Television
Crosby was known for his literate, caustic remarks about the television industry. One of his most notable quotes came upon the cancellation of Edward R. Murrow's television series See It Now: "See it Now... is by every criterion television's most brilliant, most decorated, most imaginative, most courageous and most important program. The fact that CBS cannot afford it but can afford Beat the Clock is shocking."
Crosby was so highly respected that he became one of the first media critics to host a television show: the Emmy-winning anthology series The Seven Lively Arts, on CBS. Telecast on Sunday afternoons, it lasted a single season, from late 1957 to early 1958, with individual episodes on such subjects as jazz, ballet and films. The program was notable for showcasing the first (albeit heavily abridged) telecast of Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker.
From 1965 to 1975 he was a columnist for the British weekly, The Observer. He married Mary B. Wolferth in 1946, and they divorced in 1959. His second wife, the former Katharine J. B. Wood, was a former fashion editor of Edinburgh's The Scotsman. In 1977, he moved to a farm outside Esmont, Virginia, and turned to writing suspense novels, including Men in Arms (1983). He died of cancer in 1991 in Esmont.
Read more about this topic: John Crosby (media Critic)
Famous quotes containing the word television:
“His [O.J. Simpson’s] supporters lined the freeway to cheer him on Friday and commentators talked about his tragedy. Did those people see the photographs of the crime scene and the great blackening pools of blood seeping into the sidewalk? Did battered women watch all this on television and realize more vividly than ever before that their lives were cheap and their pain inconsequential?”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“Cultural expectations shade and color the images that parents- to-be form. The baby product ads, showing a woman serenely holding her child, looking blissfully and mysteriously contented, or the television parents, wisely and humorously solving problems, influence parents-to-be.”
—Ellen Galinsky (20th century)
“In full view of his television audience, he preached a new religion—or a new form of Christianity—based on faith in financial miracles and in a Heaven here on earth with a water slide and luxury hotels. It was a religion of celebrity and showmanship and fun, which made a mockery of all puritanical standards and all canons of good taste. Its standard was excess, and its doctrines were tolerance and freedom from accountability.”
—New Yorker (April 23, 1990)