The Dick Cavett Show

The Dick Cavett Show was the title of several talk shows hosted by Dick Cavett on various television networks, including:

Cavett taped his programs in New York City.

Show history

The Dick Cavett Show most often refers to the shows on ABC-TV that Dick Cavett hosted between 1968 and 1975 in New York. The first daytime show featured Gore Vidal, Muhammad Ali, and Angela Lansbury. ABC pressured Cavett to "get big names," although subsequent shows without them got higher ratings and more critical acclaim.

Dick Cavett

Richard Alva "Dick" Cavett (/ˈkævᵻt/; born November 19, 1936) is an American television personality and former talk show host notable for his conversational style and in-depth discussions. Cavett appeared regularly on nationally broadcast television in the United States in five consecutive decades, the 1960s through the 2000s.

In recent years, Cavett has written a column for the online New York Times, promoted DVDs of his former shows as well as a book of his Times columns, and hosted replays of his classic TV interviews with Groucho Marx, Katharine Hepburn, Judy Garland, Marlon Brando, John Lennon and others on Turner Classic Movies channel.

Early life

Cavett was born in Nebraska, but sources differ as to the specific town, locating his birthplace in either Gibbon, where his family lived, or nearby Kearney, the location of the nearest hospital. Cavett himself, in an interview with Carol Burnett on The Dick Cavett Show, stated that Gibbon was his birthplace. His mother, Erabel "Era" (née Richards), and his father, Alva B. Cavett, both worked as educators. When asked by Lucille Ball on his own show about his heritage, he said he was "Scottish, Irish, English, and possibly partly French, and, and uh, a dose of German." He also mentioned that one grandfather "came over" from England, and the other from Wales. Cavett's grandparents all lived in Grand Island, Nebraska. His paternal grandparents were Alva A. Cavett and Gertrude Pinsch. His paternal grandfather was from Diller, Nebraska and his paternal grandmother was an immigrant from Aachen, Germany. His maternal grandparents were the Rev. R.R. and Etta Mae Richards. The Rev. Richards was from Carmarthen, Wales, and was a Baptist minister who served parishes across central Nebraska. Cavett himself is an agnostic.

Woody Allen

Woody Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg, December 1, 1935) is an American actor, comedian, filmmaker and playwright, whose career spans more than five decades.

He worked as a comedy writer in the 1950s, writing jokes and scripts for television and publishing several books of short humor pieces. In the early 1960s, Allen began performing as a stand-up comedian, emphasizing monologues rather than traditional jokes. As a comedian, he developed the persona of an insecure, intellectual, fretful nebbish, which he maintains is quite different from his real-life personality. In 2004, Comedy Central ranked Allen in fourth place on a list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians, while a UK survey ranked Allen as the third greatest comedian.

By the mid-1960s Allen was writing and directing films, first specializing in slapstick comedies before moving into dramatic material influenced by European art cinema during the 1970s, and alternating between comedies and dramas to the present. He is often identified as part of the New Hollywood wave of filmmakers of the mid-1960s to late 1970s. Allen often stars in his films, typically in the persona he developed as a standup. Some best-known of his over 40 films are Annie Hall (1977), Manhattan (1979), and Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), although he considers Stardust Memories (1980), The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), and Match Point (2005) to be his best films. Critic Roger Ebert described Allen as "a treasure of the cinema."

Janis Joplin

Janis Lyn Joplin (/ˈdʒɒplɪn/; January 19, 1943 – October 4, 1970) was an American singer-songwriter who first rose to fame in the mid 1960s as the lead singer of the psychedelic/acid rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company, and later as a solo artist with her own backing groups, The Kozmic Blues Band and The Full Tilt Boogie Band.

Her first ever large scale public performance was at the Monterey Pop Festival, which led to her becoming very popular and one of the major attractions at the Woodstock festival and the Festival Express train tour. Joplin charted five singles; other popular songs include: "Down on Me," "Summertime," "Piece of My Heart," "Ball 'n' Chain," "Maybe," "To Love Somebody," "Kozmic Blues," "Work Me, Lord," "Cry Baby," "Mercedes Benz," and her only number one hit, "Me and Bobby McGee."

Joplin was well known for her performing ability and skill as a multi-instrumentalist. Her fans referred to her stage presence as "electric"; at the height of her career, she was known as "The Queen of Psychedelic Soul." Known as "Pearl" among her friends, she was also a painter, dancer and music arranger. Rolling Stone ranked Joplin number 46 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time in 2004 and number 28 on its 2008 list of 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. Joplin remains one of the top-selling musicians in the United States, with Recording Industry Association of America certifications of 15.5 million albums sold in the USA.

Marlon Brando

Marlon Brando, Jr. (April 3, 1924 – July 1, 2004) was an American actor, film director, and activist. He is hailed for bringing a gripping realism to film acting and is often cited as one of the greatest and most influential actors of all time. He is also credited with helping to popularize the Stanislavski system of acting, today more commonly referred to as method acting. A cultural icon, Brando is most famous for his Academy Award-winning performances as Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront (1954) and Vito Corleone in The Godfather (1972), as well as influential performances in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), Viva Zapata! (1952), Julius Caesar (1953), The Wild One (1953), Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967), Last Tango in Paris (1972), and Apocalypse Now (1979). Brando was also an activist for many causes, notably the African-American Civil Rights Movement and various American Indian movements.

He initially gained acclaim and an Academy Award nomination for reprising the role of Stanley Kowalski in the 1951 film adaptation of Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar Named Desire, a role that he had originated successfully on Broadway. He received further praise for his performance as Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront, and his portrayal of the rebel motorcycle gang leader Johnny Strabler in The Wild One proved to be a lasting image in popular culture. Brando received Academy Award nominations for playing Emiliano Zapata in Viva Zapata!; Mark Antony in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's 1953 film adaptation of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar; and Air Force Major Lloyd Gruver in Sayonara (1957), an adaption of James Michener's 1954 novel. Brando was included in a list of Top Ten Money Making Stars three times in the 1950s, coming in at number 10 in 1954, number 6 in 1955, and number 4 in 1958.