In Memoriam

5 Comments

1. Findlay Muir on April 26, 2022 at 1:53 am

   Bill Stark was the first professional cameraman I met as a 18 year old trying to make a break into TV production. He made a huge impact. Due to Bill’s efforts in teaching me, I went on the spend much of my career as a cameraman myself. I never forgot those early days with Bill even though my time spent with him was relatively brief.

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2. Christine Tuttle on February 8, 2016 at 5:15 pm

   My late father-in-law, Dr. George P. Tuttle, produced many WGBH productions in the late 1960’s-1970’s after his tenure as Professor of Theatre and director at Dartmouth College. Paul Binder was the floor manager (and former Dartmouth student!) of George’s for a show about History filmed in the basement of the Museum of Science. Not sure the name of that show and would love to know.

   My own connection to WGBH was that I was on the 2013-2014 season of “This Old House” working alongside Tom Silva, Deb Hood, Kevin O’Connor et al.

   George passed away in 2002. Here is a tribute to him:
   http://www.capecodtimes.com/article/20020227/news01/302279980

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3. Chris on October 19, 2015 at 2:50 pm

   I’m pretty sure Erica Wilson (had a show on ‘GBH on sewing, needlework, etc.) has passed away. 1928-2011.

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4. John Burke on January 27, 2014 at 8:49 pm

   I met John Sullivan running along the Charles. Great guy and I still think about him b

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5. Steve GIlford on September 13, 2013 at 3:25 am

   One of the most intriguing figures of my time at WGBH was the late James Patrick Kelly. A former New York City police officer, he was a man of immense virile charm and a great storyteller. I was never quite sure how he went from NYPD to being an investigator for US Attorney-General Robert Kennedy. He kept a photo of Jimmy Hoffa taken in Leavenworth in his office. Working ue had been part of the Kennedy effort to put Hoffa in federal prison.His Washington experience put him in a position to apply for the Law Enforcement Administration’s support for a television series for the in-service training of police officers. Jim already had some television experience. He had worked on a series of exposes for Walter Cronkite at CBS, also undercover.

   Drawing on his experience and contacts, Jim not only arranged for the LEA grant, he set up a relationship with WGBH and LEA. He was also able to get the then Attorney General, Ramsey Clark, to appear in the first of the nineteen one hour programs in the series.

   As producer of the series, I worked closely with Jim and had some wonderful opportunities such as filming in the FBI crime laboratory in Washington, bringing into the Western Ave. studios more than 100,000 1969 dollars worth of marijuana under police guard and getting to work with some of the most outstanding men in he progressive movement within law enforcement. Jim had personal relationships with these people and he brought them into the GBH studios. The result was a landmark series. It was one of the first television programs to outline the structure of the Cosa Nostra. The presenter on that program was the late Ralph Salerno, retired from the NYPD Intelligence unit. He had the reputation of knowing more about the Mafia than anyone else not sworn into it. Although godfthers, capos, soldiers and button men would become the stuff of popular culture, it was all new.to the general public largely because of J. Edgar Hoover’s reluctance to recognize its existence.

   There were over thirty thousand police in New England enrolled in the series which was distributed along with study materials on kinescopes and over the air.

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