Robert Saudek (April 11, 1911 – March 13, 1997) was an American TV producer and executive, son of flutist and conductor Victor Saudek (1879–1966).
Career
A director and later a vice-president at the
ABC Television Network
The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) is an American commercial broadcast television network. It is the flagship property of the ABC Entertainment Group division of The Walt Disney Company. The network is headquartered in Burbank, Califor ...
in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Saudek is best remembered for creating the arts and culture
variety television
Variety show, also known as variety arts or variety entertainment, is entertainment made up of a variety of acts including musical performances, sketch comedy, magic, acrobatics, juggling, and ventriloquism. It is normally introduced by a comp ...
show ''
Omnibus'' at the behest of the
Ford Foundation
The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a US$25,000 gift from Edsel Ford. By 1947, after the death ...
. Saudek sought to bring uplifting entertainment to American television audiences by bringing them the best actors, musicians, scientists, authors, comedians, and cultural figures.
Saudek also produced other cultural television programming, including ''
Profiles in Courage
''Profiles in Courage'' is a 1956 volume of short biographies describing acts of bravery and integrity by eight United States Senators. The book profiles senators who defied the opinions of their party and constituents to do what they felt was ...
''.
Saudek's Harvard College roommate for all four years was James Agee, who wrote A Lincoln Portrait and other Omnibus scripts. Saudek hired Alistair Cooke to emcee the show. Among the artists appearing were Leonard Bernstein (seven shows), John F. Kennedy, Joseph Welch, Paul Robeson, James Dean, Orson Welles, Marion Anderson, Sugar Ray Robinson, Mickey Mantle, Frank Lloyd Wright, Nichols and May, Gene Kelly, Glen Gould, Igor Stravinsky and Agnes DeMille.
Over the course of his career, he was awarded eleven
Emmys
The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...
and seven
Peabodys
The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Peabody, honor the most powerful, enlightening, and invigorating stories in television, radio, and ...
.
He served on the Carnegie Commission, which worked to establish both
PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...
and the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is an American publicly funded non-profit corporation, created in 1967 to promote and help support public broadcasting. The corporation's mission is to ensure universal access to non-commercial, ...
.
Saudek founded the Museum of Broadcasting (now known as the
Paley Center for Media
The Paley Center for Media, formerly the Museum of Television & Radio (MT&R) and the Museum of Broadcasting, founded in 1975 by William S. Paley, is an American cultural institution in New York with a branch office in Los Angeles, dedicated to ...
) and later headed the
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...
's
motion picture division.
See also
*''
Dow Hour of Great Mysteries
''The Dow Hour of Great Mysteries'', was a series of seven television specials from March to November 1960, hosted by Joseph Nye Welch on NBC Television, and sponsored by Dow Chemical. Welch died on October 6, 1960, bringing the series to an end ...
''
References
Further reading
*Jim Robertson, ''Televisionaries In Their Own Words: Public Television's Founders Tell How it All Began'' (Charlotte Harbor, Fla.: Tabby House Books, 1993)
*Omnibus: ''Television's Golden Age, 100 minutes'', Washington D.C.: New River Media (produced for PBS), 1999, videocassette
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saudek, Robert
1911 births
1997 deaths
American television executives
Businesspeople from Pittsburgh
20th-century American businesspeople