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Art Linkletter 1912 - 2010

Art Linkletter of Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California was born on July 17, 1912 to Mary Linkletter and Fulton Linkletter. He had a sister Laura Linkletter. He married Lois (Foerster) Linkletter on November 25, 1935, and they were married until Art's death on May 26, 2010. Art Linkletter had children Jack Arthur Linkletter, Dawn Linkletter, Robert Linkletter, Sharon Linkletter, and Diane Linkletter.

Art Linkletter

Arthur Gordon Linkletter

Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California 90025

July 17, 1912

May 26, 2010

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Art Linkletter Art Linkletter (1912 - 2010)

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Art Linkletter's History: 1912 - 2010

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Introduction

Art Linkletter Born Arthur Kelly July 17, 1912 Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada Died May 26, 2010 (aged 97) Bel Air, Los Angeles, California Occupation Radio and television personality Years active 1933–2010 Spouse Lois Foerster (1915-2011) (m. 1935–2010) (his death) Children Jack Linkletter (1937–2007) Dawn Linkletter (born 1939) Robert Linkletter (1944–1980) Sharon Linkletter (born 1946) Diane Linkletter (1948–1969) Arthur Gordon Linkletter (July 17, 1912 – May 26, 2010) was a Canadian-born American radio and television personality. He was the host of House Party which ran on CBS radio and television for 25 years, and People Are Funny on NBC radio and television for 19 years. He became a naturalized United States citizen in 1942. One popular feature of his House Party program was the Kids Say the Darndest Things segments. A series of books followed which contained the humorous comments made on-air by children. Early life and career Linkletter was born in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. In his autobiography, Confessions of a Happy Man (1960), he revealed that he had no contact with his natural parents or his sister or two brothers since he was abandoned when only a few weeks old. He was adopted by Mary (née Metzler) and Fulton John Linkletter, an evangelical preacher. When he was five, his family moved to San Diego, California, where he was graduated from San Diego High School at age 16. During the early years of the Great Depression, he rode trains around the country doing odd jobs and meeting a wide variety of people. In 1934, he earned a bachelor's degree in teaching from San Diego State Teachers College (now San Diego State University), where he was a member of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity. While attending San Diego State, he played for the basketball team and was a member of the swimming team. He had previously planned to attend Springfield College, but did not, for financial reasons. In 1935 he met Lois Foerster. They were married at Grace Lutheran Church in San Diego, November 28, 1935. Their marriage lasted until Linkletter's death, 74 1⁄2 years later. From radio into television After receiving his teaching degree, Linkletter decided to go to work as a radio announcer at KGB in San Diego, because radio paid better than teaching. He directed radio programs for fairs and expositions in the mid-1930s. Afterwards, he moved to San Francisco and continued his radio career. In 1943, Linkletter pleaded guilty to falsely claiming US citizenship;[7] he was fined $500 and permitted to apply for citizenship. In the 1940s, Linkletter worked in Hollywood with John Guedel on their pioneering radio show, People Are Funny, which employed audience participation, contests and gags. The series served as a prototype for future radio and television game shows. People Are Funny became a television show in 1954 and ran until 1961. Early television and film appearances Other early television shows Linkletter worked on included Life With Linkletter with his son Jack (1969–1970) and Hollywood Talent Scouts (1965–1966). He also acted in two movies, People Are Funny (1946) and Champagne for Caesar (1950). Linkletter declined the opportunity offered by his friend Walt Disney to invest in the Disneyland theme park project along with building and operating the Disneyland Hotel due to Linkletter's doubts about the park's prospects. But, out of friendship for Disney, Linkletter volunteered his experience as a live program broadcaster to help organize ABC's coverage of the Disneyland opening in 1955 on what was his 43rd birthday. Besides being an on-air host, he recruited his two co-hosts: Ronald Reagan and Bob Cummings. The park opening experience convinced Linkletter that Disneyland was going to be a huge success. When Disney asked what he could do to show his gratitude for the broadcast's role in the successful launching of the park, Linkletter asked for Disneyland's camera and film concession for its first ten years, a request that was quickly granted. This turned out to be extremely lucrative. He appeared for two stints of two weeks each, as a guest host of The Tonight Show in 1962 between Jack Paar's departure and Johnny Carson's arrival as its new host. In the 1950s, Linkletter hosted a 15-minute series for syndication titled Art Linkletter And The Kids, seen locally on Saturday mornings in some areas. Toy and game promotions In the 1950s, Linkletter became a major investor in and promoter of the hula hoop. In 1963, Linkletter became the endorser and spokesman for Milton Bradley's The Game of Life. His picture appeared on the game's $100,000 bills and also on the box, framed by the statement "I heartily endorse this game." Art Linkletter's Kids Art Linkletter's Kids was a 1963–64 gag cartoon panel drawn by the prolific cartoonist Stan Fine and distributed by King Features Syndicate. Later years In the 1960s, Linkletter started a dance school, the Art Linkletter School of Jazz, Tap, and Ballet, in Pomona and Claremont, California. After three public meetings in 1967, an eight-member Los Angeles City Council committee cleared Linkletter and City Council Member Tom Shepard of charges that they were linked in a scheme to influence city purchase of the "financially troubled" Valley Music Theater in Woodland Hills. In 1988, he appeared as himself on the syndicated sitcom Small Wonder in the episode "Come Fly With Me." At one point he was a spokesman for National Home Life, an insurance company. Activism A registered Republican who campaigned for his old friend Ronald Reagan for President of the United States, Linkletter became a political organizer and a spokesman for the United Seniors Association, now known as USA Next, an alternative to the AARP. As part of this role, Linkletter was active in campaigning for more stringent restrictions on elderly motorists. He was also a member of the President's Council on Service and Civic Participation (which ended in November 2008). In 1978, he wrote the foreword to the bestselling self-help book Release Your Brakes! by James W. Newman, in which he wrote, "I believe none of us should ever stop growing, learning, changing, and being curious about what's going to happen next. None of us is perfect, so we should be eager to learn more and try to be more effective persons in every part of our lives." In 2005, at the age of 93, he opened the Happiest Homecoming on Earth celebrations for the 50th anniversary of Disneyland. Half a century earlier, he had been the commentator on the opening day celebrations in 1955. For this, he was named a Disney Legend. Philanthropy Linkletter invested wisely, enabling his considerable philanthropy. A member of Pepperdine University's Board of Regents, Linkletter was also a long-term trustee at Springfield College, where he donated funds to build the swimming center named in his honor, the Art Linkletter Natatorium. Awards and honors Linkletter received a lifetime achievement Daytime Emmy award in 2003. He was inducted into the National Speakers Association Speaker Hall of Fame. He also received honorary degrees from several universities, including his alma mater, San Diego State University; Pepperdine University; and the University of Prince Edward Island. For his contribution to television, he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, located on 1560 Vine Street. Personal life Linkletter had one of the longest marriages of any well-known person in America, at nearly 75 years. He married Lois Foerster on November 25, 1935, and they had five children: Arthur Jack, Dawn, Robert, Sharon and Diane. Lois Foerster Linkletter died at the age of 95 on October 11, 2011. Art and Lois Linkletter outlived three of their five children. On October 4, 1969, 20-year-old Diane died after jumping out of her sixth-floor kitchen window. Linkletter claimed that her death was drug related because she was on, or having a flashback from, an LSD trip (toxicology tests later determined there were no drugs in Diane's system at the time of her death). After Diane's death, Linkletter spoke out against drugs to prevent children from straying into a drug habit. His record, "We Love You, Call Collect," recorded before her death, featured a discussion about permissiveness in modern society, along with a rebuttal by Diane, titled "Dear Mom and Dad". The record won a 1970 Grammy Award for the "Best Spoken Word Recording". Art and Lois' son Robert Linkletter died in an automobile accident on September 12, 1980.] Another son, Arthur, died from lymphoma in 2007. Illness and death After his death, Phyllis Diller stated, "In a couple of months Art Linkletter would have been 98 years old, a full life of fun and goodness, an orphan who made it to the top. What a guy." He was survived by his wife, Lois and daughters Dawn Griffin and Sharon Linkletter, as well as seven grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren. Alexis Linkletter, his oldest great grandchild has pursued a career in broadcasting and hosts a number of popular crime podcasts and produces documentary television.
07/17

1912

Birthday

July 17, 1912

Birthdate

Unknown

Birthplace

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Professional Career

Works Linkletter, Art (1957). Kids Say the Darndest Things!. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. OCLC 336428. Linkletter, Art (1960). The Secret World of Kids. New York: Pocket Books. ASIN B0007FZ0X0. Linkletter, Art (1962) [1960]. Confessions of a Happy Man. with Dean Jennings. New York: Pocket Books. OCLC 21491400. Linkletter, Art (1962). Kids Sure Rite Funny!. Bernard Geis Associate. ASIN B001KZ1FU8. Linkletter, Art (1962). Kids STILL say the Darndest Things!. Pocket Books, Inc. ASIN B0007FZWBA. Linkletter, Art (1965). A Child's Garden of Misinformation. Random House. ASIN B0007DSKPW. Linkletter, Art (1968). I Wish I'd Said That! My Favorite Ad-Libs of All Time. Doubleday. ASIN B000MTRRQO. Linkletter, Art (1968). Oops! Or, Life's Awful Moments. Pocket Books. ASIN B0007FBEFS. Linkletter, Art (1968). Linkletter Down Under. Kaye Ward. ASIN B000KP2O3Q. Linkletter, Art (February 1970). "We Must Fight the Epidemic of Drug Abuse!". Reader's Digest: 56–60. Linkletter, Art (1973). Drugs at my Door Step. W Publishing Group. ISBN 0-87680-335-4. Linkletter, Art (1974). Women are My Favorite People. Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-05226-X. Linkletter, Art (1974). How to be a Super Salesman: Linkletter's Art of Persuasion. Prentice-Hall. ISBN 0-13-396606-2. Linkletter, Art (1990). Yes, You Can!. Spire. ASIN B000O8ZB8O. Linkletter, Art (1980). I Didn't Do It Alone: The Autobiography of Art Linkletter as Told to George Bishop. Ottawa, Illinois: Caroline House Publishers. ISBN 0-89803-040-4. OCLC 6899386. Linkletter, Art (1990). Old Age is Not for Sissies. Bookthrift Co. ISBN 0-7917-1479-9. Linkletter, Art (2006). How to Make the Rest of Your Life the Best of Your Life. with Mark Victor Hansen. Thomas Nelson. ISBN 0-7852-1890-4.
05/26

2010

Death

May 26, 2010

Death date

Unknown
Cause of death

Unknown
Death location

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Obituary

Art Linkletter, TV Host, Dies at 97 By WILLIAM GRIMES MAY 26, 2010 Art Linkletter, the genial host who parlayed his talent for the ad-libbed interview into two of television’s longest-running shows, “People Are Funny” and “House Party,” in the 1950s and 1960s, died on Wednesday at his home in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles. He was 97. The death was confirmed by Art Hershey, a son-in-law. From his early days as an announcer on local radio and a roving broadcaster at state fairs, Mr. Linkletter showed a talent for ingratiating himself with his subjects and getting them to open up, often with hilarious results. He was particularly adept at putting small children at ease, which he did regularly on a segment of “House Party,” a reliably amusing question-and-answer session that provided the material for his best-selling book “Kids Say the Darndest Things!” Television critics and intellectuals found the Linkletter persona bland and his popularity unfathomable. “There is nothing greatly impressive, one way or the other, about his appearance, mannerisms, or his small talk,” one newspaper critic wrote. Another referred to his “imperishable banality.” Millions of Americans disagreed. They responded to his wholesome, friendly manner and upbeat appeal. Women, who made up three-quarters of the audience for “House Party,” which was broadcast in the afternoon, loved his easy, enthusiastic way with children. The Career of Art Linkletter MAY 27, 2010 “I know enough about a lot of things to be interesting, but I’m not interested enough in any one thing to be boring,” Mr. Linkletter told The New York Post in 1965. “I’m like everybody’s next-door neighbor, only a little bit smarter.” He was also genuinely curious to know what was going on in the heads of the people he interviewed. “You have to listen,” he said. “A lot of guys can talk.” Gordon Arthur Kelly was born on July 17, 1912, in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. Before he was a month old he was abandoned by his parents and adopted by Fulton John and Mary Metzler Linkletter, a middle-age couple whose two children had died. It was not until he was 12, while rummaging through his father’s desk, that he discovered he was adopted. In his autobiography, “Confessions of a Happy Man,” Mr. Linkletter recalled his adoptive father, a one-legged cobbler and itinerant evangelist, as “a strange, uncompromising man whose main interest in life was the Bible.” The family prayed and performed on street corners, with Art playing the triangle. By the time Art was 5 the family had moved to an unpaved adobe section of San Diego. As a child he took on any job he could find. At one point he sorted through lemons left abandoned in piles outside a packing plant, cleaned them off and sold them for 6 cents a dozen. After graduating from high school at 16, Mr. Linkletter decided to see the world. With $10 in his pocket, he rode freight trains and hitchhiked around the country, working here and there as a meatpacker, a harvester and a busboy in a roadhouse. “Among other things, I learned to chisel rides on freight trains, outwit the road bulls, cook stew with the bindlestiffs and never to argue with a gun,” he later recalled. A fast typist, he found work in a Wall Street bank just in time to watch the stock market crash in 1929. He also shipped out to Hawaii and Rio de Janeiro as a merchant seaman. After returning to California, he entered San Diego State Teachers College (now San Diego State University) with plans of becoming an English teacher. He earned a bachelor’s degree in 1934, but in his last year he was hired to do spot announcements by a local radio station, KGB, a job that led to radio work at the California Pacific International Exposition in San Diego and at similar fairs in Dallas and San Francisco. With microphone in hand and countless programming hours to fill, Mr. Linkletter relied on ad-libbing, stunts and audience participation to get attention and keep listeners entertained. He was once lowered from a skyscraper in a boatswain’s chair, interviewing office workers on every floor as he descended. “It was the forced feeding of a young and growing M.C.,” he later said of his more than 9,000 fair broadcasts. In 1936 he married Lois Foerster, a college student in San Diego, who survives him. The couple had five children: Jack, who followed his father into television and died of lymphoma in 2007; Dawn, of Sedona, Ariz.; Robert, who died in a car accident in 1980; Sharon, of Calabasas, Calif.; and Diane, who committed suicide in 1969, an event that spurred her father into becoming a crusader against drug use. There are 7 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren. Mr. Linkletter quickly established himself on local radio in San Francisco, but floundered when he moved to Los Angeles in the early 1940s. A radio show picked up by Shell Oil, “Shell Goes to a Party,” was canceled after Mr. Linkletter, reporting on a nighttime beach party, fell over some driftwood and lost his microphone. He did have one piece of radio luck. With John Guedel, who would go on to create the quiz show “You Bet Your Life” and the comedy “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet,” Mr. Linkletter made an audition tape for an audience-participation show, with contests and gags, that would rely on his ability to ad-lib and coax humorous material from virtually anyone. Mr. Guedel came up with the name “People Are Funny,” and NBC put it on the air in 1942. Enormously popular, it ran on radio until 1960. The television version, which made its debut in 1954, ran until 1961. Working without a script, Mr. Linkletter sent audience volunteers on silly assignments outside the studio with instructions to report back on their experience. One man was handed a $1,000 bill and told to buy chewing gum. Another was given $15,000 to invest in the stock market. Mr. Linkletter mingled with the audience, asking questions, setting up gags and handing out prizes like a yard of hot dogs or five feet of dollar bills. On one show Mr. Linkletter spotted a woman’s enormous purse and began rummaging through it, announcing each item in turn: a can opener, a can of snuff, a losing racetrack ticket and a photograph of Herbert Hoover. The handbag bit became a staple of the show. More ingeniously, Mr. Linkletter set a dozen balls adrift in the Pacific, announcing a $1,000 prize for the first person to find one. Two years later a resident of the Marshall Islands claimed the money. “House Party,” which ran five days a week on radio from 1945 to 1967 and on television from 1952 to 1969, was a looser version of “People Are Funny,” with beauty tips and cooking demonstrations filling time between Mr. Linkletter’s audience-chatter sessions. The highlight of the show was a segment in which five children between the ages of 5 and 10 sat down to be interviewed by Mr. Linkletter, who sat at eye level with his little subjects and, time and time again, made their parents wish television had never been invented. After one boy revealed that his father was a policeman who arrested lots of burglars, Mr. Linkletter asked if his mother ever worried about the risks. “Naw, she thinks it’s great,” he answered. “He brings home rings and bracelets and jewelry almost every week.” Mr. Linkletter assembled replies like that in “Kids Say the Darndest Things!,” illustrated by Charles M. Schulz, the creator of “Peanuts,” and its sequel, “Kids Still Say the Darndest Things.” In 1969 Mr. Linkletter’s daughter Diane leapt to her death from her sixth-story apartment. Her father said that LSD had contributed to her death, and although an autopsy showed no signs of the drug in her body, the personal tragedy became a national event, suggesting to many Americans that drugs and the counterculture were making inroads even into seemingly model families like the Linkletters. Mr. Linkletter, rather than retreating from the attention, became a crusader against drug use and an adviser to President Richard M. Nixon on drug policy, although, in 1972, he announced that he had changed his position on marijuana. After much thought and study he had concluded that the drug was relatively harmless and that law-enforcement officials should spend their time concentrating on hard drugs. Much in demand as a public speaker and a fund-raiser for Republican candidates, Mr. Linkletter spent his subsequent years on lecture tours, appearing in commercials and tending to his far-flung business interests, including oil wells and toys. (One of his companies manufactured a version of the Hula-Hoop.) A former college athlete, he remained remarkably healthy well into his 90s and the ideal front man for the United Seniors Association (renamed USA Next), a conservative organization formed in opposition to AARP and dedicated largely to privatizing Social Security. In keeping with his new role as a prominent elder American, Mr. Linkletter wrote “Old Age Is Not for Sissies.” When he was well into his 80s and still going strong, someone asked him the secret of longevity. “You live between your ears,” he replied. “You can’t turn back the clock, but you can rewind it.”

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Art Linkletter lived 22 years longer than the average family member when died at the age of 97.

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5 Memories, Stories & Photos about Art

Amanda S. Stevenson

17.7k+ favorites

07/19/2019

Arthur Gordon Linkletter

A photo of Arthur Gordon Linkletter

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Comments

Amanda S. Stevenson

17.7k+ favorites

06/09/2024

I met him at a small theater in Manhattan. Before the performance, I approached him and said, "I used to run home from school so I could see most of your show." (it was on from 3 to 4 in NYC) He was very pleased, and since he was alone, I am sure it was nice to be recognized.

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