Sydney Cassyd (December 28, 1908 – February 4, 2000) was the founder of the

Academy of Television Arts & Sciences The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS), also colloquially known as the Television Academy, is a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of the television industry in the United States. It is a 501(c)(6) non-prof ...

in 1946.

Biography

Born in

Teaneck, New Jersey Teaneck () is a Township (New Jersey), township in Bergen County, New Jersey, Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is a bedroom community in the New York metropolitan area. As of the 2010 United States census, 2010 U.S. census, th ...

, Cassyd worked for the Army Signal Corps as a film editor under then-Col.

Frank Capra Frank Russell Capra (born Francesco Rosario Capra; May 18, 1897 – September 3, 1991) was an Italian-born American film director, producer and writer who became the creative force behind some of the major award-winning films of the 1930s ...

during World War II. After the war, Cassyd moved to Hollywood, where he worked as an editor for ''

Box Office A box office or ticket office is a place where ticket (admission), tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through a hole in a wall or window, or at a Wicket gate, wicke ...

'' magazine, as well as a grip at

Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...

. It was at Paramount that he met and teamed up with TV groundbreaker

Klaus Landsberg Klaus Landsberg (July 7, 1916 – September 16, 1956) was a pioneering German-American electrical engineer who made history with early telecasts, and after emigrating to the United States helped pave the way for today's television networks. He ...

, known for, among other things, pioneering live TV news coverage. Cassyd and Landsberg worked on an experimental Los Angeles television station that would eventually become

KTLA KTLA (channel 5) is a television station in Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West Coast flagship of The CW. It is the largest directly owned property of the network's majority owner, Nexstar Media Group, and is the seco ...

-TV Channel 5. While at KTLA, Cassyd felt that TV needed an organization in which people could share their ideas about the fledgling medium and talk about the future of the industry. He founded the academy with seven people who came to the first meeting. By the fifth meeting, there were 250 members. Cassyd founded the

in 1946, which has grown into one of the most influential organizations in the entertainment industry. In addition to sponsoring the annual Emmy Awards, which recognize outstanding entertainment and news achievement in television, the academy has a variety of outreach and archival programs. Cassyd became the fourth president of the academy in 1950 and over the years held various other positions. In 1991, the academy's board of governors created the Syd Cassyd Founder's Award in his honor and presented the first to him. Cassyd died at his home in Los Angeles, at the age of 91.

Awards and honors

In 1996, Cassyd received a star on the

Hollywood Walk of Fame The Hollywood Walk of Fame is a historic landmark which consists of more than 2,700 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along 15 blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, Californ ...

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cassyd, Syd 1908 births 2000 deaths American nonprofit executives American founders 20th-century American businesspeople People from Teaneck, New Jersey