Richard Alva Cavett (born November 19, 1936) is an American television talk show host known for his conversational style of in-depth and often serious issues discussion.

Besides his birthplace of Gibbon, Nebraska, Cavett also spent parts of his youth in Grand Island (during World War II when a German prison camp was located there) and Lincoln. His maternal grandfather was a Baptist preacher originally from Wales. Both of his parents were schoolteachers and postgraduates at Colorado State Teachers College in Greeley.

When the family lived in Lincoln, their garbage man was future serial killer Charles Starkweather, whom Dick's father got to know. When Dick was 10, his mother died of cancer.

In eighth grade, Dick directed a live Saturday-morning radio show sponsored by the Junior League. He was elected state president of the student council, won two gold medals as state gymnastics champion, and played the title role in The Winslow Boy. One of his classmates at Lincoln High School was actress Sandy Dennis.

While on an appearance of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, he claimed to have been high school gymnastics champ and then proceeded to perform a remarkable routine on the pommel horse for a man in late middle age.

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.

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.

Yale

Cavett applied to Yale University only because of the urging of an Omaha high school teacher, Frank Rice, 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.

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.

The Tonight Show

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. His Yale education would have been a meal ticket if he were going into law or finance, but for show business it was a disadvantage if anything. 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, Carrie Nye was landing 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.

Stand-up comic

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.

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)

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.

Later experiences

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 1980's incarnation.

From November 15, 2000 to January 6, 2002, he played the narrator in a Broadway revival of The Rocky Horror Picture 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.

Bouts with depression

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."

Marriage

His marriage to Carrie Nye has been rocky and the two have separated in the past. However as of 2006 they remain legally married. They have no children, but they do have some pets.