Gil Stratton Jr. (June 2, 1922 – October 11, 2008) was an actor and sportscaster who was born in
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
, New York. He most recently resided in
Toluca Lake
Toluca Lake is an affluent neighborhood in the city of Los Angeles, California, located in the San Fernando Valley northwest of downtown. The name is also given to a private natural lake fed by wells and maintained by neighboring property owner ...
, California, until his death from
congestive heart failure
Heart failure (HF), also known as congestive heart failure (CHF), is a syndrome, a group of signs and symptoms caused by an impairment of the heart's blood pumping function. Symptoms typically include shortness of breath, excessive fatigue, ...
.
Early life
Stratton was born June 2, 1922, in Brooklyn, New York, and attended Poly Prep in Brooklyn. He later attended St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y., where he graduated with a bachelor's degree, and starred as goalie of the SLU hockey team.
Stage career
He first became interested in acting as a teenager. He debuted on Broadway at the age of 19 as Bud Hooper in the
George Abbott
George Francis Abbott (June 25, 1887 – January 31, 1995) was an American theatre producer, director, playwright, screenwriter, film director and producer whose career spanned eight decades.
Early years
Abbott was born in Forestville, New Yo ...
musical '' Best Foot Forward''. The musical ran from October 1, 1941 to July 4, 1942.
Film career
As a result of Stratton's appearance in ''Best Foot Forward'',
MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 a ...
Judy Garland
Judy Garland (born Frances Ethel Gumm; June 10, 1922June 22, 1969) was an American actress and singer. While critically acclaimed for many different roles throughout her career, she is widely known for playing the part of Dorothy Gale in '' The ...
, singing "Embraceable You" in a duet with Garland.
After completing ''Girl Crazy'', he had a short film hiatus due to having enlisted in the
United States Army Air Corps
The United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) was the aerial warfare service component of the United States Army between 1926 and 1941. After World War I, as early aviation became an increasingly important part of modern warfare, a philosophical r ...
upon the US entry to World War II. He later noted that he ended up spending much of his service umpiring baseball. During this time he began umpiring for the Pacific Coast League (PCL). While umpiring in the PCL he began using the line, "time to call 'em as I see 'em."
When Stratton completed his time with the Army, he returned to film, appearing in such features as ''
Stalag 17
''Stalag 17'' is a 1953 American war film which tells the story of a group of American airmen confined with 40,000 prisoners in a World War II German prisoner of war camp "somewhere on the Danube". Their compound holds 630 Sergeants representi ...
'' (1953) (as the narrator Cookie), a role in ''
The Wild One
''The Wild One'' is a 1953 American crime film directed by László Benedek and produced by Stanley Kramer. The picture is most noted for the character of Johnny Strabler, portrayed by Marlon Brando, whose persona became a cultural icon of the 1 ...
'' (1953), and '' Bundle of Joy'' (1956). He starred in a total of 40 films during his film career, sharing the big screen with other notable actors such as
Cary Grant
Cary Grant (born Archibald Alec Leach; January 18, 1904November 29, 1986) was an English-American actor. He was known for his Mid-Atlantic accent, debonair demeanor, light-hearted approach to acting, and sense of comic timing. He was one o ...
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe (; born Norma Jeane Mortenson; 1 June 1926 4 August 1962) was an American actress. Famous for playing comedic " blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and early 1960s, as wel ...
, and
William Holden
William Holden (born William Franklin Beedle Jr.; April 17, 1918 – November 12, 1981) was an American actor, and one of the biggest box-office draws of the 1950s. Holden won the Academy Award for Best Actor for the film ''Stalag 17'' (1953) ...
.
Radio/television actor
In addition to acting in several films, Stratton began working as a radio actor in the late 1940s, performing in such shows as ''
Lux Radio Theater
''Lux Radio Theatre'', sometimes spelled ''Lux Radio Theater'', a classic radio anthology series, was broadcast on the NBC Blue Network (1934–35) (owned by the National Broadcasting Company, later predecessor of American Broadcasting Company ...
'', ''
The Great Gildersleeve
''The Great Gildersleeve'' is a radio situation comedy broadcast in the United States from August 31, 1941 to 1958. Initially written by Leonard Lewis Levinson, it was one of broadcast history's earliest spin-off programs. The series was built a ...
'', and ''
My Little Margie
''My Little Margie'' is an American television situation comedy starring Gale Storm and Charles Farrell that alternated between CBS and NBC from 1952 to 1955. The series was created by Frank Fox and produced in Los Angeles, California, at Hal Ro ...
'' He worked opposite
Judy Garland
Judy Garland (born Frances Ethel Gumm; June 10, 1922June 22, 1969) was an American actress and singer. While critically acclaimed for many different roles throughout her career, she is widely known for playing the part of Dorothy Gale in '' The ...
The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer
''The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer'' (released as ''Bachelor Knight'' in the United Kingdom) is a 1947 American screwball romantic comedy-drama film directed by Irving Reis and written by Sidney Sheldon. The film stars Cary Grant, Myrna Loy, a ...
''.
In the 1954-1955 television season, Stratton starred on
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
as "Junior" Jackson in the situation comedy '' That's My Boy'' as a son pushed by his father to become a football star at their common '' alma mater''. His co-stars were
Eddie Mayehoff
Edward Mier Mayehoff (July 7, 1909 – November 12, 1992) was an American actor, perhaps best known for his role as Harold Lampson, the henpecked husband and incompetent lawyer in ''How to Murder Your Wife'' (1965). Mayehoff could also be s ...
as his father, a construction contractors in the series, and
Rochelle Hudson
Rochelle Hudson (born Rachael Elizabeth Hudson; March 6, 1916 – January 17, 1972) was an American film actress from the 1930s through the 1960s.Jack Webb's '' Dragnet''. In 1956 he was in two episodes of the
Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar
''Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar'' is a radio drama that aired on CBS Radio from February 18, 1949 to September 30, 1962.
The first several seasons imagined protagonist Johnny Dollar as a private investigator drama, with Charles Russell, Edmond O'B ...
radio drama, “The Laughing Matter” (as an ill-fated up-and-coming TV comedy actor) and “The Alder Matter” (as an insurance chief puzzled by suspicious behavior of a wealthy client).
In the 1970s and 1980s he made occasional guest appearances on many television series, usually portraying a sports announcer.
Sportscasting career
Stratton was hired by Los Angeles television station KNXT-TV (now CBS-2) in 1954 as a sportscaster and sports
news anchor
A news presenter – also known as a newsreader, newscaster (short for "news broadcaster"), anchorman or anchorwoman, news anchor or simply an anchor – is a person who presents news during a news program on TV, radio or the Internet. ...
. He spent sixteen years as sports anchor of the show ''The Big News'' during the 1960s and 1970s. This was the first hour-long news program for the region. While there, he became recognized for his signature phrase "Time to call 'em as I see 'em", which he had started saying during his years as a baseball umpire. Within a year,"The Big News" was earning a 28 percent share in the Los Angeles ratings and the show format became the standard that was copied by other local TV stations across the country. Stratton was the last-surviving member of ''The Big News'' team prior to his death.
He also served as a sportscaster for California CBS AM radio station, KNX 1070, from 1967 to 1984 and from 1986 to 1997 and for
KTTV
KTTV (channel 11) is a television station in Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West Coast flagship of the Fox network. It is owned and operated by the network's Fox Television Stations division alongside MyNetworkTV ou ...
for a time in the 70's and 80's.
While working for
CBS Sports
CBS Sports is the sports division of the American television network CBS. Its headquarters are in the CBS Building on W 52nd Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, with programs produced out of Studio 43 at the CBS Broadcast Center on W ...
in both television and radio, he covered the
1960 Summer Olympics
The 1960 Summer Olympics ( it, Giochi Olimpici estivi del 1960), officially known as the Games of the XVII Olympiad ( it, Giochi della XVII Olimpiade) and commonly known as Rome 1960 ( it, Roma 1960), were an international multi-sport event held ...
from Rome. He also covered the NFL as "the voice" of the Los Angeles Rams in the 1960s, and called
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...
games, Kentucky Derbies, and feature races from Santa Anita, Hollywood Park, and Del Mar. He also covered many other sports, such as hockey, tennis, track and field and golf.
MSNBC commentator
Keith Olbermann
Keith Theodore Olbermann (; born January 27, 1959) is an American sports and political commentator and writer.
Olbermann spent the first 20 years of his career in sports journalism. He was a sports correspondent for CNN and for local TV and r ...
worked with Stratton at both KCBS/KNXT and at KNX 1070. He said of Stratton, "There aren't many renaissance men in any age, but Gil was one of them." Stratton won five local Emmys during his television career, and was also awarded seven Golden Mike awards from the Radio-Television News Association.
Retirement and later life
Stratton first retired from TV and radio in 1984, and traveled to the Big Island of Hawaii, where he became Owner/General Manager of a small radio station, 790 AM
KKON
KKON (790 AM) was a radio station licensed to serve Kealakekua, Hawaii. The station was last owned by First Assembly King's Cathedral and Chapels.
History
KEKO/KONA
The first station to operate at 790 kHz from Kealakekua was KEKO, which w ...
, in Kealakekua, Hawaii. But being behind the desk was not for Stratton - he wanted to get behind the microphone again. Stratton sold the station to Bill Evans and returned again to KNX 1070 radio in 1986 as a weekend sports anchor. He retired again in 1997 but continued doing charity work, such as hosting many charity golf tournaments to raise funds for Henry Mayo Hospital in Santa Clarita, California. The hospital later named a newborn nursery after him in appreciation of his work. He also taught classes in broadcasting at California State University Northridge.
Stratton died on October 11, 2008 at the age of 86.