Recipient: Television Academy award for distinguished service, 1958;
Television Academy's Emmy Award, 1959; two TV Digest Awards, 1960;
Producers Guild Award, 1962; Fame Award, 1967; TV Academy's Salute
Award, 1972.
Joining the TV medium in 1947, in the early 1960s, he was credited with
helping erode stereotyping of African-Americans on television by
distributing a memorandum calling for producers to cast
African-Americans in a greater variety of roles.
Educated at Phillips Exeter Academy, graduating in 1923 and Brown
University in 1927, his autobiography was entitled "As It
Happened."
His broadcasting career began in 1930 when he became the first head of
the new radio department at the advertising agency Young & Rubicam.
During the late 1930s and early 1940s, Young & Rubicam became an
important radio program provider, simultaneously producing The Jack
Benny Show, Fred Allen's Town Hall Tonight, and The Kate Smith Hour,
among others.
Was active in American broadcasting as a writer, producer, and network
programming executive for over 40 years, and was notable as the CBS
executive who championed the 1950s anthology drama "Playhouse 90"; his
efforts to develop high-quality programming was self-described as "mass
with class."