Gene Rayburn(1917-1999)
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Gene Rayburn was born on December 22, 1917, in Christopher, Illinois.
After his father died at a very young age, his mother moved to Chicago
and married Milan Rubessa, and Gene adopted his stepfather's name. As
Gene Rubessa, he acted in high school plays and hoped to follow an
acting career. He moved to New York City in the 1930s where he was a
page for NBC, later working as an usher for the NBC symphony orchestra.
Before World War Two, he went to announcers school and worked with
various radio personalities around New York City. He married Helen
Tricknor, in 1940, with whom he had one child, Lynn, in 1942. Soon
afterwards, he was called to Military Service and joined the U.S. Air
Corps. After the war, Gene worked on the "Rayburn and Finch Show" and,
later, the "Gene Rayburn Show" in the early fifties. During the 50s,
Rayburn was instrumental in highlighting corruption on radio, by
playing an older song so many times that it became a hit. This was
alleged to have proved that record promoters could pay DJs to play
records on stations for bribes, making the songs very popular,
albeit for a price. His breakthrough came in the mid-50s as the
announcer on The Tonight Show (1953), with
Steve Allen. Rayburn and Allen were
associated on The Tonight Show (1953) Show
for three years and Rayburn became a household name for many years
after that. In 1955, he hosted his first game show called
The Sky's the Limit (1954).
Subsequent game shows included
The Match Game (1962),
Make the Connection (1955),
Musical Chairs (1954),
Play Your Hunch (1958),
Tic Tac Dough (1956) and
Dough Re Mi (1958). He always
flew by jet from his home in Massachusetts to host his various shows.
Rayburn was also a Broadway performer, and appeared in plays such as "Bye, Bye Birdie"-
Charles Nelson Reilly was his
understudy. He also had a small part in the movie,
It Happened to Jane (1959).
