Alumni Memoirs

TV Pioneer

by Mary Lash

The spring 1995 ICQ story on Barbara Gaines '79 was a severe case of déjà vu for Enid Levy Weitz '48. The similarities in the lives of the two women, born three decades apart, stunned her:

Freshly graduated from Ithaca, each had swallowed her pride, taken a typing course, and landed an entry-level position in television. Each then worked her way up to a position of responsibility-Gaines as associate produ-cer of The Late Show with David Letterman, Weitz as talent scout assistant for The Original Amateur Hour, hosted by Ted Mack. Capping the parallels, both those shows claim the Ed Sullivan Theater as their broadcast home.

A member of the first graduating class in Ithaca's radio program, Weitz had originally planned a career as radio director. But in the tough postwar job market, television was the more promising field. Fortunately, she had taken the College's first television course, taught by John Groller. Her Ithaca education, she says, "was very much ahead of the times; they really made us feel as if we were on the air."

Determined to work for the Ted Mack show, she repeatedly dropped by the show's office and stayed until she was "thrown out." Finally, during one such visit, she was asked to open the mail, then invited to come back the following day. She went home not knowing whether she would even be paid. Close enough: her starting salary turned out to be $20 a week -- low even in 1948.

After her stint in the mail room she assumed the professional name of Jan Davenport and became "the gofer, the back end of the horse," the one who "booked passage for the singing dogs." Yet despite the widespread image of talent show performers as more likely to provoke giggles than admiration, Weitz stresses that the amateur hour was a serious musical show. Each program followed a balanced formula. In addition to, say, a trombone player, a dancer, an operatic singer, and a trio, there would be a school group, a baton or gymnastic ensemble, and "some kind of novelty act -- a head hitter, musical spoons, a musical horse."

Each act was allotted a minute and a half. But if performers blundered, Mack would suggest they start over or try again the next week. "He had the right personality for the show," she notes. "He was kind to amateurs." There would also be surprise guests, former Amateur Hour performers returning as stars -- Jerry Vale, Pat Boone, Connie Francis, Beverly Sills, and Robert Merrill.

The show was both broadcast live before an audience and taped on kinescope. "What happened, happened on the air," despite everyone's best efforts. When somebody flubbed his lines, Weitz says, "you'd go back and scratch the tape if you could." Harder to hide were such accidents as the scenery falling or the trained elephant that turned out not to be house-trained.

Weitz enjoyed "every minute" of her eight years with Mack, but her career in television had continued to pay poorly. "Today it's all titles and no money," she observes. "Then it was no title and no money." After the death of her first husband, Weitz was forced to leave the show and support her young daughter by taking a succession of better-paying but less emotionally rewarding jobs, from legal secretary to software sales representative.

These days Enid Weitz is a community volunteer and the "busy grandmother" of four. Looking back over her career, she concludes that she "was born at the wrong time," since women working in television today have greater chances for success. Still, even under the stresses of low pay, live broadcasting, and time demands, she remembers television as "really fun. You didn't just push a button and record; they were wonderful years."