Where is the ed sullivan theater
Hal Gurnee on finding the Ed Sullivan Theater for "Late Show with David Letterman"
the producers executive producers wanted to do it at CBS first of all they want
to it was it was Bob and Peter LaSalle II people the silently lives on the west
coast and Bob always wanted to go to West Coast and they they talked me up
the idea of going to first of all the CBS new buildings in in Hollywood and
Dave asked me and Bob to go out and take a look at them and see what we thought
and Bob came bags are there great names it's gonna be perfect for you and I and
I and he asked me what I thought I said it'll be like doing a show at a Space
Agency it was this great big shiny buildings I said Dave the good news is
like 40 acres of cars yeah and so he says all right so i i dissuaded him from
that and then we started looking in New York because I you know I didn't want to
move to the west coast and neither did most of the people on the show and
neither did Dave I said people aren't funny on the west coast yeah and they
are funny in New York and and so we started looking for a theater and we
looked at the old Hudson theater where the with its first Tonight Show was
distorted yes we went to different theaters and none of them had the
seating of a word it didn't just didn't appeal and then we decided to go to the
broadcast center CBS broadcast Center and the one big studio there was a
couple soap operas and they wouldn't give up and they've recommended a one of
the one of the studios there and they and without my knowing it
Dave signed on he just said okay let's do in here and then the set director
myself went over and looked at it started measuring and I said it's no
bigger than the studio right now we went back to Dave and I said
the Ed Sullivan Theater was great for it Sullivan and all those people why don't
we give it a try so he went over and Dave almost walked out what they even
say no rat infested slimy place how'd he expect us to do a show here I said if
all the slime is removed it's a great great venue it was slimy and red and
it was it was first of all the control room was put in the back of the only so
he took up make one quarter of the seats and then off that was a couple ramps up
to staging extending the the stage out for commercials and the seating would be
maybe one-third or one-fourth the mountain that were originally intended
and the thing about the Ed Sullivan Theater is it wasn't what at Sullivan it
was it was the Oscar Hammerstein theater back in the 20s and it was built with
the largest proscenium in New York and it was made for musicals unfortunately
the the depression came along and no one was producing big musicals and it became
a nightclub for a while and then CBS took it over and and did two things like
Garry Moore and and and I remember going there for the Ed Sullivan Show with
Garry Moore it was pretty damn good but now it had fallen to this disrespect
repair and and I still wanted I thought jeez this would be a good deal for CBS
and the president of CBS at the time he was with us and he showed us he showed
us the studios and at the broadcast Center and then he came with us to look
at the Ed Sullivan Theater again and while
daven and and the two producers were just shaking her hands he said I want to
talk to you so we walked out and I said he said what do you think about this
place where do you think he could turn this and I said just a minute let's
let's walk and we walked out sort of the theater onto Broadway and I said here's
the answer you're on Broadway he got activity here it's you clean up this
place and it's a great theater what more do you want and it's for sale I'm CBS
just I think leased it there was a office building attached to it that one
what the theater were all as you know it would to me well it could be better but
I still had a lot of resistance and then one day Dave said to me he said hey Ari
we bit clean it up he said do you think it'll look like 11:30 and we were on at
12:30 to look like 11:30 and I said no it'll look like 8 o'clock and that's
what happened I was realizing we were number one for the first three years we
were there and everybody agreed that it was a great great venue for a talk job
