Trivia

Recipient: Television Academy award for distinguished service, 1958; Television Academy's Emmy Award, 1959; two TV Digest Awards, 1960; Producers Guild Award, 1962; Fame Award, 1967; TV Academy's Salute Award, 1972.

Joining the TV medium in 1947, in the early 1960s, he was credited with helping erode stereotyping of African-Americans on television by distributing a memorandum calling for producers to cast African-Americans in a greater variety of roles.

Educated at Phillips Exeter Academy, graduating in 1923 and Brown University in 1927, his autobiography was entitled "As It Happened."

His broadcasting career began in 1930 when he became the first head of the new radio department at the advertising agency Young & Rubicam. During the late 1930s and early 1940s, Young & Rubicam became an important radio program provider, simultaneously producing The Jack Benny Show, Fred Allen's Town Hall Tonight, and The Kate Smith Hour, among others.

Was active in American broadcasting as a writer, producer, and network programming executive for over 40 years, and was notable as the CBS executive who championed the 1950s anthology drama "Playhouse 90"; his efforts to develop high-quality programming was self-described as "mass with class."

Ex-brother-in-law of Barbara Whiting.