Herbert H. Maxwell(1925-1977)

Herbert "Bert" Maxwell was one of the pioneer sound men with NBC Television. He He enlisted in the Navy during WWII and served on a special Radar Project which blocked German aircraft. After the war Bert went to work as an audio engineer for RCA Radio, in New York City, which owned WNBC-TV at that time. He worked for both WNBC Radio and NBC-TV at the same time, as most people did back then. Most of the television programs were broadcast live back then. Bert did the sound for the original Tonight Show with Steve Allen and then Johnny Carson. He worked on the original Today Show and then with NBC Evening News. He worked on special programs such as the Howdy Doody Show, made for TV movies such as The Littlest Angel and did the audio sound track for Victory at Sea. He did the pooled sound for television broadcasts for the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo moon missions at Cape Canaveral. He was the audio man on the ground for NBC News & Sports. He had a heart attack while doing the sound for the inauguration of President Jimmy Carter. He finished the broadcast then went to the hospital and died.