Ed Sullivan was born Edward Vincent Sullivan on September 28, 1901 in Harlem, New York City. He grew up in an Irish-American family, and a household brimming with the love of music and entertainment. From an early age, it was clear that Sullivan was destined to be a star—his first taste of performing was actually as a sportsman! He led his school to victory in a number of team sports, such as baseball, basketball, and football.
Sullivan was clearly a team player, and this would come to define his character throughout his career—in more ways than one.
As a young sportsman, Sullivan grew up on the pitch, enjoying strong friendships with his teammates. The inclusion he experienced in team sports—playing alongside teammates and opponents of all races—would later lead him to become a champion of anti-racism. But his young life in athleticism was also steeped in romance—and later in tragedy. The young Ed Sullivan romanced fellow sporting star, Olympic swimmer Sybil Bauer, and they later became engaged.
Tragically, in 1924 Bauer passed away from cancer at the age of 23, and Sullivan was left devastated. But it wouldn’t be the future TV superstar’s last chance at love.
About two years after losing his beloved Sybil Bauer, Sullivan’s broken heart began to heal. Therefore, he was ready for romance once again by the time he met Sylvia Weinstein. Weinstein’s Jewish family didn’t approve of her dating the Irish Catholic Sullivan, so she pretended his surname was actually Solomon!
However, the family found out the truth eventually, and the couple married—under their real names—in 1930. Weinstein didn’t realize at the time that her husband was destined to become one of the biggest stars of all time.
After tying the knot with Weinstein, Sullivan quickly settled into a happy home life with his new wife. Merely a month after their marriage, they discovered that his new beloved bride was pregnant. Sure enough, in 1930 they welcomed a daughter, Betty—named after Sullivan’s mother, who had died a few months earlier.
But the new parents had no idea at this time that they were about to enter into a whirlwind showbiz world that would change their lives forever.
After settling down and getting married, Sullivan started to look away from his high school sports career and head into the news and entertainment industry. Though he initially started out as a sports reporter, he started writing a variety of columns for high profile publications such as the Evening Graphic and the New York Daily News.
It was his column in the New York Daily News, "Little Old New York", focusing on theatre and entertainment gossip, that made him a star. By 1941, Sullivan was so popular that he was invited by CBS to host their TV show Summer Silver Theater—a move that put him well on the way to superstardom.
After his performance on the Summer Silver Theater TV show, CBS could see that Ed Sullivan was a true and unique hosting talent. So it seemed the obvious choice for the executives, to give him the job as host for their new variety show, The Toast of the Town, which would showcase new and exciting talent within the entertainment world.
However, Sullivan himself was also displaying his own mega talent—and his popularity led to the show being renamed The Ed Sullivan Show.
One of the reasons that viewers adored Ed Sullivan so much was not because he gave off an air of professionalism and perfect poise.
In fact, Sullivan was known as somewhat of an awkward personality, sometimes coming across a bit shy and fluffing up his lines. This proved absolutely endearing to the audience—who found him relatable and easy to like. However, this wasn’t the case for some of Sullivan’s guests behind the scenes—who found his relaxed and informal presenting style hard to deal with.
The Ed Sullivan Show wasn’t just the breakout hit for Sullivan himself. It quickly became known as the go-to destination for any band or entertainment act looking to make it big in showbiz. It seemed that once you made it onto Sullivan’s show, this was your first stepping stone in the industry. Sullivan became famous for his ability to find the best and most potentially successful talent—and his guests went on to become some of the biggest stars of the time.
However, even though a spot on his show was a golden ticket to success, many of Sullivan’s guests had secret feuds with him behind the scenes.
Ed Sullivan gained himself a reputation as being one of the most expert talent spotters in the industry. He had a knack for spotting potential out of thousands of acts, and brought them onto his show to give them their first taste of the spotlight. Often people tuned in to see what new act he was introducing to them that day, but other times he would invite back particularly popular acts to perform more than once.
Sullivan’s most popular recurring acts included the ventriloquist named Señor Wences and his puppet Topo Gigio. But many of his guests received a frosty reception from Sullivan himself—and would never be invited back.
As well as introducing some of the biggest and best acts in the entertainment industry, Ed Sullivan also did a lot to raise awareness to more serious and important topics on his show. In 1953, Sullivan invited Broadway director Joshua Logan onto his show, to speak openly about his experiences with mental illness and his time in a psychiatric institution.
This episode worked wonders to raise awareness on mental illness in America, and Sullivan regarded it as one of the most important moments in his career. And that’s not the only good in the world that Sullivan did with his groundbreaking show.
