Just stumbled across this post. A threatening letter with standard layout, recipient's address, date and fairly advanced diction. How quaint and non-threatening! It almost makes me feel nostalgic.
And the ideas! Steve Allen a Communist with Red-pseudo smell, keeping intellectual company with Linus Pauling and Dalton Trumbo. But who are Bob Ryan (the retired Boston sportswriter?!?) and Dore Schary?
Kinda makes me miss the Cold War...
There were other letters where the writer(s) threatened to go to his house and shoot him. Somewhere in the links are links to FBI files and copies of the letters. (e.g. pages 29-32 of this PDF file) I think the Bob Ryan he is talking about was the actor Robert Ryan, who was a Marine in WWII. In the late '50s, he and Steve Allen were founding members of a group called The Committee for a SANE Nuclear Policy. He was a supporter of the ACLU and other "anti-HUAC" groups, so I assume some people lumped them together as commies back then.
In 1960, TV personality Steve Allen was the target of a person or persons sending threatening letters which were sent using forged names of senior citizens as the senders. More here with pertinent links at the bottom.
Just stumbled across this post. A threatening letter with standard layout, recipient's address, date and fairly advanced diction. How quaint and non-threatening! It almost makes me feel nostalgic.
And the ideas! Steve Allen a Communist with Red-pseudo smell, keeping intellectual company with Linus Pauling and Dalton Trumbo. But who are Bob Ryan (the retired Boston sportswriter?!?) and Dore Schary?
My father and I watched this YS broadcast as my Mom was in the hospital for a hysterectomy. Talk about weird bonding.
Can't remember how old I was when I first saw the photo of the Heaviest Man....
Yer freakin my synapsis here!!
this must have been MST as prime time starts at 7, not 8.
I remember that pic from guinness book.
Yeah, some of the entries mention Salt Lake City for alternate times. Forgot about some of those shows: Wait 'Til Your Father Gets Home, Hec Ramsey, Room 222, UFO, etc.... And that ad... - "Robert Earl Hughes was not buried in an old piano case, as per an apocryphal story long published in the Guinness Book of World Records. Rather, the Embalming Burial Case Co. of Burlington, Iowa, built a custom casket: 85 inches long, 52 inches wide and 34 inches deep. It was made of heavy cypress, reinforced with steel."
In 1960, TV personality Steve Allen was the target of a person or persons sending threatening letters which were sent using forged names of senior citizens as the senders. More here with pertinent links at the bottom.
Oh my God—Wojo! "How do you spell your name?" "...Like it sounds." I had no idea that Max Gail did this kind of piano bar thing. Was this before or after "Barney Miller"? I'm guessing before but you never know.
Abe Vigoda was another great character actor on that show. His character Sgt. Fish was like a tuna fish sandwich with the mayo about to spoil.
I was channel surfing one afternoon and stopped to watch. 1) the music is fantastic and 2) there's that great fisticuffs/brawl scene between Peck & Heston.
Somehow I stumbled onto that movie...I think it was showing on my PBS station. I'd give it a 7 out of 10. I got the impression that it was a big-budget movie that Hollywood wanted to be a blockbuster hit and so everything was BIG and DRAMATIC. Beautiful cinematography, Greg Peck is always fun to watch and Jean Simmons
aka: Detective Stan "Wojo" Wojciehowicz 
