Ed Harvey, a Broadcast Pioneer

Ed Harvey & Alfred Hitchcock in 1963
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In 1963, Ed Harvey had film director Alfred Hitchcock as a guest on his WCAU Radio program, "The Talk of Philadelphia."

Born Alfred Joseph Hitchcock on August 13, 1899 in Leytonstone, London, England, his father was a green grocer in the tough East End of London and the Hitchcocks were strict Catholics.

Just out of his teens, he rose quickly through the British film making industry directing his first film in 1922. It was not released and the studio went under. Hitchcock relocated to Berlin to continue in his work, and he was exposed to the dark German school of filmmaking, filled with shadows and out of kilter camera angles. It was a completely different approach to motion pictures, one which the young director readily absorbed before returning to Great Britain.

Hithcock's biggest British films included "The Man Who Knew Too Much" (1934), "The Lady Vanishes' (1938), and "The Thirty-Nine Steps" (1935). He moved to Hollywood in 1939 with a large amount of box-office smashes.

On October 2, 1955, he started his television career with "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," first on CBS and then on NBC. The CBS time period was Sunday evening from 9:30 pm until 10. When he moved to NBC-TV in 1960, they placed him on Tuesdays at 8:30 pm, possibly a slightly too early time period for the broadcast.

In 1962, he came home to CBS-TV with an hour long version of the show retitled, "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour," Thursday at 10 pm. It didn't do what CBS had expected and was moved half way through the season to Fridays at 9:30 pm. That seemed to work a little better and when the 1963 season started, he found himself a half-hour later at 10 pm. The last season found him going back to NBC at 10 pm on Monday evenings. It didn't do what NBC expected and the last new episode was aired May 10, 1965. One reason for the success of the earlier series may have been that Hitchcock himself directed more of the episodes.

For one season on NBC, in the fall of 1985, five years after Hitchcock's death, the well-known director acheived an unique distinction. He became the first person to return from the grave to host a new series. Clips of his original black-and-white introductions were colorized and used to introduce new episodes. Hitchcock's black humor took on an eerie quality coming from the grave. In 1987 an additional season of new episodes were made for the USA Cable Network.

The e-mail address of the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia is pioneers@broadcastpioneers.com