Anyone who watched television in the United States between 1948 and 1971 saw Ed Sullivan. Even if viewers did not watch his Sunday night variety show regularly, chances are they tuned in occasionally to see a favorite singer or comedian. Milton Berle may have been Mr. Television in the early years of TV, but for almost a quarter of a century, Sullivan was Mr. Sunday Night. Considered by many to be the embodiment of banal, middlebrow taste. Sullivan exposed a generation of Americans to virtually everything the culture had to offer in the field of art and entertainment.

     Sullivan began as a journalist. It was his column  in the New York Daily News that launched him as an emcee of vaudeville revues and charity  events. This led  to a role in a regular televised variety show in  1948. Known as the Toast of the Town until 1955, it became The Ed Sullivan Show in September of that year. According to Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) president William S. Paley, Sullivan was chosen to host the network's Sunday night program  because  CBS  could not hold anyone comparable to Berle. Ironically, Sulli­van outlasted Berle in large measure because of his (Sullivan's) lack of personality. Berle came to be identified with a particular brand of comedy that was fading from popularity. On the other hand, Sullivan simply introduced acts, then stepped into the wings.

     Ed Sullivan's stiff physical appearance, evident discomfort before the camera, and awkward vocal mannerisms (including the oft-imitated description of his program as a "reeeeeelly big shoe") made him an unlikely candidate to become a television star and national institution. But what Sullivan lacked in screen presence and personal charisma he made up for with a canny ability to locate and showcase talent. More than anything else, his show was an extension of vaudeville tradition. In an era before networks attempted to gear a program's appeal to a narrow demographic group, Sullivan was obliged to attract the widest possible audience. He did so by booking acts from every spectrum of entertainment: performers of the classics such as Itzhak Perlman, Margot Fonteyn, and Rudolf Nureyev; comedians such as Buster Keaton, Bob Hope, Henny Youngman, Joan Rivers, and George Carlin; and singers such as Elvis Presley, Mahalia Jackson, Kate Smith, the Beatles, James Brown, and Sister Sourire, the Singing Nun. Sports stars appeared on the same stage as Shakespearean actors. Poets and artists shared the spotlight with dancing bears and trained dogs. And then there were the ubiquitous "specialty acts," such as Topo Gigio, the marionette mouse with the thick Italian accent enlisted to "humanize" Sullivan, and Senor Wences, the ventriloquist who appeared more than 20 times, talking to his lipstick-smeared hand and a wooden head in a box. Sullivan's program was a variety show in the fullest sense of the term. While he was not so notable for "firsts," Sullivan did seem to convey a kind of approval on emerging acts. Elvis Presley and many other performers had appeared on network television before ever showing up on the Sullivan program, but taking his stage once during prime time on Sunday night meant more than a dozen appearances on any other show.

     Although Sullivan relented to the blacklist in 1950, apologizing for booking tap dancer and alleged Communist sympathizer Paul Draper, he was noted for his support of civil rights. At a time when virtually all sponsors balked at permitting black performers to take the stage, Sullivan embraced Pearl Bailey over the objections of his sponsors. He also showcased black entertainers as diverse as Nat "King" Cole, Leontyne Price, Louis Armstrong, George Kirby, Richard Pryor, Duke Ellington, Richie Havens, and the Supremes.

     Sullivan attempted to keep up with the times, booking rock bands and young comedians, but by the time his show was canceled in 1971, he had been eclipsed in the ratings by "hipper" variety programs, such as Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In and The Flip Wilson Show. Sullivan became victim to his own age and CBS's desire to appeal to a younger demographic, regardless of his show's health in the ratings. He died in 1974.

     Since The Ed Sullivan Show ended in 1971, no other program on American television has approached the diversity and depth of Sullivan's weekly variety show. Periodic specials drawing from the hundreds of hours of Sullivan shows, as well as the venue of the Late Show with David Letterman (taped in the same theater used for The Ed Sullivan Show), continue to serve as a tribute to Sullivan's unique place in broadcasting. Ed Sullivan remains an important figure in American broadcasting because of his talents as a producer and his willingness to chip away at the entrenched racism that existed in television's first decades.