John Charles Daly

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John Charles Daly bigraphy, stories - Journalists

John Charles Daly : biography

20 February 1914 – 24 February 1991

John Charles Patrick Croghan DalyEpisode 859 of What’s My Line? Originally aired November 13, 1966 on CBS. Rebroadcast on the Game Show Network on January 20, 2008. After Bennett Cerf announces Daly’s full name, Daly corrects his pronunciation: "…for nearly eighteen years I’ve been trying to teach you it’s John Charles Patrick ‘Crow-ann’—the "g" is silent…" (generally known as John Charles Daly or simply John Daly (February 20, 1914 – February 24, 1991) was an American journalist, game show host and radio personality, probably best known for hosting the panel show What’s My Line?. He was the vice president of ABC during the 1950s. On December 22, 1960, he became the son-in-law of Chief Justice Earl Warren, upon marrying Virginia Warren.Obituary Variety, March 4, 1991.

Personal life

The second of two brothers, Daly was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, where his American father worked as a geologist. After his father died of tropical fever, Daly’s mother moved the family to Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States. Daly was an alumnus of Tilton School in Tilton, New Hampshire; he later served on its board of directors for many years and contributed to the construction or restoration of many buildings on campus. He did his post-secondary education at Boston College.

He married twice, first to Margaret Griswell Neal in January 1937. – Bennett Cerf states that Daly is celebrating his 18th anniversary on the January 9, 1955, episode of What’s My Line. The marriage resulted in sons John Neal Daly and John Charles Daly III and daughter Helene Fitzgerald Daly. It is unclear if Fitzgerald is Helene’s married surname or if her surname remained Daly at the time of the obituatry; the latter is more likely, given that the article does not list the boys’ surnames either. It ended in divorce in April 1959 or 1960. On December 22, 1960, Daly married Virginia Warren, daughter of then-Chief Justice Earl Warren, in San Francisco. They were married for over thirty years, until his death. The marriage also yielded three children: John Warren Daly, John Earl Jameson Daly, and Nina Elisabeth Daly. He died in Chevy Chase, Maryland, of cardiac arrest. –

Career

Radio

Daly began his broadcasting career as a reporter for NBC radio, and then for WJSV (now WTOP), the local CBS Radio Network affiliate in Washington, DC, serving as CBS’s White House correspondent.

Through covering the Roosevelt White House, Daly became known to the national CBS audience as the network announcer for many of the President’s speeches. In late 1941, Daly transferred to New York City, where he became anchor of The World Today. During World War II, he covered the news from London as well as the North African and Italian fronts. Daly was a war correspondent in 1943 in Italy during Gen. George S. Patton’s infamous "slapping incidents." After the war, he was a lead reporter on CBS Radio’s news/entertainment program CBS is There (later known on TV as You are There), which re-created the great events of history as if CBS correspondents were on the scene.

Famous broadcasts

As a reporter for CBS, Daly was the voice of two historic announcements. He was the first national radio correspondent to deliver the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 (recordings of this announcement reveal a minor error, either a mistyping of the copy in haste or a misreading by Daly as he pronounced Oahu as if it were spelled "O-ha-u"), and he was the first to relay the wire service report of the death of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on April 12, 1945, interrupting "Wilderness Road" to deliver the news. Both narrations have been used on historical record albums and radio and TV retrospectives.

Television

Daly’s first foray into television was as a panelist on the game show Celebrity Time. This led to a job in 1950 as the host and moderator on a new panel show produced by Goodson-Todman, What’s My Line?. The show lasted 17 years with Daly hosting all but four episodes of the weekly series.