host known for his conversational style of in-depth and often serious issues discussion.
Cavett's maternal grandfather was a
Baptist preacher originally from
Wales. Both of his parents were schoolteachers and postgraduates at
Colorado State Teachers College in
Greeley.
Cavett was raised in Gibbon and also spent part of his youth in
Grand Island and
Lincoln. His time in Grand Island coincided with the implementation of a German
prisoner-of-war camp there during
World War II.
When the family lived in Lincoln, their
garbage man was future
serial killer Charles Starkweather. Starkweather became an aquaintance of Cavett's father. When Cavett was 10, his mother died of
cancer.
In high school, Cavett was elected state president of the student council, and won two gold medals as state
gymnastics champion. (Later, during an appearance on
The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, he claimed to have been a high school gymnastics champ, and then proceeded to perform a routine on the pommel horse, showing himself to be remarkably adept at gymnastics for a man in late middle age.)
In eighth grade, Dick directed a live Saturday-morning radio show sponsored by the
Junior League, and played the title role in
The Winslow Boy. One of his classmates at
Lincoln High School was actress
Sandy Dennis.
Before leaving for college, he worked as a
caddy at the Lincoln Country Club. He also began doing
magic shows for $35 a night under the tutelage of Gene Gloye. He attended the 1952 convention of the
International Brotherhood of Magicians in
St. Louis and won Best New Performer trophy. Around the same time, he met fellow magician
Johnny Carson, eleven years his senior, who was doing a magic act at a church in Lincoln.
Cavett applied to
Yale University at the urging of
Omaha high school teacher Frank Rice, who was a friend of his parents.
He won the Louis H. Burlingham Memorial Scholarship, in return for which he worked 15 hours a week as a busboy in the
Trumbull College dining hall. Later he continued working off his scholarship at the Yale library, assisting Robert Barlow, curator of the Yale Musical Theatre collection.
He played in and directed dramas at the campus station, WYBC, and appeared in Yale Drama productions. In his senior year, he changed his major from English to drama. He had grand ambitions of getting into show business and was envious of fellow Yale students such as Bill Hinnant and
James Franciscus who already were acting professionally.
While a drama student, he always took advantage of any opportunity to meet stars, routinely going to shows in New York to hang around stage doors or venture backstage. He would go so far as to carry a copy of
Variety or an appropriate piece of company stationery in order to look inconspicuous while sneaking backstage or into a TV studio.
His distinctive voice, which had always set him apart in school, proved effective in attracting the attention of celebrities as well. He and his Yale roommate, Christopher Porterfield (later his executive producer) met
Marlene Dietrich's daughter, Maria Riva, backstage after
Tea and Sympathy at the
Shubert Theater, and Cavett convinced her to meet them at the Taft Auditorium at Yale. He also met Sir
Peter Ustinov after a reading at
YMHA Poetry Center in
Manhattan and got him to accept an invitation to come speak to the Drama School.
During his last two summers at Yale, Cavett apprenticed at
Shakespeare festivals in Oregon and
Stratford,
Connecticut. He had one line in
The Merchant of Venice, in which
Katharine Hepburn played
Portia.
Marriage
At Drama School, he met his future wife, Caroline Nye McGeoy (known professionally as
Carrie Nye), a native of
Greenwood, Mississippi. After graduation, the two of them acted in summer theater in
Williamstown,
Massachusetts, and he worked for two weeks in a local lumberyard in order to buy an engagement ring. Four years later, on
June 4,
1964, they were married in New York, at which time Carrie Cavett was already playing a leading role in
The Trojan Women off-Broadway. Their marriage was at times tumultuous, and they separated for a time, but they remained married until her death
July 14,
2006.
In 1960, Cavett was living in a three-room, fifth-floor walk-up on West 89th Street in Manhattan for $51 a month.
He auditioned for and got a role in a film made by the
Signal Corps, but further jobs were not forthcoming. He was an extra on
The Phil Silvers Show, a TV remake of
Body and Soul, and
Playhouse 90 ("The Hiding Place"). In an attempt to remain visible, he briefly revived his magic act while working as a typist and for a company that had him pose as a customer in department stores and review the service he received. Meanwhile, Nye landed several plum
Broadway roles.
Cavett was a copyboy (
gofer) at
Time magazine when he read a newspaper item about
Jack Paar, then host of
The Tonight Show. The article described Paar's concerns about his opening monologue and constant search for material. Cavett wrote some jokes, put them into a
Time envelope, and went to the
RCA Building. From hanging around the
Tonight Show before, he knew which floor Paar's dressing room was on. Paar appeared in the corridor and noticed the
Time envelope, and Cavett offered it. Cavett then went to sit in the studio audience. Sure enough, during the show Paar worked in some of the lines Cavett had fed him. Afterward, Cavett got into an elevator with Paar, who invited him to contribute more jokes.
Within weeks, Cavett was hired, originally as
talent coordinator (interviewing potential guests, booking guests, and again interviewing booked guests to prepare questions). Some of the guests he screened were of the opinion that he himself should appear on the show. This finally happened when
Miss Universe of 1961,
Marlene Schmidt of
Germany, was a guest, and Paar brought Cavett out on stage to interpret her conversation.
While at
Time, Cavett had written a letter to
Stan Laurel. The two later met at Laurel's apartment in
Hollywood. Later the same day, Cavett wrote a tribute that Paar read on the show, which Laurel saw and appreciated. Cavett visited Laurel a few more times, up to three weeks before Laurel's death.
In his capacity as talent coordinator, Cavett was sent to the Blue Angel nightclub to see
Woody Allen's act, and immediately afterward struck up a friendship. The very next day (early in June, 1961), the funeral of playwright
George S. Kaufman was held. Allen could not attend, but Cavett did. From the funeral, Cavett followed
Groucho Marx (who later told Cavett that Kaufman was "his personal god") three blocks up Fifth Avenue to the
Plaza Hotel, where Marx invited him to lunch, thereby beginning one of Cavett's most treasured associations. Cavett was Marx's presenter for Marx's one-man show at Carnegie Hall, and began by saying, "I can't believe that
I know Groucho Marx."
Cavett continued with
The Tonight Show as a writer after
Johnny Carson took over. For Carson he wrote the line, "Having your taste criticized by
Dorothy Kilgallen is like having your clothes criticized by
Emmett Kelly." Nevertheless, he did not feel the same closeness as with Paar, despite having met Carson years earlier. He even appeared to do a
gymnastics routine (he was state champ in
high school) on the
pommel horse on the show. After quitting, Cavett was a writer for
Jerry Lewis's ill-fated talk show, for three times the money. He returned to writing, however, when Marx was interim host for Carson in July 1964.
Cavett then began a brief career as a
stand-up comic in 1964 at the Bitter End in
Greenwich Village, inauspiciously. His manager was Jack Rollins, who later would become famous as the producer of Woody Allen's films. Nightclubs in general were in a downturn at the time.
Drunken female heckler: I pay your salary, buddy, with my hard-earned money.
Cavett: And I'm tempted to guess at your
profession.
His most famous line from this particular career was most likely this one:
He also played Mr. Kelly's in
Chicago and the
Hungry i in
San Francisco, during which latter time he met
Lenny Bruce, about whom Cavett said:
In 1965, Cavett did some commercial voiceovers, including a series of mock interviews with
Mel Brooks for Ballantine beer. In the next couple of years he appeared on game shows, including
What's My Line: I have a feeling the mystery guest is trying to figure out who I am. He wrote for
Merv Griffin and appeared on Griffin's talk show several times, and then on
The Ed Sullivan Show.
In 1968, after the premiere of the international film
Candy, Cavett went to a party at the Americana Hotel, where those who had just seen the film were being interviewed for TV.
The exchange was cut from the broadcast.
After doing
The Star and the Story, a rejected
television pilot with
Van Johnson, Cavett hosted a special,
Where It's At, for
Bud Yorkin and
Norman Lear; it received good reviews and led to the morning version of
The Dick Cavett Show.
Intermittently since 1969, Cavett has been host of his own talk show, in various formats and on various television and radio networks:
*
ABC (1969–1974)
*
CBS (1975)
*
PBS (1977–1982)
*
USA (1985–1986)
*ABC (1986–1987)
*
CNBC (1989–1996)
*(Olympia Broadcasting)The Comedy Show with Dick Cavett / syndicated radio show (1986-1990)
His show often featured controversial interviews (including the famous one with
John Kerry in June 1971) on taboo subjects that most other talk show hosts avoid. His most well remembered talk-show is most likely his program on ABC that ran from 1969 - 1974. As with every other talkshow in this timeslot from 1962 - 1992, it was crushed in the ratings by
The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. It has since obtained classic status, and beginning in
2005, a series of box sets featuring interiews with rock stars and comic legends have been released.
He has been nominated for eleven
Emmy Awards and has won three. Clips from his TV shows have been used in movies, as in
Forrest Gump and
Frequency (
2000).
* He appeared as himself in various other TV shows, including episodes of
The Odd Couple,
Cheers,
Kate & Allie, and (in animated form)
The Simpsons; and in the film
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (
1987). In
Beetlejuice, he played a rare bit part as a character other than himself.
*One scene in
Annie Hall is made to look like a clip from one of Woody Allen's appearances on his show, but in fact was newly filmed for the movie.
* Cavett was the narrator (on camera and off) for the
HBO series
Time Was which was a documentary series which spawned a thorough look back at respective decades of the 20th century, ranging from
The 1920's to
The 1970's. The show ran for six weeks (each episode solely pertaining to specific decade and running about an hour) and originally aired in
1979.
* Cavett made appearances as a celebrity player on the network and syndicated game show
Pyramid, from time to time during its 1970's and 1980's incarnations.
* From
November 15,
2000 to
January 6,
2002, he played the narrator in a Broadway revival of
The Rocky Horror Show, to the delight of both his fans and those of the show.
* Cavett has remained a popular guest on the talk-show circuit, hitting the stage to his longtime theme song, a trumpet version of the wordless
vocalise "Glitter and Be Gay" from
Leonard Bernstein's score for
Voltaire's
Candide. The tune was used at the midpoint of his ABC late-night show and became his signature introduction during the years the Cavett show aired on PBS.
Cavett is referred to as a "smart ass New York Jew" in the
Randy Newman song "Rednecks," in which the song's Southern narrator angrily responds to a
December 18,
1970 episode of
The Dick Cavett Show that featured
Georgia governor
Lester Maddox as the object of ridicule. The joke is that the narrator assumes Cavett is Jewish just because he is on television.
He has openly discussed his bouts with
clinical depression in recent years, an illness he has had to deal with since his freshman year at Yale. He was the subject of a
1993 video produced by the
Depression and Related Affective Disorders Association called
A Patient's Perspective. He was sued in
1997 by a producer for
breach of contract when failing to show up for a nationally syndicated radio program (also called
The Dick Cavett Show); Cavett's lawyer confirmed to the
Associated Press at the time that Cavett left due to a
manic-depressive episode. For others similarly affected by this illness, see
this list.
Cavett underwent
electroconvulsive therapy to treat his clinical depression. In 1992 he wrote in
People,
"In my case, ECT was miraculous. My wife was dubious, but when she came into my room afterward, I sat up and said, `Look who's back among the living.' It was like a magic wand."* As a result of his Nebraska upbringing, Cavett has had a strong affinity for the culture of the
Sioux and other native tribes of the
Great Plains and has owned many artifacts. This interest ultimately would lead to his TV interview with Dr.
John Neihardt.
Cavett by Dick Cavett and Christopher Porterfield, Bantam Books, August 1974. ISBN 0151161305
