Jack Lescoulie was a radio and television announcer and host, notably on NBC's Today during the 1950s and 1960s; a newspaper source lists his date of birth as May 17,1912.
18 Facts About Jack Lescoulie
2.
Jack Lescoulie's parents were both in vaudeville along with their children; Lescoulie's first public performance was at age 7.
3.
The young Lescoulie helped the radio station cover the 1933 Long Beach earthquake.
4.
Jack Lescoulie has a star for his work in television on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
5.
In 1933, Jack Lescoulie had an orchestra that broadcast on KGFJ in Los Angeles.
6.
On television, Lescoulie hosted one of the earliest TV game shows, Fun and Fortune which lasted only one episode, and he was an announcer on Jackie Gleason's Cavalcade of Stars, as well as the original network announcer for The Honeymooners.
7.
Jack Lescoulie continued to announce for Gleason into the mid-1960s, at which time Gleason began to exclusively use Johnny Olson.
8.
Jack Lescoulie was nicknamed "The Saver" by Garroway for his ability to liven up otherwise dull segments.
9.
Typical Jack Lescoulie sketches included acting a scene from Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra with Jayne Mansfield in July, 1956, and being hit in the face with a pie by Buster Keaton in April, 1963.
10.
Jack Lescoulie co-anchored the remote portions of both the 1959 Paris trip and the 1960 Rome voyage.
11.
Jack Lescoulie went through a brief stint as host of The Tonight Show for six months in 1957.
12.
Jack Lescoulie's tenure ran from January 28 to June 21,1957.
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Jack Lescoulie returned to Today that summer and stayed for another five years.
14.
Jack Lescoulie left the show permanently in 1967, and the role he originated was filled by Joe Garagiola, Willard Scott and Al Roker.
15.
Between 1938 and 1950, Jack Lescoulie had a number of roles as a film actor, mostly uncredited, but he used the name Joe Hartman when he acted in the aviation drama Emergency Landing.
16.
Jack Lescoulie appeared in one Broadway play, Tapestry in Gray.
17.
Jack Lescoulie appeared in other theatrical productions, such as Achilles Had a Heel in New York City in 1935.
18.
Jack Lescoulie died July 22,1987, in St Francis Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was undergoing treatment for colon cancer.