Kathi
2012-11-16 18:13:54 UTC
http://www.freep.com/article/20121116/NEWS08/121116008/Sonny-Eliot-Detroit-broadcaster-dies?odyssey=nav%7Chead
Sonny Eliot, whose radio and television career ran longer than any
other broadcaster in Detroit history, has died. He was 91.
Friend and co-worker Don Swindell says Eliot died this morning at his
Farmington Hills home after an illness.
Eliot began his career in the late 1940s, when he appeared on the
then-infant medium of television. He was the star weathercaster at
Channel 4 (then WWJ-TV) from the 1950s until the late 1970s, a
weathercaster on Channel 2 in the late 1970s and early 1980s and a
movie host on Channel 50, also in the 1980s. He rounded out his career
at WWJ-AM radio, where he served up two weathercasts each weekday at
4:18 p.m. and 5:18 p.m.
The landscape of Detroit radio and television was built around Sonny
Eliot, remarked Jim Brandstatter, the Detroit Lions football
commentator who was a longtime friend of Eliot.
Eliots persona was that of a clown. He peppered his weathercasts with
puns and could be seen roaming Detroit Tigers baseball games with a
goofy grin. He was a joke machine, churning out gags at a pace that
seemed to be one every 10 seconds. A typical one-liner: If youve
found the love of a woman, cherish her, appreciate her, enjoy her
and whatever you do, dont tell your wife about it. (The joke was
ironic because Eliot was devoted to his wife, Annette.)
One on one, however, Eliot was a serious person. He read widely,
particularly history; he spoke German and French, and could understand
Spanish, he was a captain in the Air Force Reserves.
Eliot was born Marvin Schlossberg on December 5, 1920 to Jacob and
Jenny Schlossberg. Eliot grew up near downtown Detroit and graduated
from Central High School. As a child, he fell in love with the movies
and performing. He hung out at the Warfield Theater and sat for hours
watching his brother rehearse with an area big band.
While at Wayne State University, he took a class taught by Fran
Striker, producer of the Lone Ranger. Eliot later wrote a script for
the popular radio program.
When World War II broke out, Eliot ended up as a B-24 bomber pilot. He
was shot down on a mission over Germany and taken as a prisoner of
war.
Eliot spent 18 months in a camp near Barth, Germany. He kept a
scrapbook of his experience: it included glassine envelopes of coffee
and tea from the camp; and pieces from his file, which he took from
the German commandants office after the camp was liberated by Allied
forces. His identification card had the word Juden scrawled across
the bottom indicating that his captors knew his religious heritage.
Asked how he survived, he said: I was too tough for them.
He returned home to participate in the revolutionary new medium of
television.
The first Detroit television broadcast took place on October 23, 1946,
when broadcasters and executives from the Evening News Association
beamed a signal from an attic in the Penobscot Building to an office
at the Detroit News headquarters on West Lafayette. Channel 4 went on
the air with a regular five-day-a-week schedule on June 3, 1947.
(Channels 2 and 7 would not go on the air for more than a year.)
During those first few years, I don't think anyone realized that the
giant eye in a box, sitting in the front room, would have an impact so
great that the world would never be the same again, he once wrote.
Art was being changed by technology and technology was being changed
by art. The technology of today is staggering and sensational
oftentimes unbelievable. Yesteryears TV and today is like comparing
mud to ice cream.
Flexibility was a key in early television, and Eliot could do just
about anything. He hosted Shadow Stumpers, a charades-like game show
that aired in the 1950s; he also hosted Hit a Homer, in which
contestants answered trivia questions and advanced teammates along
bases if they answered a question correctly. What the viewers might
not have known was that most of the studio audience was drunken
Detroit newspapermen who were hustled out of area bars to fill vacant
seats in the audience. He also hosted Eliots Almanac, a five-minute
program about history. But Eliot made his biggest contribution as a
weathercaster, where he was a TV news anomaly.
Most television news in the 1950s was serious stuff: jokes were few,
and personality was something reserved for entertainment-oriented
shows in the new medium. Dr. Everett Phelps, Channel 2s weatherman
during the 1950s, was more typical: A trained physicist and a tenured
professor at Wayne State University, Phelps would deliver the weather
in the manner of a lecture, using his pipe to point out highlights on
a weather map. The difference was immediately apparent to Detroit
viewers.
Eliot lightened up the Channel 4 newscast with jokes and other means:
He might wing a piece of chalk across the set at an anchorman, or make
up names for on-air colleagues. For instance, Eliot dubbed
sportscaster Don Kremer Howdy Doody because of Kremers rounded face
and reddish hair; or, he called anchorman Dean Miller sidewall
because of Millers white sideburns. Surveys showed that he was one of
the stations most popular personalities, and helped define Channel
4s image. Eliot had not started out as a humorist.
Id been doing it (the weather) for several months very straight,
very meteorologicallygiving lapse rates, temperatures, prognosis
charts, and doing all of the things youre supposed to do to make it a
serious presentation. It became kind of mundane, he once recalled in
an interview. One day, I saw I had a temperature in Las Vegas, and it
was 55 degrees there very chilly. I said, Five and five 10 the
hard way. Paul Williams, who was doing the news, started to smile. I
said to myself: Hey thats pretty good. I got a smile from Williams.
Next thing, I gave the temperature in Florida Its 82 degrees in
Florida, where businessmen lie on the beach about how much money
they make. That was the development of it, those two in the same
newscast. The fame made Eliot something of a man about town. He and
Lindell AC owner Jimmy Butsicaris were a two-man rat pack in the 1950s
and 1960s. Major League baseball players would proceed directly from
Tiger Stadium to the nearby Lindell AC after a game and spend the rest
of the evening drinking. The evening would conclude in the wee hours
sometimes daybreak at a schvitz, a bath house. Eliot seemed to know
everybody in town. His lawyer was former Detroit Mayor Jerome P.
Cavanagh.
Eliots career ran into a rocky phase in the late 1970s. His cornball
persona wasnt fitting in with Post-Newsweeks plans after the
Washington, D.C., communications company acquired Channel 4 in 1978.
Eliot went to work for Channel 2 in that same year. (Eliot later told
friends that leaving Channel 4 was the worst mistake I ever made.)
He was fired four years later. Channel 2 general manager Bill Flynn
summoned Eliot to his office minutes before a newscast and let Eliot
go, later telling a reporter that Eliot appealed mostly to older
viewers. The sacking drew an immediate negative reaction from Eliots
many fans.
He later hosted movies on Channel 50 and worked at a desk job in the
Detroit News marketing department a job he hated because of
ceaseless paperwork.
He worked well into his 80s at WWJ, giving his final forecast in
September 2010. Eliot would show up to work each weekday wearing a
suit and tieunusual in a business where casual attire is the norm.
Hed study weather data and write information in shorthand on the back
of an envelope. Maybe 30 minutes before the newscast, hed read his
work to his wife, Annette, over the telephone. Then, at 4:15 p.m. and
5:15 p.m. he would head into the studio for twice-daily weathercasts
that he would mostly ad lib, based those notes.
And, of course, the gags continued. He was a Detroit original.
Since his retirement, hed been living at his home in Farmington
Hills. So often I think younger people in radio, television and
newspapers dont appreciate or understand the great history of our
businesses and dont take the time to understand or appreciate those
that have gone before, said Brandstatter.
Said WWJ anchor Jayne Bower: Sonny was a marvel to me. He worked for
more than 60 years for the same radio station. I cant think of
another broadcaster who has done that.
However, Sonnys professional longevity was no accident. He was
immensely talented at his craft and was endlessly kind to the people
who were fortunate enough to work with him and call him a friend.
Arrangements are pending.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Video from July 1997 marking Sonny's 50 years in broadcasting (4:41)
--
Sonny also did a local show called "At the Zoo with Sonny Eliot" which
I remember from the 1970s, after we moved to Michigan. There's a small
town in Michigan's Upper Peninsula called Engadine. He'd call it
"Inka-dinka-dine."
Sonny Eliot, whose radio and television career ran longer than any
other broadcaster in Detroit history, has died. He was 91.
Friend and co-worker Don Swindell says Eliot died this morning at his
Farmington Hills home after an illness.
Eliot began his career in the late 1940s, when he appeared on the
then-infant medium of television. He was the star weathercaster at
Channel 4 (then WWJ-TV) from the 1950s until the late 1970s, a
weathercaster on Channel 2 in the late 1970s and early 1980s and a
movie host on Channel 50, also in the 1980s. He rounded out his career
at WWJ-AM radio, where he served up two weathercasts each weekday at
4:18 p.m. and 5:18 p.m.
The landscape of Detroit radio and television was built around Sonny
Eliot, remarked Jim Brandstatter, the Detroit Lions football
commentator who was a longtime friend of Eliot.
Eliots persona was that of a clown. He peppered his weathercasts with
puns and could be seen roaming Detroit Tigers baseball games with a
goofy grin. He was a joke machine, churning out gags at a pace that
seemed to be one every 10 seconds. A typical one-liner: If youve
found the love of a woman, cherish her, appreciate her, enjoy her
and whatever you do, dont tell your wife about it. (The joke was
ironic because Eliot was devoted to his wife, Annette.)
One on one, however, Eliot was a serious person. He read widely,
particularly history; he spoke German and French, and could understand
Spanish, he was a captain in the Air Force Reserves.
Eliot was born Marvin Schlossberg on December 5, 1920 to Jacob and
Jenny Schlossberg. Eliot grew up near downtown Detroit and graduated
from Central High School. As a child, he fell in love with the movies
and performing. He hung out at the Warfield Theater and sat for hours
watching his brother rehearse with an area big band.
While at Wayne State University, he took a class taught by Fran
Striker, producer of the Lone Ranger. Eliot later wrote a script for
the popular radio program.
When World War II broke out, Eliot ended up as a B-24 bomber pilot. He
was shot down on a mission over Germany and taken as a prisoner of
war.
Eliot spent 18 months in a camp near Barth, Germany. He kept a
scrapbook of his experience: it included glassine envelopes of coffee
and tea from the camp; and pieces from his file, which he took from
the German commandants office after the camp was liberated by Allied
forces. His identification card had the word Juden scrawled across
the bottom indicating that his captors knew his religious heritage.
Asked how he survived, he said: I was too tough for them.
He returned home to participate in the revolutionary new medium of
television.
The first Detroit television broadcast took place on October 23, 1946,
when broadcasters and executives from the Evening News Association
beamed a signal from an attic in the Penobscot Building to an office
at the Detroit News headquarters on West Lafayette. Channel 4 went on
the air with a regular five-day-a-week schedule on June 3, 1947.
(Channels 2 and 7 would not go on the air for more than a year.)
During those first few years, I don't think anyone realized that the
giant eye in a box, sitting in the front room, would have an impact so
great that the world would never be the same again, he once wrote.
Art was being changed by technology and technology was being changed
by art. The technology of today is staggering and sensational
oftentimes unbelievable. Yesteryears TV and today is like comparing
mud to ice cream.
Flexibility was a key in early television, and Eliot could do just
about anything. He hosted Shadow Stumpers, a charades-like game show
that aired in the 1950s; he also hosted Hit a Homer, in which
contestants answered trivia questions and advanced teammates along
bases if they answered a question correctly. What the viewers might
not have known was that most of the studio audience was drunken
Detroit newspapermen who were hustled out of area bars to fill vacant
seats in the audience. He also hosted Eliots Almanac, a five-minute
program about history. But Eliot made his biggest contribution as a
weathercaster, where he was a TV news anomaly.
Most television news in the 1950s was serious stuff: jokes were few,
and personality was something reserved for entertainment-oriented
shows in the new medium. Dr. Everett Phelps, Channel 2s weatherman
during the 1950s, was more typical: A trained physicist and a tenured
professor at Wayne State University, Phelps would deliver the weather
in the manner of a lecture, using his pipe to point out highlights on
a weather map. The difference was immediately apparent to Detroit
viewers.
Eliot lightened up the Channel 4 newscast with jokes and other means:
He might wing a piece of chalk across the set at an anchorman, or make
up names for on-air colleagues. For instance, Eliot dubbed
sportscaster Don Kremer Howdy Doody because of Kremers rounded face
and reddish hair; or, he called anchorman Dean Miller sidewall
because of Millers white sideburns. Surveys showed that he was one of
the stations most popular personalities, and helped define Channel
4s image. Eliot had not started out as a humorist.
Id been doing it (the weather) for several months very straight,
very meteorologicallygiving lapse rates, temperatures, prognosis
charts, and doing all of the things youre supposed to do to make it a
serious presentation. It became kind of mundane, he once recalled in
an interview. One day, I saw I had a temperature in Las Vegas, and it
was 55 degrees there very chilly. I said, Five and five 10 the
hard way. Paul Williams, who was doing the news, started to smile. I
said to myself: Hey thats pretty good. I got a smile from Williams.
Next thing, I gave the temperature in Florida Its 82 degrees in
Florida, where businessmen lie on the beach about how much money
they make. That was the development of it, those two in the same
newscast. The fame made Eliot something of a man about town. He and
Lindell AC owner Jimmy Butsicaris were a two-man rat pack in the 1950s
and 1960s. Major League baseball players would proceed directly from
Tiger Stadium to the nearby Lindell AC after a game and spend the rest
of the evening drinking. The evening would conclude in the wee hours
sometimes daybreak at a schvitz, a bath house. Eliot seemed to know
everybody in town. His lawyer was former Detroit Mayor Jerome P.
Cavanagh.
Eliots career ran into a rocky phase in the late 1970s. His cornball
persona wasnt fitting in with Post-Newsweeks plans after the
Washington, D.C., communications company acquired Channel 4 in 1978.
Eliot went to work for Channel 2 in that same year. (Eliot later told
friends that leaving Channel 4 was the worst mistake I ever made.)
He was fired four years later. Channel 2 general manager Bill Flynn
summoned Eliot to his office minutes before a newscast and let Eliot
go, later telling a reporter that Eliot appealed mostly to older
viewers. The sacking drew an immediate negative reaction from Eliots
many fans.
He later hosted movies on Channel 50 and worked at a desk job in the
Detroit News marketing department a job he hated because of
ceaseless paperwork.
He worked well into his 80s at WWJ, giving his final forecast in
September 2010. Eliot would show up to work each weekday wearing a
suit and tieunusual in a business where casual attire is the norm.
Hed study weather data and write information in shorthand on the back
of an envelope. Maybe 30 minutes before the newscast, hed read his
work to his wife, Annette, over the telephone. Then, at 4:15 p.m. and
5:15 p.m. he would head into the studio for twice-daily weathercasts
that he would mostly ad lib, based those notes.
And, of course, the gags continued. He was a Detroit original.
Since his retirement, hed been living at his home in Farmington
Hills. So often I think younger people in radio, television and
newspapers dont appreciate or understand the great history of our
businesses and dont take the time to understand or appreciate those
that have gone before, said Brandstatter.
Said WWJ anchor Jayne Bower: Sonny was a marvel to me. He worked for
more than 60 years for the same radio station. I cant think of
another broadcaster who has done that.
However, Sonnys professional longevity was no accident. He was
immensely talented at his craft and was endlessly kind to the people
who were fortunate enough to work with him and call him a friend.
Arrangements are pending.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Video from July 1997 marking Sonny's 50 years in broadcasting (4:41)
--
Sonny also did a local show called "At the Zoo with Sonny Eliot" which
I remember from the 1970s, after we moved to Michigan. There's a small
town in Michigan's Upper Peninsula called Engadine. He'd call it
"Inka-dinka-dine."