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Art Linkletter
Linkletter accepts the National Humanities Medal at the White House in 2003.
Born	Gordon Arthur Kelly (1912-07-17)July 17, 1912 Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada
Died	May 26, 2010(2010-05-26) (aged 97) Los Angeles, California
Occupation	Radio/television personality
Years active	1933–2010
Spouse	Lois Foerster (m.1935-2010; his death)
Children	Jack Linkletter, Dawn, Robert, Sharon and Diane Linkletter,
Signature

Arthur Gordon "Art" Linkletter (July 17, 1912 – May 26, 2010) was a Canadian-born American radio and television personality. He was the host of House Party, which ran on CBS radio and television for 25 years, and People Are Funny, on NBC radio-TV for 19 years. Linkletter was famous for interviewing children on House Party and Kids Say the Darndest Things, which led to a series of books quoting children. A native of Canada, he became a naturalized United States citizen in 1942.

Early life and career[link]

Linkletter was born Gordon Arthur Kelly in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. In his autobiography, Confessions of a Happy Man (1960), he revealed that he had no contact with his natural parents or his sister or two brothers since he was abandoned when only a few weeks old. He was adopted by Mary (née Metzler) and Fulton John Linkletter, an evangelical preacher.^[1][2] When he was five, his family moved to San Diego, California, where he graduated from San Diego High School at age 16. During the early years of the Great Depression, he rode trains around the country doing odd jobs and meeting a wide variety of people.^[3] In 1934, he earned a bachelor's degree from San Diego State Teachers College (now San Diego State University) (SDSU), where he was a member of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity. While attending San Diego State, he played for the basketball team and was a member of the swimming team. He had previously planned to attend Springfield College but did not for financial reasons.

In 1935 he met Miss Lois Foerster. They were married at Grace Lutheran Church in San Diego, November 28, 1935. Their marriage lasted until Art's death, 74½ years later.

He earned a degree in teaching but took a job as a radio announcer at KGB in San Diego. Radio paid better than teaching, and Linkletter directed radio programs for fairs and expositions in the mid-1930s. In 1943, Linkletter pleaded guilty to falsely claiming U.S. citizenship;^[4] he was fined $500 and permitted to apply for citizenship.^[5] In the 1940s, Linkletter worked in Hollywood with John Guedel on their pioneering radio show, People Are Funny, which employed audience participation, contests and gags. The series served as a prototype for future radio and television game shows.^[3] People Are Funny became a television show in 1954 and ran until 1961.^[6]

Other early television shows Linkletter worked on included Life With Linkletter with his son Jack (1969–1970) and Hollywood Talent Scouts (1965–1966). He acted in two movies, People Are Funny (1946) and Champagne for Caesar (1950). He was, along with Ronald Reagan and Bob Cummings one of the hosts of ABC's coverage of the opening of Disneyland in 1955. He appeared three times as a guest host of The Tonight Show (1962).

In the 1950s, Linkletter became a major investor in and promoter of the hula hoop.^[7][8]

[edit] Art Linkletter's Kids

Art Linkletter's Kids was a 1963–64 gag cartoon panel drawn by the prolific cartoonist Stan Fine and distributed by King Features Syndicate. In 1963, Linkletter became the endorser and spokesman for Milton Bradley's The Game of Life. His picture appeared on the game's $100,000 bills and also on the box alongside the statement "I heartily endorse this game".

Later years[link]

After three public meetings in 1967, an eight-member Los Angeles City Council committee "cleared" Linkletter and City Council Member Tom Shepard of charges that they were linked in a scheme to influence city purchase of the "financially-troubled" Valley Music Theater in Woodland Hills.^[9]

Linkletter invested wisely^[3], enabling his considerable philanthropy. In 2005, at the age of 93, he opened the Happiest Homecoming on Earth celebrations for the 50th anniversary of Disneyland. Half a century earlier, he was the commentator on the opening day celebrations in 1955. For this, he was named a Disney Legend.

Linkletter was once a spokesman for National Home Life, an insurance company. A Republican, he became a political organizer and a spokesman for the United Seniors Association, now known as USA Next, an alternative to the AARP. He was also a member of Pepperdine University's Board of Regents. He received a lifetime achievement Daytime Emmy award in 2003. He was inducted into the National Speakers Association Speaker Hall of Fame. He was a member of the President's Council on Service and Civic Participation (which ended in November 2008).

He received honorary degrees from a number of universities, including Pepperdine University and the University of Prince Edward Island. He served for many years as a trustee at Springfield College and donated money to build the swim center named in his honor.

Personal life[link]

Linkletter on The Jack Benny Show

Linkletter had one of the longest marriages of any celebrity in America, at nearly 75 years. He married Lois Foerster on November 25, 1935, and they had five children: Arthur Jack (known as Jack Linkletter, a TV host), Dawn, Robert, Sharon and Diane. He was also a good friend of Walt Disney. On October 10, 2011, Art's wife Lois died peacefully aged 95.

Linkletter's obituary read: "In a couple of months Art Linkletter would have been 98 years old, a full life of fun and goodness, an orphan who made it to the top... What a guy." He was survived by his wife, Lois, whom he married in 1935, and daughters Dawn Griffin and Sharon Linkletter, as well as seven grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren.

Art and Lois Linkletter outlived three of their five children. 20-year-old Diane Linkletter died on October 4, 1969, by jumping out of her sixth-floor kitchen window (while a student at UCLA).^[1][10] Linkletter claimed that she committed suicide because she was on, or having a flashback from, an LSD trip. Linkletter spoke out against drugs to prevent children from straying into a drug habit. His record, We Love You, Call Collect, recorded before her death, featured a discussion about permissiveness in modern society, along with a rebuttal by Diane, titled Dear Mom and Dad. The record won a 1970 Grammy Award for the "Best Spoken Word Recording".

Robert Linkletter died in an automobile accident on September 12, 1980.^[11] Son Arthur Jack Linkletter (1937–2007) died from lymphoma.^[12]

Death[link]

In early 2008, Linkletter suffered a mild stroke. He died on May 26, 2010 at his home in Bel Air, Los Angeles, California. He was survived by his wife and their two surviving children, Dawn and Sharon.^{[3][6][13][14]}

Works[link]

• Linkletter, Art (1957). Kids Say the Darndest Things!. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. OCLC 336428. 
• Linkletter, Art (1960). The Secret World of Kids. New York: Pocket Books. ASIN B0007FZ0X0. 
• Linkletter, Art (1962) [1960]. Confessions of a Happy Man. with Dean Jennings. New York: Pocket Books. OCLC 21491400. 
• Linkletter, Art (1962). Kids Sure Rite Funny!. Bernard Geis Associate. ASIN B001KZ1FU8. 
• Linkletter, Art (1962). Kids STILL say the Darndest Things!. Pocket Books, Inc.. ASIN B0007FZWBA. 
• Linkletter, Art (1965). A Child's Garden of Misinformation. Random House. ASIN B0007DSKPW. 
• Linkletter, Art (1968). I Wish I'd Said That! My Favorite Ad-Libs of All Time. Doubleday. ASIN B000MTRRQO. 
• Linkletter, Art (1968). Oops! Or, Life's Awful Moments. Pocket Books. ASIN B0007FBEFS. 
• Linkletter, Art (1970). Linkletter Down Under. Kaye Ward. ASIN B000KP2O3Q. 
• Linkletter, Art (February 1970). "We Must Fight the Epidemic of Drug Abuse!". Reader's Digest: 56–60. 
• Linkletter, Art (1973). Drugs at my Door Step. W Publishing Group. ISBN 0-87680-335-4. 
• Linkletter, Art (1974). Women are My Favorite People. Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-05226-X. 
• Linkletter, Art (1974). How to be a Super Salesman: Linkletter's Art of Persuasion. Prentice-Hall. ISBN 0-13-396606-2. 
• Linkletter, Art (1990). Yes, You Can!. Spire. ASIN B000O8ZB8O. 
• Linkletter, Art (1980). I Didn't Do It Alone: The Autobiography of Art Linkletter as Told to George Bishop. Ottawa, Illinois: Caroline House Publishers. ISBN 0-89803-040-4. OCLC 6899386. 
• Linkletter, Art (1990). Old Age is Not for Sissies. Bookthrift Co. ISBN 0-7917-1479-9. 
• Linkletter, Art (2006). How to Make the Rest of Your Life the Best of Your Life. with Mark Victor Hansen. Thomas Nelson. ISBN 0-7852-1890-4. 

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikinews has related news: Art Linkletter, creator of Kids Say the Darndest Things, dies peacefully at 97

• "Art Linkletter, dies age 97"
• Art Linkletter at the Internet Movie Database
• Disney Legends profile
• Retro Galaxy: Kids Say the Darndest Things!
• Interview with Art Linkletter
• Collection of quotes
• 2000 interview with Larry King
• Linkletter's view on federal drug policy
• Art Linkletter biography
• Art Linkletter: America's Fun Uncle, Life.com slideshow
• Art Linkletter at Find a Grave

Timothy Leary
1989 photo
Born	Timothy Francis Leary (1920-10-22)October 22, 1920 Springfield, Massachusetts, United States
Died	May 31, 1996(1996-05-31) (aged 75) Los Angeles, California, United States
Nationality	American
Alma mater	University of Alabama (B.A. degree in psychology in 1943) Washington State University (M.S. in psychology in 1946) University of California, Berkeley (Ph.D. degree in psychology in 1950)
Occupation	Psychologist Author
Employer	University of California, Berkeley Kaiser Family Foundation Harvard University
Known for	Psychedelic therapy
Spouse	Marianne Busch (m. 1945–1955) «start: (1945)–end+1: (1956)»"Marriage: Marianne Busch to Timothy Leary" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Timothy_Leary) Mary Della Cioppa (m. 1956–1957) «start: (1956)–end+1: (1958)»"Marriage: Mary Della Cioppa to Timothy Leary" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Timothy_Leary) Nena von Schlebrügge (m. 1964–1965) «start: (1964)–end+1: (1966)»"Marriage: Nena von Schlebrügge to Timothy Leary" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Timothy_Leary) Rosemary Woodruff (m. 1967–1976) «start: (1967)–end+1: (1977)»"Marriage: Rosemary Woodruff to Timothy Leary" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Timothy_Leary) Barbara Chase (m. 1978–1992) «start: (1978)–end+1: (1993)»"Marriage: Barbara Chase to Timothy Leary" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Timothy_Leary)

Timothy Francis Leary (October 22, 1920 – May 31, 1996) was an American psychologist and writer, known for his advocacy of psychedelic drugs. During a time when drugs such as LSD and psilocybin were legal, Leary conducted experiments at Harvard University under the Harvard Psilocybin Project, resulting in the Concord Prison Experiment and the Marsh Chapel Experiment. Both studies produced useful data, but Leary and his associate Richard Alpert were fired from the university.

Leary believed LSD showed therapeutic potential for use in psychiatry. He popularized catchphrases that promoted his philosophy, such as "turn on, tune in, drop out", "set and setting", and "think for yourself and question authority". He also wrote and spoke frequently about transhumanist concepts involving space migration, intelligence increase and life extension (SMI²LE), and he developed the eight-circuit model of consciousness in his book Exo-Psychology (1977).

During the 1960s and 1970s, Leary was arrested regularly and was held captive in 29 different prisons throughout the world. President Richard Nixon once described Leary as "the most dangerous man in America".^[1]

Early life and education[link]

Leary was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, the only child^[1] of an Irish American dentist who abandoned his wife Abigail Ferris when Leary was 13.^{[citation needed]} Leary graduated from Springfield's Classical High School.

Timothy Leary attended the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts from September 1938 to June 1940. Under pressure from his father, Leary enrolled as a cadet in the United States Military Academy at West Point. In his first months he acquired numerous demerits for rule infractions and then got into serious trouble for failing to report infractions by other cadets when on supervisory duty. He was alleged to have engaged in a bout of drinking and then failed to be forthright about it. For violating the Academy's honor code, he was asked by the Honor Committee to resign. When he refused, he was "silenced"; that is, shunned and ignored by his fellow cadets as a tactic to pressure him to resign. Though acquitted by a court-martial, the silencing continued, as well as an onslaught of demerits for minuscule infractions of the rules. When the treatment continued in his second year, his mother appealed to a family friend, United States Senator David I. Walsh, head of the Senate Naval Affairs Committee, who conducted a personal investigation. Behind the scenes, the Honor Committee revised its position and announced that it would abide by the court-martial verdict. Leary then resigned and received an honorable discharge.^[2] Almost 50 years later, Leary said that it was "the only fair trial I've had in a court of law".^[3]