Introductions

INT: Good morning. Tell us how you started in television?
HC: I was a kid actor in radio. RAINBOW HOUSE - Sunday morning variety show - cast of kids singing, acting, sketches, and sometimes long dramas. I was in the backup chorus, with VIC DAMONE. One of the featured singers was BUBBLES SILVERMAN who became BEVERLY SILLS. BOB EMERY was the producer/director/creator of the show. I was on the show from 1935-1940. I left for UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN in 1940. In 1936 on any given Sunday I had a fairly small part in a long drama we were doing, and BOB, two hours before airing coast to coast, in dress rehearsal, and it was live of course, became deathly ill. They said, "What are we going to do?" because they had to take him to the hospital, and they said "Let Hal direct it." Everybody looked at them like they were crazy because I was a 13 year old kid, but whenever I wasn't on microphone I was always in the control room and BOB would let me contribute ideas to the production of the show. So at 13 I went into the control room. On the air, fingers points, and I directed the show. Got through it. No fear, I was 13 and would live forever. As a result of that BOB would let me direct sometimes. There was no union or anything like that at the time. Fade out, fade in. After World War II, back in New York, after having spent a summer directing for GEORGE ABBOTT for stock in Ogunquit, Maine I got a call from BOB EMERY who at the time had one of the few television shows on. It was 1947. It was called SMALL FRY CLUB and what he did on television was introduce cartoons. Now in those days, in 1946 and 1947 most television sets were in the radio stores on the corner and people would gather outside and look at pictures through air, which was a miracle. Even if it was just a test pattern they watched it. And in those days television went on the air around 7:30 at night. There would be a news cast consisting of an announcer and some 8x10 glossies. Then 15 minutes of a piano player then maybe an hour of a drama or a variety show and then usually would sign off by 10 or 10:30pm with the news and a prayer and the Star Spangled Banner. In the springtime or in the summer they would go on in the daytime for a baseball game; the Yankees or the Dodgers or the Giants. That was it, that was television. ALLAN B. DUMONT who perfected the cathode ray tube had DUMONT TELEVISION. There were three networks then; CBS, NBC, DUMONT and a couple of independent stations in New York. He wanted to sell television sets so he wanted to get more programming on. BOB called and told me that DUMONT was going to go into all day programming just like radio. They are going to start at seven o'clock in the morning and go on till midnight. It was shocking. He thought there was some things I'd be able to do so he wanted to introduce me to JAMES CADDIGAN, the program director. I said wonderful because I was an out of work actor looking for work. He arranged a meeting and JAMES CADDIGAN told me he needed a show for high school kids and were going to call it the SCHOOL REPORTER. It was a 15 minute show. He asked for me to give him an idea of what I could do with that. I asked if I could have some time to think about it and he said to come back Friday, this was Tuesday. So I went home and paced the floor, and I figured out this format. My then wife PAT MEIKLE was an actress as well. I met with JIM on the Friday and I said here's what we do. We contact all the student presidents of all the high schools and give them a press card, call them the TV school reporter and have them call or send in all the gossip about all the fashions or sports or whatever they want to feed. We will give them name credit as I read their item on the air. He said great and to go for it. This was April of 1948. He said were gonna go on the air August 15th, thats the date it was scheduled. He stopped me before I left and said he wanted to do a show called DUMONT KINDERGARDEN or TV BABYSITTER. The idea was the children have gone off to school and the mom is home with the toddlers and has to make the bed, clean up the breakfast dishes, etc. We want to be able to put the kid in front of the TV set and keep them amused for a half hour while she gets her chores done. This was still on a Friday. I said let me think, so he said to come in again on Monday. Now we were already hired for the one show, this new show was scheduled to go from 8:30-9 and the high school show was scheduled for 7:30-7:45. My wife PAT was very good with cartooning and very good with kids. We had been together at the DOCK STREET THEATER in Charleston, South Carolina and we had a children's acting class where she was wonderful with the kids. I said we got to get a cartoon animal. We're in New York City and came up with the idea of Wilma the pigeon. And I devised some morality stories. I devised an alphabet that could be told with cartoons. "A" was for an arrow, "B" for a bumble bee, and a story with each letter. It was in effect what SESAME STREET did so brilliantly later on. Also, about the high school show, without ever being on camera they said they'd pay PAT and I $150 a week. I finally brought PAT in and we all talked and he said he'd give us $150 for this one too. $300 a week in 1948 for the two of us! Especially when I was still a part of what they called the 52-20 club, where you got $20 a week if you were a service man for the year. So I went home and started writing scripts and rehearsing with PAT. July came by and there was no word. I called in and they said they were running behind and it might get postponed till September. August came along and they said it might be postponed till October. Around October 1st we got a call from CADDIGAN's office that said we would start November 1st. It was the first day of all day television anywhere. It started at seven o'clock in the morning. We went on with our first show at 7:45 to 8 for the high school. We had a half an hour break, then went on from 8:30 to 9 with the TV BABYSITTER. [INT: Everyday?] Everyday, five days a week. Wrote, and produced. On the high school show we were both on camera. TV BABYSITTER was just PAT alone. We went on the air without anybody ever having read a script, without ever having been on camera. Nobody had even seen us. [INT: No screen test?] No screen test, no rehearsals, no anything. Now that could never happen except in those tumultuous days when the just wanted to get stuff on the air. As luck would have it, and PAT's talent and the gimmicks in the show, the Sunday Times came out. JACK GOULD the New York Times critic said "DuMont went on the air all day beginning last Monday. The only time it worthwhile lighting up the screen was a wonderful new show..." and he just went into raves about what a good thing it was for kids instead of just THE LONE RANGER, and about the educational parts. We were inundated. Time Magazine, Newsweek, Pick, Click. We had interviews on the air and PAT became lionized. She couldn't walk down the street. And that's how I got started in television.

INT: Did they assign you a producer or a director? How many cameras?
HC: Number of cameras is fascinating. Everything was done very pinchpenny. DUMONT had very little money. For the morning shows, up until 9:30 in the morning there was one camera. But they had a warm up camera in studio because sometimes there would be a breakdown. There were staff directors and I wasn't allowed to direct but I could say something like "dolly in" to get a close shot. But when we needed a cutaway for PAT to move from one part of the set to the other I would get still pictures, push them up to the camera, go the control room and have them focus it and then tell them to take the other camera to the shot on PAT on the other set. So we cheated that way and made a two camera show out of it. TV BABYSITTER was so successful, they wanted a later show for older kids in the early evening. And so we created a show called THE MAGIC COTTAGE that was five half hours a week. SCHOOL REPORTER went off the air, it was just a radio show that you looked at so it wasn't much. The TV BABYSITTER was on for a whole year while we were doing a half hour dramatic show at night as well. I was writing and producing both of them. THE MAGIC COTTAGE proved very successful. We used actors. The premise was "they lived happily ever after nonsense." Cinderella would be having a dinner party at the castle for 500 guests and not have enough food for everyone. About fairytale characters being in trouble and not living happily ever after.

INT: Let me take you back a bit. How did you get involved in acting?
HC: Long story. When I was a kid I sang around the family. I had great parents. My dad BEN and my mother ADELINE had one rule; go to school till three o'clock, and if your grades are good you can do whatever you want. My brother PAUL liked baseball, sports and I liked singing. In those days I would write for an audition at a radio station. I would get and audition and sing on the amateur hour, they had a lot in those days. I was lucky enough to win quite a bit. I started entertaining and guys saw me as a kid actor and singer and offered me free tap dancing lessons to be in their shows. I wound up in the BORSCHT CIRCUIT as the youngest emcee in the CATSKILLS. Ten years old, doing a lot of jokes that I didn't understand. Always playing the naive and introducing all the acts and I would sing and dance as well. I picked up stuff from comics and we would do sketched and bits. Since a kid was involved it became fun for the guests. I'd read for more parts on radio and it just kept growing like topsy.

INT: Obviously you were interested in the producing and directing as well?
HC: Directing was always part of it. The sketches in the BORSCHT CIRCUIT. I always contributed or had ideas people used. I seemed to be helpful to other people with suggestions, etc. I was just a sponge and was there. I never studied with anybody.

INT: You did this all through high school?
HC: Yes. Yes, all through high school. And radio became very important and I became fairly successful in radio and decided to leave the profession to get an education. [INT: That must have been quite a decision in those days?] Something inside me said "I don't want you to be a New York hick." I wanted to get a away from New York. I had a wonderful high school professor who was the head of the theater club. He had studied under VALENTINE WINDT when he was off at the UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN. VALENTINE was the prime student of BOLESLAVSKY who was STANISLAVSKI's prime student. So I applied to the UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN and got in. [INT: In the drama school?} Yeah, majored in theater, in the Literature, Arts and Sciences School. I went there in 1940 and left in 1943 to go be a sailor in the Navy. Lieutenant JG. Did the whole South Pacific thing.

INT: What kind of ships?
HC: Patrol Craft Escort. Our job was to escort tugs and such. On landings in Saipan and Okinawa we would go into the beach while the shelling was going on the big ships. An admiral would direct traffic into the beach. Okinawa was pretty hairy at times.

INT: Were you drafted?
HC: No, to stay in school, I enrolled in Navy ROTC which kept me in school for another year. In August 1943 I was pulled out and sent to Columbia to be trained as a Navy officer. Then I served in the Panama Canal Zone, then I was shipped out to South Pacific

INT: So the war ends...
HC: I go back to New York and start making the rounds. I needed one course for my degree. I got out in February 1946, and decided to go back to school for the summer session and see my old friends and professors and get the three hours and have my degree. But until then, in the meantime, summer, I was making rounds in New York. I was in the 52-20 club, where if you were a service man you got $20 a week. Always standing in line with me to collect every week was STANLEY KUBRICK and we would discuss our problems. I did some Off-Broadway, no directing, only acting. I returned to the UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN in July for summer session. They welcomed me back with a play I had done before I left. CHARLES MEREDITH, who had been director of DOCK STREET THEATER was one of the professors. I was in some of his plays. The director of the DOCK STREET THEATER came through to visit and saw me in the play and asked CHARLES if I was a good director. CHARLES said I was a good director and had directed a lot of productions there, so I was interviewed on campus and got the job of the associate director for the DOCK STREET THEATER for the 1946-'47 season.

INT: Where was that, DOCK STREET?
HC: Charleston, South Carolina. Gorgeous theater, where they have the SPOLETO FESTIVAL now. It was a recreation, rebuilt by the WPA of the first theater built as a theater on the grounds of the oldest theater in America. It was built in 1760 or 1750 or something like that. They found the original plans and the WPA built it. It was a gorgeous little bandbox of a theater. It was community theater in those days like the CLEVELAND PLAY HOUSE. It was very well known then. We went down and PAT had been hired as well. We were married then.

INT: Where did you meet her?
HC: At Ann Arbor, we met at school. I was on leave from Panama, before going out to the South Pacific. She met me in New York and we got married. Then I went out to the South Pacific. I came home and we went back to Ann Arbor for that summer session, then on to the DOCK STREET THEATER. Then the summer when that was finished, in the summer of '47, we went to work for GEORGE ABBOTT in Ogunquit, Maine, SUMMER STOCK. I directed the apprentice theater. and acted in main stage. ALEX SEGAL the director, BOBBY FRYER was the producer. ABBOTT came and visited. [INT: Did he spend much time there?] Not too much, he was married to a lovely lady, MARY was her name. She was an actress so he got it for her for the summer to act in. It was fine, she was a very good and charming lady. We had a lot of fun, I got to play with big stars. DICK WIDMARK had just made his first picture and he came and did JOAN OF LORRAINE and I played one of the parts. Lots of big stars, ZASU PITTS and HELEN HAYES.

INT: At this point, had you made any decision as to acting versus directing?
HC: No, whatever came up. I was just looking for a job. So I acted and directed when needed. Following that came the call from BOB EMERY. When we got back in Fall a friend of mine wrote a little thing that we auditioned for MR. ABBOTT. It was a husband and wife situation comedy, for television which was just beginning then on NBC, CBS and DUMONT. He liked it, kind of optioned it, but it never went anywhere. He gave me one of the worst nights of his life. MARY and MR. ABBOTT invited is to their house on Long Island with a bunch of people. His office boy became our good friend HAL PRINCE. He decided he wanted to play charades at his house after dinner, and I'm terrible at that. Here I was in effect auditioning whether I liked it or not for GEORGE ABBOTT, playing charades which I was terrible at. I sweated. It was the worst night of my life. He kept reassuring me. [INT: There you are in this sea of talented people playing the game...] I was just too scared to play it. I don't know what I did or remember anything about it. It's all a blank, but it was just terror. He had one of the first television sets I had ever seen. It was like a little ten inch screen and it had an oil filled bubble which magnified the picture but as you got to one side or the other the people became elongated a little bit. You had to look at it head on.

INT: So the shows you did on the DUMONT NETWORK lasted about a year?
HC: Oh no. The TV BABYSITTER lasted two years. But THE MAGIC COTTAGE which went on the air in 1951 was on through 1957. It was on for six years. There was no Emmy then but TV GUIDE came out in 1950 and we won the first children's show award of TV Guide, opposite HOWDY DOODY and quite a few other shows. That was a big thrill.

INT: Did you stay connected with that even as you went on to these other shows?
HC: Yes. I produced and directed that. I don't know how I did the schedule. At that time I still thought of myself as an actor and a director. But because I didn't have time to look for acting jobs somebody told me about this wonderful group taught by this director DAVID ALEXANDER. It was a scene class where the actors got together to do a scene, present it to the class and had it criticized. It was quite a group; JACK LEMMON, CLIFF ROBERTSON, NINA FOCH, ROSS MARTIN. It was a great class. We would get together two or three of us would pick a scene from a play, rehearse it on our own, present it to the class, and get it critiqued from DAVID. It was great because you were exercising the muscles, and I was exercising directing muscles as well with a lot of very talented people. Out of that, one of the people in the class was a producer/director/actor named CHARLES IRVING. He was producing and directing SEARCH FOR TOMORROW which was the first successful soap opera on television. He needed some relief. He had a director by the name of IRA CIRKER who was working in New York but IRA was going on to another show and he needed somebody to relieve him a couple of days a week because he was producing it and it was a busy thing. He asked me if I'd be interested. So I said sure. He cast me in a part on the show, a running part that lasted about two weeks so that I would be around the show and get to know everybody and see how it worked. Then I started directing two of those a week, and very quickly CHARLIE was happy with that, and didn't like being in the booth, so I started directing all of them. I did that for five years.

INT: Was it live in those days?
HC: Yes, 15 minutes of live television. Producing, and writing the half hour of the kids show THE MAGIC COTTAGE.

INT: What were the networks like in those days? Was CBS clearly the number one...?
HC: No. In the early days of television, CBS and NBC, radio was how they made their money. Television was very iffy. There weren't a lot of TV sets out there for sponsors to pay a lot of money for it. They were afraid if they were watching television then people wouldn't listen to radio. So it was DUMONT that actually broke it because people could watch TV all the time when he started the all day thing. CBS and NBC finally realized they had to get into television. They moved over JACK BENNY. They signed MILTON BERLE. DUMONT went out of business about six years after that. [INT: Really?] They didn't have money to sign people. [INT: And RCA was making televisions?] RCA was making television sets. DUMONT was still a big manufacturer for many years after that, a very fine and dependable set. And then NBC was forced by the government to break up, so ABC was born out of NBC. There were the red and blue networks on NBC and ABC came out of that.

HC: But my schedule in those days is something I still don't understand. My routine was as follows; I awoke at six o'clock, got to the CBS studio for rehearsal at 7:30. We would go on the air at noon. We would block the show in the rehearsal hall with taped floor. For a 15 minute show we had a half hour camera blocking time. [INT: How many cameras?] Three cameras, with turrets. Lens so that you could cut to one camera and the other guy would flip to a close up lens, a two inch lens and so forth. The other two guys would be in 40 millimeter lens. The way you did it was to say "Two - get a master, follow them as they walk to the door. One - get a close up of Charlie. Three - get a close up of Mary." Then you would say "One" and the AD would mark his script. "Ready Three, take Three" and then he would write three down. Then you would maybe make a small change or two. You would go through the entire show, the 15 minute show, and you had a half hour to finish. [INT: With the actors on the stage?]. With the actors on the stage. And the AD marking all your shots as you called them. Then as soon as that was over the actors went into make-up. I copied all my shots back onto my script because not all of mine were written down. Certain things I'd change, then he would give them to the technical director so he'd be ready to cut when he wanted to cut. Then I would go to the actors and give them notes. Then we'd be on the air. Live.