NELSON: Hello, I'm Steve Nelson and we're here with our Oral and Video History Program for The Cable Center and our guest today is Steve Simmons who's CEO of Patriot Media these days, other milestones along your career which we're going to talk to, but let's just start back at the beginning, when you were a kid. Where'd you grow up? SIMMONS: I grew up in Roslyn Heights, Long Island, which is in New York State, a middle class, lower-middle class home. NELSON: Where in Roslyn Heights? SIMMONS: Percheron Lane, 94 Percheron Lane. NELSON: We were about three blocks away. SIMMONS: Where were you? NELSON: Pebble Lane! SIMMONS: Small world, real small world. NELSON: That's really amazing. Okay, middle class, upwardly mobile kind of community. SIMMONS: Right. My father had started an artist materials business. He made Robert Simmons brushes which were some of the most famous artist brushes in the country. Andrew Wyeth and Normal Rockwell used them. I used to go into the city to watch him do what he did as a small business entrepreneur, and went on business trips with him. My mother, at a time when most women didn't work, was vice-president for marketing and sales for a manufacturing company and I would see her do her thing. So they were a pretty good early inspiration for me to think about business, think about accomplishing things, running things, and so forth. NELSON: But from an entrepreneurial sense because your father was a small business owner. SIMMONS: Exactly, and I liked what I saw. It was very inspiring to see somebody go and actually be paid for their effort, paid for their sweat, paid for their work, come up with creative ideas. I'd also say that in our home, since we didn't have a lot of money, you learned the value of a buck. So I would mow lawns, I'd shovel snow I remember, with my brother in the winter, I worked as a waiter, worked as a busboy, had a paper route, did a bunch of things like that to try to make money. So it was that kind of environment. NELSON: And then high school, any particular leanings? Where did the TV interest come from? When you were a kid growing up, what were you watching on TV? SIMMONS: Well, I think Howdy Doody was one of my favorite ones as it was for so many other kids, and then you had Paladin, which we'd watch... NELSON: "Have gun, will travel". SIMMONS: "Have gun, will travel". The Ed Sullivan Show, we all looked forward to seeing it at night, and I remember Phil Silvers we laughed and laughed at. A big inspiration for me on the political side was John Kennedy in high school, and I can remember his election in 1960, I can remember watching his press conferences.

• published: 13 Aug 2013
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