Photos From the ‘GBH Archives (1950s)
Photo by Brooks Leffler, 1958
Studio A under construction.
I think I can provide some specifics for the pic of Studio A under construction.
Time: The date may have been December ’54 or January ’55 (or even later).
People (from Left to Right): Hartford Gunn (partly obscured by the camera), Paul Rader, Parker Wheatley, Arthur Richardson, Ted Sherburne.
[Paul Rader had been hired in October as Coordinator of TV and Film. Art Richardson was chief engineer for several years. Ted Sherburne’s appointment as Director of Programs was announced in the Feb. ’55 program schedule as having occurred “last month,” i.e., January.]
Studio A video control in the foreground. The entire station master control consisted of a simple one-bus switcher at the far end of the console.
The video operator is Jerry Adler. He was a New Yorker, but his TV experience came from KOTV, Tulsa, WHBQ-TV, Memphis, and WNEM, Bay City, Michigan. He was one of the few people at the beginning who had had any professional TV experience.
Frank Vento, WGBH’s first full-time cameraman, at work. Brooks Leffler informs us that the talent is Mary Lela Grimes, and the show, Discovery (an early WGBH series distributed by the Educational Television and Radio Center — later NET).
This is Discovery with Mary Lela Grimes too. And Larry Creshkoff strikes again: He has identified the “mystery” cameraman as John (Rocky) Coe.
The very youthful second general manager of WGBH, Hartford N. Gunn Jr. Read Larry Creshkoff’s memoir of Hartford.