Arthur Morton Godfrey (August 31, 1903 - March 16, 1983), born in New York City, New York was an American broadcaster and entertainer.

While his family was originally well off, his mother was an unsuccessful performer, and his father a failed sportswriter who left the family. With the family in sudden poverty, Godfrey tried to help them keep going, then went on the road doing odd jobs and hoboing. He served in the United States Navy from 1920 to 1924 as radio operator, serving in that capacity on naval destroyers. Additional training in radio came during his service in the Coast Guard from 1927 to 1930. It was during his Coast Guard stint in Baltimore that he appeared on a local talent show and became popular enough to land his own brief weekly program.

Radio announcer

On leaving the Coast Guard, he became a radio announcer for Baltimore station WFBR and moved the short distance to Washington, D.C. to become a staff announcer for NBC-owned station WRC that same year and remained there until 1934. He was already an avid flyer and in 1933, nearly died following a violent car crash outside Washington that left him hospitalized for months. During that time, he decided to listen closely to the radio and realized the stiff, formal announcers could not connect with the average radio listener, as the announcers spoke as if to a crowd and not one person. Godfrey vowed that when he returned to the airwaves he would affect a relaxed, informal style as if he were talking to just one person. He also used that style to do his own commercials and became a regional star.

In addition to announcing, Godfrey sang and played the ukulele. In 1934 he became a freelance entertainer, but eventually based himself on a daily show on CBS-owned station WJSV in Washington, titled Arthur Godfrey's Sun Dial. Godfrey knew President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who listened to his Washington program, and through Roosevelt's intercession, he received a commission in the U.S. Naval Reserve during World War II. He eventually moved his base to CBS' New York City station, then known as WABC, and was heard on both WJSV and WABC for a spell. In the autumn of 1943, he also became the announcer for Fred Allen's Texaco Star Theater show on the CBS network, but a personality conflict between Godfrey and Allen led to Godfrey's early release from the show after only six weeks.

As he provided a first-hand account of Roosevelt's funeral, broadcast live over CBS in April, 1945, Godfrey broke down in tears. The entire nation was moved by his emotional outburst. This led to his joining the CBS Radio network in his own right, where he was given his own daily program, Arthur Godfrey Time, a Monday-Friday morning radio show that featured his monologues, interviews with various stars and music from his own in-house combo and regular vocalists on the show. Godfrey's monologues and discussions were all totally unscripted, and went whatever direction he chose.

Television

That program was supplemented by Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts, a program featuring rising young performers. In 1948 Arthur Godfrey Time began to be simultaneously broadcast on radio and television. The radio version ran three hours; the TV version an hour, expanded to an hour and a half. Godfrey's skills as a commercial pitchman brought him a number of loyal sponsors including Lipton Tea, Frigidaire, Pillsbury cake mixes, Chesterfield cigarettes and many more.

He found that one way to enhance his pitches was to extemporize his commercials, poking fun at the products, company executives, and the advertising agency types who wrote the scripted commercials that he regularly ignored and, if he read them at all, ridiculed them. To the surprise of the advertising agencies and sponsors, his kidding of the commercials and products frequently enhanced the sales of those products. Godfrey's popularity and ability to sell brought a windfall to CBS, accounting for a significant percentage of their corporate profits.

In 1949 Arthur Godfrey and his Friends, a weekly variety show, began on CBS TV in prime time.

His affable personality on the radio combined warmth, heart, and bits of ornery, occasional double entendre repartee, but earned him adulation from fans who felt that despite his considerable wealth, that he was really "one of them," almost a friendly next-door-neighbor type. His ability to sell products, insisting he would not promote products in which he did not personally believe, gave him a level of trust from his audience, a belief that "if Godfrey said it, it must be so." When he quit smoking after his 1953 hip surgery, he spoke out against smoking and merely shrugged off Chesterfield's departure as a regular sponsor.

Eventually he added weekend "best-of" program culled from the week's Arthur Godfrey Time, known as Arthur Godfrey Digest. He began to veer away from interviewing stars in favor of a small group of regular performers that became known as the "Little Godfreys." Many of these artists were relatively obscure, but were given colossal national exposure, some of them former Talent Scouts winners including The McGuire Sisters, the Chordettes Hawaiian vocalist Haleloke, veteran Irish Tenor Frank Parker, Marian Marlowe and Julius LaRosa, who was in the Navy when Godfrey, doing his annual Naval reserve duty, discovered the young singer and offered him a job upon his discharge.

LaRosa joined the cast in 1951 and became a favorite with Godfrey's immense audience, who also saw him on the prime-time weekly show Arthur Godfrey and his Friends. He also had a regular announcer-foil on the show: Tony Marvin. Godfrey preferred his performers not to use personal managers or agents, but often had his staff represent the artists if they were doing personal appearances.

In his own way, Godfrey was a social pioneer. One of the "Little Godfrey" acts were the Mariners, an integrated vocal group of white and African-American Coast Guard veterans. When the act appeared on his TV show and Southern CBS affiliates and racist Southern politicians complained, Godfrey was quick to respond caustically, decrying the racism and refusing to remove them from the cast.

Meanwhile, Talent Scouts performers included Lenny Bruce, Don Adams, Tony Bennett, Patsy Cline, Pat Boone, opera singer Marilyn Horne, Roy Clark, and Irish vocalist Carmel Quinn. Later, he promoted "Little Godfrey" Janette Davis to a management position as the show's talent coordinator. One notable performer who was turned down for the Talent Scouts show was Elvis Presley, while he was still a local performer in Memphis.

Aviation

Arthur Godfrey learned to fly in the 1930s while doing radio in the Washington, DC area. He was badly injured on his way to a flying lesson one afternoon in 1933 when a truck, coming the other way, lost its left front wheel and hit him head on. Godfrey spent months recuperating, and the injury would keep him from flying on active duty during WWII. He served as a reserve officer in the U.S. Navy in a public affairs role during the war.

Godfrey used his pervasive fame to advocate a strong anti-Communist stance and to pitch for enhanced strategic air power in the Cold War atmosphere, but also became a strong advocate for his middle class audience to consider vacationing in Hawaii and Miami Beach, formerly enclaves for the wealthy. He made a TV movie in 1953 taking the controls of an Eastern Airlines Constellation airliner, flying to Miami, showing how safe airline travel had become. As a reserve officer, he used his public position to cajole the Navy into qualifying him as a Naval Aviator, and played that against the Air Force, who attempted to recruit him to their service. At one time during the 1950's, Godfrey had flown every active aircraft in the military inventory at one time or another.

His continued unpaid shilling for Eastern airlines earned him the undying gratitude of good friend Eddie Rickenbacker, the WWI flying ace who was the President of the airline. He was such a good friend of the airline that Rickenbacker took a retiring DC-3, fitted it out with an executive interior and DC-4 engines, and presented it to Godfrey, who then used it to commute to the studios in New York City from his huge northwestern Leesburg, Virginia farm every Sunday night. The new DC-3 was so powerful (and noisy) the Town of Leesburg ended up moving their airport. The original Leesburg airport, which Godfrey owned and referred to affectionately as 'The Old Cow Pasture' on Godfrey's show, was less than a mile from the center of town, and residents had come to expect rattling windows and crashing dishes every Sunday evening and Friday afternoon. In 1960, Godfrey proposed building a new airport by selling the old field, and donating a portion of the sale to a local group. Since Godfrey funded the majority of the airport, it is now known as Leesburg Executive Airport at Godfrey Field. He also was known for flying a Navion, a smaller single-engined airplane, as well as a Lockheed Jetstar, and in later years a Beech Baron.

Godfrey had been in pain since the 1933 car crash which damaged his hip. In 1953, he underwent pioneering hip replacement surgery in Boston using an early plastic artificial hip joint. The operation was successful and he returned to the show to the delight of his vast audience. The network was so concerned about losing his audience that during his recovery, he broadcasted live from his Beacon Hill estate, the signal carried by microwave towers built on the property. It is believed that this was the first time that CBS conducted a 'remote' broadcast.

Behind The Scenes

But behind Godfrey's on-air warmth was a cold, controlling personality. He insisted that his "Little Godfreys" attend dance and singing classes, believing all of them should be versatile performers whether or not they possessed the aptitude for those disciplines. In staff meetings, he could be abusive and intimidating. In spite of his ability to bring in profits, CBS executives who respected Godfrey professionally were not personally fond of him since he often baited them on and off the air.

When he and LaRosa had a dispute over the singer missing mandatory dance lessons, LaRosa retained an agent and manager to renegotiate Godfrey's contract with him or, failing that, receive an outright release. Miffed, Godfrey immediately consulted with CBS President Dr. Frank Stanton. Stanton, noting that Godfrey had hired LaRosa on-air, suggested firing him on-air. On October 19, 1953, after lavishing praise on LaRosa in introducing the singer's performance of "I'll Take Manhattan", Godfrey thanked him, then announced that this was LaRosa's "swan song" with the show. LaRosa, who had to be told what the phrase "swan song" meant, was dumbfounded, since he had not been informed beforehand of his departure. Stanton later admitted the idea may have been "a mistake."

It began an era of controversy that swirled around Godfrey. LaRosa had become a hit recording artist beloved by Godfrey's fans, who saved their harsh criticism for Godfrey himself. After a press conference was held by LaRosa and his agent, Godfrey further complicated the matter by hosting a press conference of his own where he responded that LaRosa had lost his "humility." The charge, given Godfrey's sudden baring of his own ego beneath the facade of warmth, brought more mockery from the public and press.

He would fire others, including (within days of LaRosa's firing) bandleader Archie Bleyer, who'd formed his own label, Cadence Records, which recorded LaRosa. Godfrey was also angered that Bleyer had produced a spoken word record by Godfrey's Chicago counterpart Don McNeill, host of The Breakfast Club, which had been Godfrey's direct competition on the NBC Blue Network and ABC since Godfrey's days at WJSV. Despite the McNeil show's far more modest following, Godfrey was unduly offended at what he felt was disloyalty on Bleyer's part.

A significant number of other Little Godfreys, including the Mariners and Haleloke, were dismissed from 1953 to 1959. In January 1954, Godfrey buzzed the control tower of Teterboro Airport in his Douglas DC-3. His license was suspended for six months. Godfrey claimed the windy conditions that day required him to turn immediately after takeoff, but in fact he was peeved with the tower because they wouldn't give him the runway he asked for. Occasionally, he snapped at cast members on the air.

Godfrey's problems with the media and public feuds with newspaper columnists such as Jack O'Brian and newspaperman turned CBS variety show host Ed Sullivan were duly documented by the media, who began running critical expose articles on him full of scandal, linking him to several female "Little Godfreys". Two films, 1956's The Great Man, starring Jose Ferrer, who also directed and produced, and the 1957 classic A Face in the Crowd starring Andy Griffith and Patricia Neal, were reputedly inspired by Godfrey's now-controversial career. While "Face" creator Budd Schulberg maintains his story was actually inspired by Will Rogers, Sr., certain elements of the film, including its protagonist Lonesome Rhodes (Griffith) spoofing commercials were clearly Godfrey-inspired.

Recordings also mocked Godfrey's controversial side. Following the LaRosa episode, Ruth Wallis, renowned for her double-entendre tunes, recorded "Dear Mr. Godfrey," a country tune that implored him to "hire me and fire me and make a star of me." Famed satirist Stan Freberg recorded "That's Right, Arthur," a barbed spoof of Godfrey's show, depicting the star as a rambling, self-absorbed motormouth and his longtime announcer Tony Marvin as a yes-man, responding "That's right, Arthur" to every Godfrey pronouncement. Fearing legal problems, Freberg's label, Capitol Records, did not release it. The recording finally appeared on a 1990s Freberg box set.

Despite his faux pas, Godfrey still commanded a strong presence and a loyal fan base. Talent Scouts lasted until 1958.

Later in life

But in 1959, he began suffering chest pains. Closer examination by physicians revealed a mass in his chest that could possibly be lung cancer. In 1959, Godfrey left Arthur Godfrey Time and Arthur Godfrey And His Friends after revealing his illness.

Surgeons discovered cancer in one lung that spread to his aorta. One lung was removed. Yet despite the disease's high mortality, it became clear after radiation treatments that Godfrey had beaten the substantial odds against him. He returned to the air on a prime-time special, and resumed the daily Arthur Godfrey Time morning show, but only on radio, not TV. He would continue the show, reverting to guest stars such as Max Morath and Carmel Quinn, with a live combo of first-rate Manhattan musicians, until 1972 when the show ended.

Godfrey by then was a Colonel in the US Air Force Reserve and still an active pilot.

He made three movies: Four For Texas (1963), The Glass Bottom Boat (1966), and Where Angels Go...Trouble Follows (1968). He briefly co-hosted Candid Camera with creator Allen Funt and made various guest appearances.

In retirement, Godfrey wanted to find ways back onto a regular TV schedule. He appeared on the rock band Moby Grape's second album, and despite his political conservatism became a powerful environmentalist who identified with the youth culture, irreverently opposing the "establishment", as he felt he had done during his peak years. He was a master at dressage and made charity appearances at horse shows. He made commercials for the detergent Axion, only to clash with the manufacturers when he found that the product contained phosphates, implicated in water pollution. During one appearance on The Dick Cavett Show, Godfrey commented that the United States needed the supersonic transport "about as much as we need another bag of those clunkers from the Moon"; that statement is considered to have effectively ended SST interest in the U.S.A., leaving it to Britain and France. (Cavett claims today that Godfrey's statement also earned tax audits from the Richard Nixon-era Internal Revenue Service for the show's entire production staff.) Godfrey's presence ebbed considerably over the next ten years, despite an HBO special and an appearance on a Public TV salute to the 1950s.

Emphysema became a problem in the early 1980s and he died of the disease in New York City. He is buried in Leesburg, Virginia, not far from his farm.

Awards

• NBAA Meritorious Service to Aviation Award (1950)

• National Aviation Hall of Fame (1987)

• Radio Hall of Fame (1988)

• Peabody Award (1971)

• Hollywood Walk of Fame (at 1551 Vine St.)

• In 2002 Godfrey was one of only three people named on both industry publication Talkers magazine's 25 greatests radio, and 25 greatest television, talk show hosts of all time lists.