Dick Cavett Talk Show Host On NBC

Dick Cavett is a popular television talk show host who is well known or his conversational style and in depth treatment of important issues. He first hosted the Tonight Show on NBC and then went on to have his own show on various television channels. Other than hosting talk shows on television, he has also worked as an actor, stand up comic, magician and a writer.

Dick Cavett was born as Richard Alva Cavett on November 19, 1936 at Gibbon in Nebraska. Both his parents Eva and Alva B. Cavett were teachers. He lost his mother when he was just ten after which his father remarried. While still at school he directed a live Saturday morning radio show and even played a part in The Winslow Boy. Before joining college Cavett began learning to perform magic shows under Gene Gloye and even won the Best New Performer trophy at the International Brotherhood of Magicians in St. Louis in 1952.

After high school Dick Cavett enrolled at the Yale University where he appeared in theatre productions and even directed plays for the campus station WYBC. In his senior year Cavett switched his major from English to Drama. During his last two years at the university Cavett apprenticed at Shakespeare festivals in Oregon and Stratford in Connecticut and even managed a minor part in The Merchant of Venice production in which Katherine Hepburn played the role of Portia.

In 1960 Dick Cavett moved to Manhattan and worked for a while as an actor and even revived his magic act. While working in Time, Cavett met Jack Paar who was at that time hosting The Tonight Show. Cavett was initially hired as a talent co-coordinator and in 1961 made his first appearance on the show when he interviewed the then Miss Universe, Marlene Schmidt of Germany. Some of the most famous people Cavett interviewed on The Tonight Show were John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono, Groucho Marx, Johnny Carson and many others.

In 1964 Dick Cavett began a brief career as a stand up comic at the Bitter End in Greenwich Village. Next he ventured into doing some commercial voiceovers which included a series of mock interviews with Mel Brooks for Ballantine beer. Around this time he wrote for and appeared on various other programs like the game show Whats My Line, The Ed Sullivan Show, Merv Griffins talk show and Where Its At.

In 1969 Cavett got his own talk show and since then The Dick Cavett Talk Show has appeared in various formats and on several television and radio networks. His show often explored controversial issues and sensitive subjects that many other talk show hosts avoided. The period of his talk show that is best remembered today is perhaps the run from 1969 to 1974. Cavett went on to win three Emmy awards and eleven nominations for his talk show. Dick Cavett