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THU MAR 24 1983 ED: FINAL
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: 1D LENGTH: 723 MEDIUM
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SOURCE: CHARLES WHITED Herald Columnist ��&
DATELINE: ���
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*GODFREY*HAD GIANT 'S IMPACT ON S. FLORIDA
This is, I ' ll admit , a few days late. . . But*Arthur*Godfrey*
had a place in this town ' s history durable enough to weather the
crush of timing that dominates news.
His death last week in New York at age 79 has brought into
fresh focus for me the complexity of the man , and the sometimes
intensely human side of giants.
I use that word sparingly. One must consider giants within
certain frames of reference. *Godfrey, *he of the strumming
ukulele and commercial hype, was a giant in media terms. When TV
was still new, he claimed a weekly audience of 82 million.
That ' s gigantic.
And so was his impact on South Florida.
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We 're talking about the 1950s now. Miami Beach , the resort `
flourished for 90 days each winter and then went back to sleep ,
boarded up and shut down. Everybody left after Easter.
*Godfrey*came down in the late 1940s and fell in love with
the place. He did some radio shows. Then , with the installation
of a coaxial cable to Miami Beach , he brought his TV show in ��~��
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1953.
The man was king of the tube. He had a droll humor and gift
of gab. You got*Godfrey*five days a week , and*"Godfrcy ' s*Talent
Scouts" on Monday nights, and*"Arthur*Godfrey*and His Friends"
on Wednesday nights. He did them all here for a week or two
each season.
He broadcast from the*Kenilworth*Hotel in Bal Harbour , and
showed Miami Beach basking in sunshine while the rest of the
country froze. He had guests like then-Gov. LeRoy Collins come
in to demonstrate how to peel an orange. It was dynamite.
"God , the impact. " This is Hank Meyer , longtime Miami Beach
publicist and one of*Godfrey ' s*personal friends. "The inquiries
about Miami Beach poured in. It was like turning on a spigot .
People went crazy. And he sold this town , every aspect of it.
He 'd ask me, 'What d 'ya want me to say about it today? ' "
But there was another side to the King , a side caught in
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1 public and private glimpses. The King could be petty and mean ,
as when he fired singer Julius LaRosa on the air. In private, he
was often profane, larding his speech with cuss words. He hao
few close friends , mistrusted people -- especially the press
-- and seemed to lack real confidence in his own popularity. (He
once told a friend: "Two weeks after I 'm gone, Miami Beach will
change the name of*Arthur*Godfrey*Road. ° )
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He also endured in silence a whispered stigma that dogged `m�
his later life, but which Meyer insists was absolutely untrue.
One was that he was a drunk; the other that hc was anti-
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Semitic.
Meyer talked with me about this.
Drinking: "Actually,*Arthur*was not a drinker. He had a bad
hip. Onstage, it caused him to walk from side to side. People
said he was a drunk. The man ' s idea of a drink was an occasional
glass of wine' " �
Anti-Semitism: " It was a lie. He broadcast from the � �
*Kenilworth. *His lawyer owned a piece of tne place. At the time,
it was restricted against Jews. But*Arthur*had half a dozen
people on his staff who were Jewish. I didn 't work for him, but
I was a young press agent and he went out of his way to
befriend me. I would go out to dinner with him and people like
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Gen. Curtis LeMay, then commander of Strategic Air Command. "
The whispers might have been started by a Jewish employe who
disliked*Godfrey. * Meyer says he warned the entertainer:
*"Arthur ,*don 't mess around. When people are lying about you ,
hit it head-on; if you don 't , this thing will fester and
fester. "
But*Godfrey*got different advice from Bernard Baruch ,
adviser to the White House, who told him not to pay attention to
smears. The entertainer told Meyer: "Hank , I 'd rather forget
it. " In later years, he would regret the decision , saying: "The
dirty , filthy lies get worse and worse. "
*Godfrey*would also live to see his beloved Gold Coast
change. Flying his helicopter 25 years later over a Bal Harbour ,
Surfside and Sunny Isles strip crammed with high rises, he
grumbled: "What the hell happened to all this? Look how they 've
loused things up. "
Meyer grinned. "You did it ,*Arthur. *You told the people to
come down. . . . " (:)ADDED TERMS: obituary*godfrey*
END OF DOCUMENT.
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