Producer of ‘The Ed Sullivan Show,’ Robert Precht, dies at the age of 93
Robert Precht, who for more than a decade produced “The Ed Sullivan Show,” the influential Sunday night variety extravaganza that for 23 years brought singers, comedians, rock bands, jugglers, animal acts and the Italian mouse puppet Topo Gigio into the living rooms of millions of viewers, died Nov. 26 at his home in Missoula, Montana. He was 93.
His death was confirmed by his daughter Margo Precht Speciale, producer of an upcoming documentary about Sullivan.
Precht joined the Sullivan show as its associate producer in 1958, 10 years after the program made its debut as “The Toast of the Town.” He became producer two years later, replacing Marlo Lewis, and was eventually named executive producer.
Precht arrived too late for Elvis Presley’s electrifying appearances in 1956 and 1957. But he was in charge when the Beatles performed on the show in 1964, first in New York and then in Florida. And when the Beatles performed at Shea Stadium in Queens in August 1965, Precht filmed the concert for a documentary for Sullivan’s production company.
“This is probably the most fantastic television operation I’ve gotten into,” he told The Daily News of New York a day before the concert. “We’ll have 11 cameras in the ballpark, but there’ll be no chance for rehearsal or for checking our sound system. And with 55,000 people liable to do anything, we don’t know what will happen.”
The Beatles were the most important act on the Sullivan show during Precht’s tenure. But as the producer, he knew that he could not rely on the rare megastar to fill an hour every week, and that he had to cast widely for talent — famous and obscure — to keep the masses watching.
“It would be easy to book the show without ever leaving the office,” he wrote in an article for The Democrat and Chronicle of Rochester, New York, in 1961. But, he said, members of his staff saw every Broadway show and went to nightclubs, concerts and films in search of acts to book.
“Because there’s no type of act we won’t use,” Precht added, “there’s no place we won’t scout for talent.”
In 1964, Sullivan accused comedian Jackie Mason of making an obscene gesture on camera during his monologue. Mason said he was reacting to Sullivan, who was standing out of camera range holding up two fingers and then one to indicate how many minutes were left for his routine. Upset, Mason held up his own fingers and told the audience, “Here’s a finger for you, and a finger for you, and a finger for you.”
Sulivan was convinced that one of those gestures was obscene. He canceled Mason’s six-show, $45,000 contract and refused to pay him for the performance. Precht confronted Mason as he left the stage to tell him he was fired.
Mason sued Sullivan and Precht for $3 million in damages in New York State Supreme Court; an appellate judge ruled that Mason’s gestures had not been obscene. In 1966, Mason returned as a guest.
Precht recognized that “The Ed Sullivan Show” stood out among all the other variety shows on television.
“I don’t know if another variety show will ever have the appeal and impact of the Sullivan show,” he told The Missoulian, a newspaper in Missoula, in 1990, almost two decades after the show had left the air. “It’s hard for me to think of someone dying to get home on a Sunday night to watch a variety show.”
Robert Henry Precht Jr. was born on May 12, 1930, in Douglas, Arizona, and moved with his parents to San Diego when he was about 12. His father was an ironworker. His mother, Agnes (Branagh) Precht, was a homemaker and a Red Cross volunteer.
Precht made news in 1949 when, as a sophomore at UCLA, he was voted a “great lover” by his fellow students, which earned him the right to escort Elizabeth Taylor to the school’s junior prom. It was part of the promotion for the Bob Hope film “The Great Lover.”
After transferring to the University of California, Berkeley, Precht received a bachelor’s degree in international relations in 1952. That same year, he married Elizabeth Sullivan, known as Betty. She died in 2014.