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by Barbara Lien-Cooper and Park Cooper
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For Randy M. Chertow
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1968 was a watershed year, people say. But it didn’t feel like it to me at the time, stuck behind my desk the way I was.
My career always consisted of being stuck behind a desk. During the halcyon days of the studio system, I’d been a big man. I’d worked with everyone from Errol Flynn to Jerry Lewis (I still don’t like thinking about working with Lewis). But TV killed the old studio system. I thought, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” and I got a programming job with NBC. Not the worst job, but I resented where I ended up.
“I know nothing about teenagers or their tastes,” I protested. “I’m an old white guy. I like Cole Porter and Frank Sinatra.”
“Believe me, Charlie, so do I,” my boss’d said to me. “But no one else around here knows what these crazy teenagers like either, so it might as well be you, so it’s either you do this job, or you retire.”
I couldn’t imagine retiring. Retirement meant death. I’d seen too many old executives retire and then fall over of a heart attack. I liked living, so I took on the job like my life depended on it, which I felt like it did.
“Charlie, we think we have a winner here,” my boss said to me one day. “It’s Elvis Presley—he’s interested in doing a TV special. Or at least that’s what his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, says. So read through this script and tell us what you think.”