Les Crane was the first network television personality to compete with Johnny Carson after Carson became a fixture of late-night television.
21 Facts About Les Crane
2.
Les Crane spent four years in the United States Air Force, as a jet pilot and helicopter flight instructor.
3.
Les Crane began his radio career in 1958 at KONO in San Antonio and later worked at WPEN in Philadelphia.
4.
The New Les Crane Show was the first network program to compete with The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, which originated in New York prior to 1972, with a videotaped delay before each telecast.
5.
ABC network officials used kinescopes of two episodes from the August 1964 trial run to pitch The New Les Crane Show to affiliates that had not yet signed up to carry the program.
6.
Burton encouraged Les Crane to recite the "gravedigger speech" from Hamlet, and Les Crane did.
7.
In late June 1965, following Crane's three-month absence from television, The Les Crane Show was retitled ABC's Nightlife, sometimes advertised in newspapers as Nightlife, and it returned to the late-night schedule of the ABC network.
8.
Les Crane can be seen and heard delivering his monologue, joking about words that could be censored and bantering with his sidekick Nipsey Russell.
9.
The UCLA Film and Television Archive has a digitized collection of clips from the Les Crane Show early episodes in August 1964.
10.
Les Crane was unable to dent Carson's ratings, and his show lasted 14 weeks before ABC executives transformed it into the more show-business-oriented ABC's Nightlife.
11.
Immediately after the November 1965 cancellation of ABC's Nightlife, Les Crane tried acting, but his career was brief.
12.
Les Crane appeared in the unsuccessful film An American Dream, which was based on the Norman Mailer novel, and made a few guest-star appearances on network television shows, including a 1966 appearance on the western series The Virginian.
13.
Some sources say that Les Crane gave the rock group The Mamas and the Papas their name, but this is disputed in other sources, including John Phillips' 1986 memoir, which says he and Cass Elliot came up with the name while they were watching a television news segment about the Hells Angels.
14.
Les Crane was known as an advocate for civil rights, and was praised by black journalists for his respectful interviews with such black newsmakers as Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali.
15.
Les Crane was one of the first interviewers to have an openly gay guest, Randy Wicker, on his television show.
16.
In 1967 Les Crane tried his hand at acting, starring as Jack, the leader of the three detectives in I Love a Mystery, a pilot film for a proposed series based on the popular radio show.
17.
In 1968, Les Crane was hosting a radio talk show on KLAC in Los Angeles.
18.
Les Crane left KLAC when the station switched to a country music format.
19.
In late 1971, the 45rpm recording of Les Crane's reading of Desiderata reached No 8 on the Billboard charts.
20.
Les Crane was sold and renamed Mindscape in the early 1990s.
21.
Les Crane died on July 13,2008, in Greenbrae, California, north of San Francisco, at age 74.