Gotta smoke that cigarette !!!

[bk77]

OK, maybe this could be an urban legend but over the years I have heard that back in the 50s and 60s, even well into the 70s many radio stations actually required that their announcers smoke cigarettes to get that deep radio voice. Is there any truth to that?

I do know that in the many of pics of radio studios and/or disc jockies from back then taken in small markets and major ones that I have seen, an astray and a pack of smokes in the studio were as common as the mic was. I also have met a number of past and present announcers who have told me they would have never taken up the habit had they not gotten in radio. But still to have a PD or GM back then, even when smoking was the "in" thing to do to say "...you need to smoke Winstons" just seems a bit too much to me.

I guess there are those who still believe cigarettes and radio go together like bread and butter. A friend of mine who works at a station in the midwest, he is a health nut. Runs several miles everyday and works out at the gym and even avoids meat. BUT..he smokes 2 packs of Marlboro Lights a day. I asked him about that and his response was "..hey I do it ( smoking Marlboro Lights ) for radio !!".

 

[Cincinnati Kid]

I've never heard this. To me, someone who makes his living with his voice, doesn't need to irritate his throast, nose, sinus, etc. with cigarette smoke; to say nothing of what it does to the heart. Of course, just look at advertising of the 40's, 50's and into the 60's that encourages smoking as "the thing to do" and noting, particularly in later years, how safe a particular brand is. Supposedly, the smoke soothed your voice and relaxed you.

I have heard that singer Nat "King" Cole said he liked smoking because it made his voice sound better. Of course, he died of lung cancer at the age of 45.

 

[Tom Wells]

I know they change my voice. Deeper and more gravel-y.
This makes it harder to sing along when it's time to hit the high notes.

But DJs weren't hired to sing, so it sounded pretty good going from Frankie Valli to "Bob Rumble".

 

[mleach]

Years ago when I was working at a country music station in Virginia I remember having a conversation with our then-new GM about the glory days of Buffalo's WKBW. He worked at WKBW for a time back in the late 60s/early 70s. He was telling me that it was WKBW that made him begin a 20+ year 2-3 pack a day smoking habit. He was even telling me that not only did some of the tobacco companies supplied many of the djs there with free smokes ( WKBW with its 50,000 watts back then was a huge outlet for cigarette spots ) but for a while WKBW's own mascot was a Buffalo that smoked cigarettes.

With that being said, I bet if one took a trip back into time and visited all of those famous music stations from the past ( KHJ, WABC, WPGC, WRKO, KIMN, CHUM and so forth ) I bet a trip inside their studios would really be like a trip to Marlboro country.

And sadly it comes as no surprise that many of those great jocks from the past have since died from cancer or heart attcks.

 

[Ultimajock]

...as Larry Lujack once said on WCFL, "Any fool can quit smoking, it takes a REAL man to stand up to lung cancer!" ;-) ...

 

[rickradio]

It would have been interesting to see how long Don Sherwood would have lived had he not taken up smoking. Before emphysema got him at the relatively young age of 57 in the Fall of '83, he was not only a heavy smoker, but according to a good friend of mine who worked with Sherwood in the Golden West era at KSFO, he was so addicted to it apparently that he would shut off his oxygen tank to light up yet another Pall Mall, and had to be driven to his home a mere 5 blocks away because he didn't have the lung capacity to walk it.

Robert W. Morgan and the Real Don Steele are two more examples of this, albeit not quite so extreme. I read somewhere that Steele quit in '79, but sadly, only lived to 60. Morgan, when diagnosed with some sort of respiratory ailment (don't remember what it was), reportedly joked in true Morgan style that the "2 packs a day for 35 years" probably had something to do with it.

Then of course, who could forget Edward R. Murrow, who, like so many others of his day (Mike Wallace being another), smoked while on-camera when at CBS-TV?

...as Larry Lujack once said on WCFL, "Any fool can quit smoking, it takes a REAL man to stand up to lung cancer!" ;-) ...

Does Lujack have lung cancer? Or was that just something he said?

 

[Radioman100]

I'm guessing this wasn't required by management as much as it was suggested the way it was suggested to me. When I was a baby DJ in the early 90s, I was really fascinated with production and imaging. The resident production God in my hometown worked at my first station and he had monster pipes. He told me his secret was cigarettes and whiskey.

I never took up either habit and I've done just fine without them, though with as much second hand smoke as I've inhaled being friends with smokers all these years, I wonder if I might as well have.

I'm glad most studios are non-smoking these days. When I was doing overnights at that first station, I decided to do something nobody else had apparently done in a while - clean the board. I practically scraped gooey yellow tar off that thing. It was gross.

 

[Marco53]

Oh Jeez...that forces me to look at what some may consider ancient history. When I first started in radio back in the early 70s, my first fulltime gig was as the morning news person on a small FM station. That required me to get up at 4 AM six days a week, drive 25 miles to the station, collectm edit and write the morning news and be on the air at 6 AM.

Getting my body (and mind) to function at that ungodly hour required packs of cigarettes and gallons of coffee. It was a very much needed nicotine and caffiene kick. The big gold glass ashtray in the main studio was as much a part of the studio as the board. The first thing I did when I arrived at the station was make a huge pot of coffee and consume it with copious amounts of cigarettes. Everybody who worked there smoked.

Smoking didn't improve my voice one iota, it served it's purpose by giving me the needed morning kick start. Now I'm hooked...

I really think 30 years ago, smoking was part of the radio personna.

 

[davect]

Never forced to smoke them, but even in the early 80's when I started we'd spark 'em up in the studios. Anywhere in the building for that matter. Even while changing tapes on the FM automation! The engineer was not fond of the ashes inside the equipment.

 

[Ultimajock]

...as Larry Lujack once said on WCFL, "Any fool can quit smoking, it takes a REAL man to stand up to lung cancer!" ;-) ...

Does Lujack have lung cancer? Or was that just something he said?

...just something he said, although he has since had some major heart problems and quit smoking a couple of decades back or so...

 

[pqgeorge]

...as Larry Lujack once said on WCFL, "Any fool can quit smoking, it takes a REAL man to stand up to lung cancer!" ;-) ...

Does Lujack have lung cancer? Or was that just something he said?

No, Larry does not have lung cancer and I'm sure what he said was tongue-in-cheek, as only Larry Lujack can do. Apparently Uncle Lar did quit smoking cigarettes a long time ago. Good thing he did. He wound up undergoing open-heart (bypass) surgery several years ago. He's apparently doing quite well today. He's truly a Chicago radio legend, and a legend beyond Chicagoland as well. I've been a big Lujack fan for nearly 40 years.

 

[LKellerIII]

"To me, someone who makes his living with his voice, doesn't need to irritate his throat, nose, sinus, etc. with cigarette smoke; to say nothing of what it does to the heart."

Even though cigarettes were known as "coffin nails" as far back as the 1800s, many people lived in denial. I think it is true that some people thought smoking made the voice deeper or fuller. In variety shows in the 60s and early 70s, most pop music singers of my parent's generation (Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin) smoked constantly, and would hold a cigarette while singing, and puff away during the instrumental parts of the songs.

 

[amfmsw]

While, as Bob & Tom would sing "Smoking In Front Of The Building", a young jock asked me the vERY same question.

I told him back in the day, ashtrays were built into the consoles, right by the mic key. Wind screens were washed out to rinse off the nicotine. I worked with a Gates Solid Satesman Presidential console that had a selector removed, and a coat hangar soldered internally, was fed through the slot and shaped to hold the ashtry.

I once asked my dad while watching Jack Parr, why do the comedians always smoke? He said it was their "timer". A singer knows to get off stage after the song is done. A comedian will go on forever, so when the cigarette was burned down, "times up".

 

[amfmsw]

Oh..and yes, a night of hard drinking and heavy smoking WILL lower your voice an octave. Your throat hurts so bad, you're forced to use your diaphram...the way you shold be doing it. Just stand straight and push the air from your bell instead of chest for the same results. DON"T SIT while on the air if you want a deep voice.

 

[LKellerIII]

"DON'T SIT while on the air, if you want a deep voice."

George Putnam, the famous basso-profundo voiced Los Angeles news anchor of the 50s and 60s (and the inspiration for the Ted Baxter character on Mary Tyler Moore) always stood on the news set, and it was said that this was the reason why. His presentation was a very dramatic, and seriously on the pompous side. He was said to have one of the best voices in broadcasting.

 

[Julius Leonard Marx]

"DON'T SIT while on the air, if you want a deep voice."

George Putnam, the famous basso-profundo voiced Los Angeles news anchor of the 50s and 60s (and the inspiration for the Ted Baxter character on Mary Tyler Moore) always stood on the news set, and it was said that this was the reason why. His presentation was a very dramatic, and seriously on the pompous side. He was said to have one of the best voices in broadcasting.

Ted Knight (Ted Baxter) mimicked Putnam's deliver. His appearance and mannerisms came from Jerry Dunphy.

Putnam is still around, doing a two-hour call-in show which is streamed on CRN1 12-2pm PT (repeated 12-2am).
http://www.crni.net/default.aspx.

Paul Harvey wears suspenders to help him breathe without restriction (but he does sit).

 

[LKellerIII]

"Ted Knight (Ted Baxter) mimicked Putnam's deliver. His appearance and mannerisms came from Jerry Dunphy."

I beg to differ. When the Mary Tyler Moore show premiered, the producers played it cleverly, and claimed Baxter was a compilation of LA newscasters. But Ted Knight's delivery and the mannerisms were all pompous Putnam. Jerry Dunphy was never pompous. In an interview I saw in the 70s, MTM herself said Ted Baxter was based on Putnam. I think the Dunphy speculation started because George had dark hair, while Ted Knight had white hair like Dunphy. I remember that KABC's anchorman during that era (and later LA county Supervisor) was named Baxter Ward, so you could speculate about that too, I guess.

"Putnam is still around, doing a two-hour call-in show which is streamed on CRN1 12-2pm PT (repeated "12-2am).http://www.crni.net/default.aspx."

Yes, I've heard the stream of his show online. He speaks very slowly and his voice is now very weak - not surprising since he's 93.

"Paul Harvey wears suspenders to help him breathe without restriction (but he does sit)."

Paul Harvey always had a strong voice, but not that deep. I notice he often sounds hoarse these days - again not surprising since he's about Putnam's age,

 

[KeithE4]

OK, maybe this could be an urban legend but over the years I have heard that back in the 50s and 60s, even well into the 70s many radio stations actually required that their announcers smoke cigarettes to get that deep radio voice. Is there any truth to that?

I don't know about that era, but back in the "Old-Time Radio" days, when many if not most shows were sponsored by tobacco companies, the sponsors did require the cast and crew to have a pack of their cancer-sticks on their possession while doing the show.

One late-'40s-era story that was attributed to Mel Blanc was that he was chastised by the Lucky Strike sponsor-nazi for not having a pack of Luckys on his person while doing the Jack Benny show (officially known as The Lucky Strike Program). He had a pack of another Lucky Strike-owned brand instead, but that wasn't good enough. I believe the story came from either Blanc's or Benny's autobiography (I have both books, but not on me at the moment so I can't quote it exactly).

Those sponsor-nazis were there on every show that their company sponsored and from what I've heard, were extremely anal about making sure that everyone on their show had a pack of their smokes. And only their smokes.

 

[Julius Leonard Marx]

OK, maybe this could be an urban legend but over the years I have heard that back in the 50s and 60s, even well into the 70s many radio stations actually required that their announcers smoke cigarettes to get that deep radio voice. Is there any truth to that?

I don't know about that era, but back in the "Old-Time Radio" days, when many if not most shows were sponsored by tobacco companies, the sponsors did require the cast and crew to have a pack of their cancer-sticks on their possession while doing the show.

One late-'40s-era story that was attributed to Mel Blanc was that he was chastised by the Lucky Strike sponsor-nazi for not having a pack of Luckys on his person while doing the Jack Benny show (officially known as The Lucky Strike Program). He had a pack of another Lucky Strike-owned brand instead, but that wasn't good enough. I believe the story came from either Blanc's or Benny's autobiography (I have both books, but not on me at the moment so I can't quote it exactly).

Those sponsor-nazis were there on every show that their company sponsored and from what I've heard, were extremely anal about making sure that everyone on their show had a pack of their smokes. And only their smokes.

It's amazing during these old shows how much they work cigarettes into the plot. On Dragnet (sponsored by Fatima, then Chesterfields), no matter how horrible the crime, they get the perp in the box and the first thing he does (no, not ask for a lawyer) is bum a cigarette from the cops, who are always happy to oblige. On the street, Friday and his various partners are always taking time out to share a smoke.

On I Love Lucy, the cast, especially Desi, are always making a point of smoking on camera.

On the "Camel News Caravan" (now the NBC Nightly News), the sponsor would not allow shots of newsmakers smoking cigars or pipes (an exception was made only for Winston Churchill).

 

[Tom Wells]

I love the story about how W.C. Fields used to torment his sponsor by mentioning his nephew, Chester.