Dick Cavett
He's been nominated ten times for an Emmy and won three of them. From 1968 until 1975, the host of The Dick Cavett Show on ABC was known as the thinking person's talk show host. His interviews with John Lennon, Groucho Marx and Katherine Hepburn were legendary.
Born in a small town in Nebraska where his parents were both teachers, Cavett studied drama at Yale and moved to New York to begin an acting career. Cavett was working as a copyboy for Time Magazine when he heard that the host of The Tonight Show , Jack Parr was looking for jokes, so Cavett wrote a few and submitted them.
To his surprise, Parr used his jokes on his show and asked Cavett to write some more. Cavett was eventually hired to work on the show where he famously crafted the line "And here they are Jayne Mansfield". In his spare time Cavett worked as a stand-up comic and in 1968, ABC hired him to host This Morning. The show failed to catch on with viewers but ABC didn't give up on him, instead moving Cavett to the late night slot where he appeared opposite Johnny Carson.
Cavett stayed with ABC for the next five years before moving on to CBS and later PBS. His books Cavett, Eye on Cavett and most recently Talk Show have all been bestsellers. He has made several guest appearances in movies and TV shows including Forrest Gump and The Simpsons.
Dick Cavett continues to produce television specials and is currently employed by the New York Times where he writes a blog. Ken Rockburn spoke to Dick Cavett in New York.
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