Herbert Schlosser, a longtime NBC govt who oversaw the event of Saturday Night (*95*) and was credited with bringing Johnny Carson to The Tonight Show has died at his residence in New York City. He was 95.
NBC launched the next assertion:
“We are deeply saddened by the passing of Herb Schlosser. His ingenuity, creativity and integrity as president and CEO of NBC in the course of the ’70s made an indelible mark on the community and its legacy, together with bringing Johnny Carson to ‘The Tonight Show’ and serving to to form what in the end turned ‘Saturday Night (*95*).’”
The Johnny Carson saga and “Saturday Night (*95*)” had been tied collectively. In 1974, Schlosser was president of NBC and realized that Carson not needed reruns of his present on the weekends. His monetary clout made pleasing him crucial.
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So Schlosser went to work, and wrote a memo early in 1975 proposing an unique program that may be carried dwell from NBC’s headquarters at Rockefeller Center. The present can be “younger and vivid,” with a “distinctive look, a particular set and a particular sound”; would “search to develop new tv personalities”; and would have a special host every week. The present debuted on Oct. 11, 1975 and after just a few bumps within the highway, turned a permanent cultural power.
Earlier in his profession, Schlosser labored in NBC’s enterprise affairs division, negotiating contracts for the 1964 Olympics and expertise offers with the likes of Bob Hope, whose specials had been a staple of NBC programming.
From there, he rose to turn into VP for applications on the West Coast. Based in Burbank, he was a key within the growth of “The Flip Wilson Show” and “Julia,” two of the earliest primetime reveals starring Black performers. He additionally employed the primary girl and the primary Black individual as VPs within the division.
Born in Atlantic City, N.J. in 1926, Schlosser served within the Navy, then attended Princeton and Yale Law School.
He began his profession with a Wall Street agency specializing in insurance coverage work, however rapidly moved to Phillips Nizer Benjamin Krim & Ballon (now known as Phillips Nizer LLP), a Manhattan agency with many movie and tv shoppers.
From there, he joined California National Productions, a movie, merchandising and syndication subsidiary of NBC. He later turned its chief working officer earlier than transferring to NBC’s enterprise affairs division in 1960. He rapidly climbed the ladder, turning into an EVP by 1972, president a 12 months later, after which named president of the National Broadcasting Company, the community’s company guardian, in 1974. By 1977, he was the CEO.
Schlosser was moved out in 1978, changed by Fred Silverman, who had the status of being a hitmaker at ABC. NBC had been a third-place community with out a new hit, damaging Schlosser.
But Schlosser was not down for lengthy. He turned an EVP at RCA, growing software program for the SelectaVision videodisc. He rose three years later to turn into head of all RCA leisure, which included RCA Records, however not the TV division.
Schlosser left that in 1985 and have become a senior adviser at Wertheim & Company, a Wall Street funding financial institution, and chairman of the Museum of the Moving Image, a Queen, NY challenge. He remained there as both chairman or co-chairman till 2013.
Survivors embrace his spouse, Judith (Gassner) Schlosser, a son, Eric, the writer of “Fast Food Nation”, a daughter, Lynn Jacobson, a former tv govt, and 5 grandchildren; and 6 great-grandchildren. No memorial plans have been introduced.
