David Susskind - Personal

Personal

Susskind was born in Manhattan. He attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison and then Harvard University, graduating with honors in 1942, and then headed off to World War II. A communications officer on an attack transport, he saw action at Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

His first job was as a press agent for Warner Brothers. Next he was a talent agent for Century Artists, ultimately ending up in the powerhouse Music Corporation of America's newly-minted television programming department, managing Dinah Shore, Jerry Lewis, and others. In New York, Susskind formed Talent Associates, representing creators of material rather than performers. Ultimately, Susskind produced movies, stage plays and television programs.

He married twice, first to Phyllis Briskin, in 1939, and then Canadian-American television personality Joyce Davidson, in 1966. A year-and-a-half before Susskind and Davidson married, she began working as a co-producer of a television talk show he hosted locally in New York called Hot Line. It was a different show from his nationally known Open End talk show. Hot Line was the first television show to use the recently invented ten-second broadcast delay to amplify viewer phone calls on the air. Davidson screened the viewer phone calls. She also made the first approach to some of the people who appeared as guests on Hot Line, including Malcolm X, whom she invited for Hot Line immediately after he gave a speech at The Town Hall.

Both of Susskind's marriages ended in divorce. He had three daughters and a son, along with two stepdaughters by his marriage to Davidson.