Lowell Thomas
Encyclopedia
Lowell Jackson Thomas was an American
writer, broadcaster
, and traveler, best known as the man who made Lawrence of Arabia
famous. So varied were Thomas's activities that when it came time for the Library of Congress
to catalog his memoirs they were forced to put them in "CT" ("biographies of subjects who do not fit into any other category") in their classification
.
, to Harry and Harriet (née Wagner) Thomas. His father was a doctor and his mother a school teacher. In 1900, the family moved to the mining town of Victor, Colorado
. There he worked as a gold miner, a cook, and a reporter on the newspaper.
In 1910, Thomas graduated from Victor High School
, where one of his teachers was Mabel Barbee Lee
. The following year, he graduated from Valparaiso University
with bachelor's degrees in education and science. The next year he received both a B.A.
and an M.A.
from the University of Denver
and began work for the Chicago Journal, writing for it until 1914. Thomas also was on the faculty of Chicago-Kent College of Law
at Illinois Institute of Technology
, where he taught oratory
from 1912 to 1914. He then went to New Jersey
, where he studied for a master's at Princeton University
(he received the degree in 1916) and again taught oratory at the university.
A relentless self-promoter, Thomas persuaded railroads
to give him free passage in exchange for articles extolling rail travel. When he visited Alaska
, he hit upon the novel idea of the travelogue
, movies about faraway places. When the United States entered World War I
, he was part of an official party sent by President Wilson
, former president of Princeton, to "compile a history of the conflict." In reality the mission was not academic. The war was not popular in the United States, and Thomas was sent to find material that would encourage the American people to support it. Thomas did not want to merely write about the war, he wanted to film it. He estimated that $75,000 would be needed for filming, which the U.S. government thought too expensive, and so he turned to a group of 18 Chicago meat packers. (He had done them a favor by exposing someone who was blackmail
ing them, without the damaging material becoming public.)
, first went to the Western Front
, but the trenches had little to inspire the American public. They then went to Italy
, where he heard of General Allenby's campaign against the Ottoman Empire
in Palestine
. With the permission of the British Foreign Office, as an accredited war correspondent, Thomas met T. E. Lawrence
, a captain in the British Army
in Jerusalem. Lawrence was spending £200,000 a month encouraging the inhabitants of Palestine to revolt against the Turks. Thomas and Chase spent several weeks with Lawrence in the desert, though Lawrence said "several days." Lawrence agreed to provide Thomas with material on the condition that Thomas also photograph and interview Arab leaders such as Emir Feisal
.
Thomas shot dramatic footage of Lawrence and, after the war, toured the world, narrating his film, With Allenby in Palestine and Lawrence in Arabia, making Lawrence—and himself—household names. The performances were highly dramatic. At the opening of Thomas's six-month London
run, there were incense
brazier
s, exotically dressed women danced before images of the Pyramids, and the band of the Welsh Guards
played to provide the accompaniment. Lawrence saw the show several times, and though he later claimed to dislike it, it generated valuable publicity for his own book. However, to strengthen the emphasis on Lawrence in the show, Thomas needed more photographs of him than Chase had taken in 1918. Lawrence therefore agreed to a series of posed portraits in Arab dress in London, though he claimed to be shy of publicity. Thomas later said of Lawrence, "He had a genius for backing into the limelight." Thomas and Lawrence's initially friendly relations grew colder as Thomas's show grew in popularity, with Thomas ignoring several personal requests from Lawrence to stop the show.
The shows gave Lawrence a degree of publicity that he had never previously experienced. Newspapers became keen to print his attacks on Government policy, and politicians began to pay attention to his views. At the end of 1920, he was invited to join the British Colonial Office
, under Winston Churchill
, as an adviser on Arab affairs. However, Lawrence said that he never forgave Thomas for exploiting his image, and called him a "vulgar man." For his part, Thomas genuinely admired Lawrence and continued to defend him against attacks on his reputation. Lawrence's brother, Arnold
, extended Thomas an olive branch and allowed him to contribute to T.E. Lawrence by his Friends (1937), a collection of essays and reminiscences published after Lawrence's death.
About four million people saw the show around the world, and it made Thomas $1.5 million. Thomas would also later write a book, With Lawrence in Arabia (1924), about his time in the desert and Lawrence's exploits during the war. It would be the first of fifty-six volumes.
radio network, delivering a nightly news and commentary program. After two years, he switched to the NBC
radio network but returned to CBS in 1947. In contrast to today's practices, Thomas was not an employee of either NBC News or CBS News. Prior to 1947 he was employed by the broadcast's sponsor, Sunoco
. When he returned to CBS to take advantage of lower capital-gains tax rates, he established an independent company to produce the broadcast which he sold to CBS. He hosted the first-ever television-news broadcast in 1930 and the first regularly scheduled television news broadcast, beginning on February 21, 1940, on NBC. But television news was a short-lived venture for him, and he favored radio. Indeed, it was over radio that he presented and commented upon the news for four decades until his retirement in 1976, the longest radio career of anyone in his day (a record later surpassed by Paul Harvey
). "No other journalist or world figure, with the possible exception of Winston Churchill, has remained in the public spotlight for so long," wrote Norman R. Bowen in Lowell Thomas: The Stranger Everyone Knows (1968). His signature sign-on was "Good evening, everybody" and his sign-off "So long, until tomorrow," phrases he would use in titling his two volumes of memoirs.
Thomas never lost his fascination with the movies. He narrated Twentieth Century Fox's Movietone
newsreels until 1952. That year he went into business with Mike Todd
and Merian C. Cooper
to exploit Cinerama
, a movie format that used three projectors and an enormous curved screen. Cinerama features were well-received but with the enormous costs and technical difficulties in film production and presentation, the company discontinued three-projector Cinerama in a favor of a single-camera 70mm system, which lacked the visual impact of true Cinerama. A quarter-century later, Thomas was still raving about Cinerama
in his memoirs and wondering why someone wasn't trying to revive it. Thomas is also known for his television series of the 1950s entitled High Adventure and television's Lowell Thomas Remembers in the 1970s.
"The world's foremost globetrotter" took his radio show on his travels, broadcasting from the four corners of the globe. Once on the Spanish Steps
in Rome
he was asked by a fellow American, "Lowell Thomas, don't you ever go home?" He was a fanatical skier, helping develop the Mont Tremblant Resort
in Quebec
and skiing near Tucson, Arizona
.
Thomas's most amusing on-air gaffe occurred during one of his daily broadcasts in the early 1960s. He was reading a story "cold" (going on the air without pre-reading his copy, which Thomas usually did). This had the phrase "She suffered a near fatal heart attack" in it. The line came out of Thomas's mouth as "She suffered a near fatal fart attack". Realizing instantly what he had said, he collapsed into gales of roaring laughter, which continued into - and beyond - his announcer's chuckling sign-off for the day. Thomas' long time friend and ghostwriter, Prosper Buranelli, wrote the nightly newscasts. The day's script was sent by teletype to Thomas' home in Pawling, NY from which he usually did his broadcast. One evening, Buranelli had as the final item a story about an actress going into a Los Angeles hotel with a great dane. The dog's tail got caught in the revolving door and she sued the hotel for $10,000. Buranelli added a comment to the story to give Thomas a laugh before going on air, but Thomas read the story as written with Buranelli's comment, "Who ever thought a piece of tail was worth 10 grand." Another example of one of Thomas' on-air mishaps had Thomas reading a story about President Eisenhower's visit to Hershey, Pennsylvania "where he was greeted by the folks who make chocolate bars, with and without nuts." ("Nuts" is a slang euphemism for "testicles.") As Thomas read the next story, he could hear the announcer back in the New York city studio on his headphones breaking up with laughter, which caused Thomas to break up, as well. Air checks of some of Thomas' gaffes (as well as recreations of his "bloopers") are available to collectors.
Thomas was a successful businessman. In 1954, he and his long-time business manager/partner Frank Smith bought a small Albany New York-based broadcasting company and turned it into Capital Cities Communications
, which in 1986 took over the American Broadcasting Company
, and developed the Quaker Hill community in Dutchess County, New York
, near Pawling
, where Thomas resided when not on the road. Among his neighbors there was Thomas E. Dewey, one of a huge circle of friends that included everyone from the Dalai Lama to Franklin D. Roosevelt
. In 1976, President Gerald Ford
awarded Thomas the Presidential Medal of Freedom
. He has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
and was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 1989.
In May 1955, the board of directors of the Lancaster and Chester Railway
of South Carolina appointed him Press Agent, in N.Y.C.
His wife of 58 years, Fran Ryan, who often traveled with him, died in February 1975. He was married a second time in 1977 to Marianna Munn. True to form, he embarked with her on a 50,000-mile honeymoon trip that took him to many of his favorite old destinations. Marianna died in Dayton, Ohio on January 28, 2010 after a long battle with renal failure.
Thomas died at his home in Pawling, New York
in 1981. He is buried in Christ Church Cemetery.
His son, Lowell Thomas, Jr.
, was a film and television producer who collaborated with his father on several projects before becoming a State Senator, and later the Lieutenant Governor of Alaska, in the 1970s. Today, Lowell Thomas Jr. remains an active bush pilot and environmental activist in Alaska.
Lowell Thomas has the communications building at Marist College
(in Poughkeepsie, New York) named in his honor after receiving an honorary degree from the college in 1981. The Lowell Thomas Archives are housed as part of the college library.
's 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia
as American journalist Jackson Bentley, played by Arthur Kennedy
. In the unofficial sequel to Lawrence, A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia
(1990), he was more accurately portrayed by actor Adam Henderson
, who gave a recreated version of Thomas's slide lectures on Lawrence.
The Lawrence-themed play Ross
by Terence Rattigan
featured another Thomas-like character named Franks, who hectors General Allenby and Lawrence for photographs and interviews after the fall of Jerusalem.
Thomas appeared in an episode of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles
. The episode takes place in Morocco in 1917. Fresh from his adventures with Lawrence in Arabia, Thomas (played by Evan Richards) meets up with young Indy (Sean Patrick Flanery
) and the novelist Edith Wharton
(Clare Higgins). He was also fictionalized in two Warner Brothers cartoons, She Was an Acrobat's Daughter
(as Dole Promise) and The Film Fan (as Cold Promise).
In addition, he was impersonated on SCTV
by Joe Flaherty
as "Lowell Thompson" in a parody of his 1970s series Lowell Thomas Remembers.
, which Thomas was a member of, annually presents the Lowell Thomas award to "honor men and women who have distinguished themselves in the field of exploration". The awards are presented at a yearly dinner to a select group of people having made particular contributions in the specific area chosen to be that year's focus. Past awardees include Edmund Hillary
, Isaac Asimov
, David Doubilet
, Mary Cleave, Buzz Aldrin
and Bertrand Piccard
.
Since 1985, the Society of (North) American Travel Writers (SATW) has held an annual Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition for outstanding print, online and multimedia works and for travel photography and both audio and video broadcast. Past awardees included Elisabeth Eaves
, Jeff Biggers
and National Geographic Traveler
('08 and '09). In the 2008-9 awards, faculty members of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Mass Communication
, coordinated by Monica Hill, judged the competition. There were 1,191 entries and awards in 25 categories. In the 2007-8 awards, faculty members of the Missouri School of Journalism
judged the competition in 24 categories.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
writer, broadcaster
Presenter
A presenter, or host , is a person or organization responsible for running an event. A museum or university, for example, may be the presenter or host of an exhibit. Likewise, a master of ceremonies is a person that hosts or presents a show...
, and traveler, best known as the man who made Lawrence of Arabia
T. E. Lawrence
Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence, CB, DSO , known professionally as T. E. Lawrence, was a British Army officer renowned especially for his liaison role during the Arab Revolt against Ottoman Turkish rule of 1916–18...
famous. So varied were Thomas's activities that when it came time for the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
to catalog his memoirs they were forced to put them in "CT" ("biographies of subjects who do not fit into any other category") in their classification
Library of Congress Classification
The Library of Congress Classification is a system of library classification developed by the Library of Congress. It is used by most research and academic libraries in the U.S. and several other countries; for example, Australia and Taiwan, R.O.C. It is not to be confused with the Library of...
.
Early life and career
Thomas was born in Woodington, Darke County, OhioDarke County, Ohio
As of the census of 2000, there were 53,309 people, 20,419 households, and 14,905 families residing in the county. The population density was 89 people per square mile . There were 21,583 housing units at an average density of 36 per square mile...
, to Harry and Harriet (née Wagner) Thomas. His father was a doctor and his mother a school teacher. In 1900, the family moved to the mining town of Victor, Colorado
Victor, Colorado
Victor is a Statutory City in Teller County, Colorado, United States. The population was 445 at the 2000 census.Victor is in the heart of Colorado's gold country, home to two of the major gold mines in the Cripple Creek mining district...
. There he worked as a gold miner, a cook, and a reporter on the newspaper.
In 1910, Thomas graduated from Victor High School
Cripple Creek-Victor High School
Cripple Creek-Victor Junior/Senior High School is the high school in Cripple Creek, Colorado, also serving Victor, Colorado. It is the sole high school in Cripple Creek Victor Public School District RE-1.-External links:**...
, where one of his teachers was Mabel Barbee Lee
Mabel Barbee Lee
Mabel Barbee Lee was an American writer, teacher at Victor High School, and administrator of Colorado College, the University of California in Berkeley, and other institutions....
. The following year, he graduated from Valparaiso University
Valparaiso University
Valparaiso University, known colloquially as Valpo, is a regionally accredited private university located in the city of Valparaiso in the U.S. state of Indiana. Founded in 1859, it consists of five undergraduate colleges, a graduate school, a nursing school and a law school...
with bachelor's degrees in education and science. The next year he received both a B.A.
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
and an M.A.
Master's degree
A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...
from the University of Denver
University of Denver
The University of Denver is currently ranked 82nd among all public and private "National Universities" by U.S. News & World Report in the 2012 rankings....
and began work for the Chicago Journal, writing for it until 1914. Thomas also was on the faculty of Chicago-Kent College of Law
Chicago-Kent College of Law
Chicago–Kent College of Law, the law school affiliated with Illinois Institute of Technology, is nationally recognized for the scholarship and accomplishments of its faculty and student body. It is the second oldest law school in the state of Illinois. Many of the applications of technology in the...
at Illinois Institute of Technology
Illinois Institute of Technology
Illinois Institute of Technology, commonly called Illinois Tech or IIT, is a private Ph.D.-granting university located in Chicago, Illinois, with programs in engineering, science, psychology, architecture, business, communications, industrial technology, information technology, design, and law...
, where he taught oratory
Oratory
Oratory is a type of public speaking.Oratory may also refer to:* Oratory , a power metal band* Oratory , a place of worship* a religious order such as** Oratory of Saint Philip Neri ** Oratory of Jesus...
from 1912 to 1914. He then went to New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
, where he studied for a master's at Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
(he received the degree in 1916) and again taught oratory at the university.
A relentless self-promoter, Thomas persuaded railroads
Rail transport
Rail transport is a means of conveyance of passengers and goods by way of wheeled vehicles running on rail tracks. In contrast to road transport, where vehicles merely run on a prepared surface, rail vehicles are also directionally guided by the tracks they run on...
to give him free passage in exchange for articles extolling rail travel. When he visited Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
, he hit upon the novel idea of the travelogue
Travel literature
Travel literature is travel writing of literary value. Travel literature typically records the experiences of an author touring a place for the pleasure of travel. An individual work is sometimes called a travelogue or itinerary. Travel literature may be cross-cultural or transnational in focus, or...
, movies about faraway places. When the United States entered World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, he was part of an official party sent by President Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
, former president of Princeton, to "compile a history of the conflict." In reality the mission was not academic. The war was not popular in the United States, and Thomas was sent to find material that would encourage the American people to support it. Thomas did not want to merely write about the war, he wanted to film it. He estimated that $75,000 would be needed for filming, which the U.S. government thought too expensive, and so he turned to a group of 18 Chicago meat packers. (He had done them a favor by exposing someone who was blackmail
Blackmail
In common usage, blackmail is a crime involving threats to reveal substantially true or false information about a person to the public, a family member, or associates unless a demand is met. It may be defined as coercion involving threats of physical harm, threat of criminal prosecution, or threats...
ing them, without the damaging material becoming public.)
Lawrence of Arabia
Thomas and a cameraman, Harry ChaseHarry Chase
Harry Chase is the name of:*Harry B. Chase , Canadian politician in the Alberta legislature*Harrie B. Chase , judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit*Harry Woodburn Chase...
, first went to the Western Front
Western Front (World War I)
Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by first invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The tide of the advance was dramatically turned with the Battle of the Marne...
, but the trenches had little to inspire the American public. They then went to Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, where he heard of General Allenby's campaign against the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
in Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
. With the permission of the British Foreign Office, as an accredited war correspondent, Thomas met T. E. Lawrence
T. E. Lawrence
Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence, CB, DSO , known professionally as T. E. Lawrence, was a British Army officer renowned especially for his liaison role during the Arab Revolt against Ottoman Turkish rule of 1916–18...
, a captain in the British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
in Jerusalem. Lawrence was spending £200,000 a month encouraging the inhabitants of Palestine to revolt against the Turks. Thomas and Chase spent several weeks with Lawrence in the desert, though Lawrence said "several days." Lawrence agreed to provide Thomas with material on the condition that Thomas also photograph and interview Arab leaders such as Emir Feisal
Faisal I of Iraq
Faisal bin Hussein bin Ali al-Hashemi, was for a short time King of the Arab Kingdom of Syria or Greater Syria in 1920, and was King of the Kingdom of Iraq from 23 August 1921 to 1933...
.
Thomas shot dramatic footage of Lawrence and, after the war, toured the world, narrating his film, With Allenby in Palestine and Lawrence in Arabia, making Lawrence—and himself—household names. The performances were highly dramatic. At the opening of Thomas's six-month London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
run, there were incense
Incense
Incense is composed of aromatic biotic materials, which release fragrant smoke when burned. The term "incense" refers to the substance itself, rather than to the odor that it produces. It is used in religious ceremonies, ritual purification, aromatherapy, meditation, for creating a mood, and for...
brazier
Brazier
A brazier is a container for fire, generally taking the form of an upright standing or hanging metal bowl or box. Used for holding burning coal as well as fires, a brazier allows for a source of light, heat, or cooking...
s, exotically dressed women danced before images of the Pyramids, and the band of the Welsh Guards
Welsh Guards
The Welsh Guards is an infantry regiment of the British Army, part of the Guards Division.-Creation :The Welsh Guards came into existence on 26 February 1915 by Royal Warrant of His Majesty King George V in order to include Wales in the national component to the Foot Guards, "..though the order...
played to provide the accompaniment. Lawrence saw the show several times, and though he later claimed to dislike it, it generated valuable publicity for his own book. However, to strengthen the emphasis on Lawrence in the show, Thomas needed more photographs of him than Chase had taken in 1918. Lawrence therefore agreed to a series of posed portraits in Arab dress in London, though he claimed to be shy of publicity. Thomas later said of Lawrence, "He had a genius for backing into the limelight." Thomas and Lawrence's initially friendly relations grew colder as Thomas's show grew in popularity, with Thomas ignoring several personal requests from Lawrence to stop the show.
The shows gave Lawrence a degree of publicity that he had never previously experienced. Newspapers became keen to print his attacks on Government policy, and politicians began to pay attention to his views. At the end of 1920, he was invited to join the British Colonial Office
Colonial Office
Colonial Office is the government agency which serves to oversee and supervise their colony* Colonial Office - The British Government department* Office of Insular Affairs - the American government agency* Reichskolonialamt - the German Colonial Office...
, under Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
, as an adviser on Arab affairs. However, Lawrence said that he never forgave Thomas for exploiting his image, and called him a "vulgar man." For his part, Thomas genuinely admired Lawrence and continued to defend him against attacks on his reputation. Lawrence's brother, Arnold
A.W. Lawrence
Arnold Walter Lawrence was a British authority on classical sculpture and architecture. He was Laurence Professor of Classical Archaeology at Cambridge University in the 1940s, and in the early 1950s in Accra he founded what later became the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board as well as the...
, extended Thomas an olive branch and allowed him to contribute to T.E. Lawrence by his Friends (1937), a collection of essays and reminiscences published after Lawrence's death.
About four million people saw the show around the world, and it made Thomas $1.5 million. Thomas would also later write a book, With Lawrence in Arabia (1924), about his time in the desert and Lawrence's exploits during the war. It would be the first of fifty-six volumes.
Later career
During the 1920s, Thomas was a magazine editor. In 1930, he became a broadcaster with the CBSCBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
radio network, delivering a nightly news and commentary program. After two years, he switched to the NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
radio network but returned to CBS in 1947. In contrast to today's practices, Thomas was not an employee of either NBC News or CBS News. Prior to 1947 he was employed by the broadcast's sponsor, Sunoco
Sunoco
Sunoco Inc. is an American petroleum and petrochemical manufacturer headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, formerly known as Sun Company Inc. and Sun Oil Co. ....
. When he returned to CBS to take advantage of lower capital-gains tax rates, he established an independent company to produce the broadcast which he sold to CBS. He hosted the first-ever television-news broadcast in 1930 and the first regularly scheduled television news broadcast, beginning on February 21, 1940, on NBC. But television news was a short-lived venture for him, and he favored radio. Indeed, it was over radio that he presented and commented upon the news for four decades until his retirement in 1976, the longest radio career of anyone in his day (a record later surpassed by Paul Harvey
Paul Harvey
Paul Harvey Aurandt , better known as Paul Harvey, was an American radio broadcaster for the ABC Radio Networks. He broadcast News and Comment on weekday mornings and mid-days, and at noon on Saturdays, as well as his famous The Rest of the Story segments. His listening audience was estimated, at...
). "No other journalist or world figure, with the possible exception of Winston Churchill, has remained in the public spotlight for so long," wrote Norman R. Bowen in Lowell Thomas: The Stranger Everyone Knows (1968). His signature sign-on was "Good evening, everybody" and his sign-off "So long, until tomorrow," phrases he would use in titling his two volumes of memoirs.
Movietone News
Movietone News is a newsreel that ran from 1928 to 1963 in the United States, and from 1929 to 1979 in the United Kingdom.-History:It is known in the U.S. as Fox Movietone News, produced cinema, sound newsreels from 1928 to 1963 in the U.S., from 1929 to 1979 in the UK , and from 1929 to 1975 in...
newsreels until 1952. That year he went into business with Mike Todd
Mike Todd
Michael Todd was an American theatre and film producer, best known for his 1956 production of Around the World in Eighty Days, which won an Academy Award for Best Picture...
and Merian C. Cooper
Merian C. Cooper
Merian Caldwell Cooper was an American aviator, United States Air Force and Polish Air Force officer, adventurer, screenwriter, and film director and producer. His most famous film was the 1933 movie King Kong.-Early life:...
to exploit Cinerama
Cinerama
Cinerama is the trademarked name for a widescreen process which works by simultaneously projecting images from three synchronized 35 mm projectors onto a huge, deeply-curved screen, subtending 146° of arc. It is also the trademarked name for the corporation which was formed to market it...
, a movie format that used three projectors and an enormous curved screen. Cinerama features were well-received but with the enormous costs and technical difficulties in film production and presentation, the company discontinued three-projector Cinerama in a favor of a single-camera 70mm system, which lacked the visual impact of true Cinerama. A quarter-century later, Thomas was still raving about Cinerama
Cinerama
Cinerama is the trademarked name for a widescreen process which works by simultaneously projecting images from three synchronized 35 mm projectors onto a huge, deeply-curved screen, subtending 146° of arc. It is also the trademarked name for the corporation which was formed to market it...
in his memoirs and wondering why someone wasn't trying to revive it. Thomas is also known for his television series of the 1950s entitled High Adventure and television's Lowell Thomas Remembers in the 1970s.
"The world's foremost globetrotter" took his radio show on his travels, broadcasting from the four corners of the globe. Once on the Spanish Steps
Spanish Steps
The Spanish Steps are a set of steps in Rome, Italy, climbing a steep slope between the Piazza di Spagna at the base and Piazza Trinità dei Monti, dominated by the Trinità dei Monti church at the top. The Scalinata is the widest staircase in Europe...
in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
he was asked by a fellow American, "Lowell Thomas, don't you ever go home?" He was a fanatical skier, helping develop the Mont Tremblant Resort
Mont Tremblant Resort
Mont Tremblant Ski Resort is a year-round resort in the Laurentian Mountains of Quebec, Canada, about 130 km northwest of Montreal. It is best known as a ski destination, but also features a lake suitable for swimming and two golf courses in the summer months...
in Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
and skiing near Tucson, Arizona
Tucson, Arizona
Tucson is a city in and the county seat of Pima County, Arizona, United States. The city is located 118 miles southeast of Phoenix and 60 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. The 2010 United States Census puts the city's population at 520,116 with a metropolitan area population at 1,020,200...
.
Thomas's most amusing on-air gaffe occurred during one of his daily broadcasts in the early 1960s. He was reading a story "cold" (going on the air without pre-reading his copy, which Thomas usually did). This had the phrase "She suffered a near fatal heart attack" in it. The line came out of Thomas's mouth as "She suffered a near fatal fart attack". Realizing instantly what he had said, he collapsed into gales of roaring laughter, which continued into - and beyond - his announcer's chuckling sign-off for the day. Thomas' long time friend and ghostwriter, Prosper Buranelli, wrote the nightly newscasts. The day's script was sent by teletype to Thomas' home in Pawling, NY from which he usually did his broadcast. One evening, Buranelli had as the final item a story about an actress going into a Los Angeles hotel with a great dane. The dog's tail got caught in the revolving door and she sued the hotel for $10,000. Buranelli added a comment to the story to give Thomas a laugh before going on air, but Thomas read the story as written with Buranelli's comment, "Who ever thought a piece of tail was worth 10 grand." Another example of one of Thomas' on-air mishaps had Thomas reading a story about President Eisenhower's visit to Hershey, Pennsylvania "where he was greeted by the folks who make chocolate bars, with and without nuts." ("Nuts" is a slang euphemism for "testicles.") As Thomas read the next story, he could hear the announcer back in the New York city studio on his headphones breaking up with laughter, which caused Thomas to break up, as well. Air checks of some of Thomas' gaffes (as well as recreations of his "bloopers") are available to collectors.
Thomas was a successful businessman. In 1954, he and his long-time business manager/partner Frank Smith bought a small Albany New York-based broadcasting company and turned it into Capital Cities Communications
Capital Cities Communications
Capital Cities redirects here. For the article about the seat of a government, see Capital .Capital Cities Communications was an American media company best known for its surprise purchase of the much larger American Broadcasting Company in 1985...
, which in 1986 took over the American Broadcasting Company
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
, and developed the Quaker Hill community in Dutchess County, New York
Dutchess County, New York
Dutchess County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York, in the state's Mid-Hudson Region of the Hudson Valley. The 2010 census lists the population as 297,488...
, near Pawling
Pawling (town), New York
Pawling is a town in Dutchess County, New York, United States. The population was 7,521 at the 2000 census. The town is named after Catherine Pauling, the daughter of Henry Beekman, who held the second largest land patent in the county. A misprint caused the U to change to a W and the name...
, where Thomas resided when not on the road. Among his neighbors there was Thomas E. Dewey, one of a huge circle of friends that included everyone from the Dalai Lama to Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
. In 1976, President Gerald Ford
Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph "Jerry" Ford, Jr. was the 38th President of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977, and the 40th Vice President of the United States serving from 1973 to 1974...
awarded Thomas the Presidential Medal of Freedom
Presidential Medal of Freedom
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is an award bestowed by the President of the United States and is—along with thecomparable Congressional Gold Medal bestowed by an act of U.S. Congress—the highest civilian award in the United States...
. He has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...
and was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 1989.
In May 1955, the board of directors of the Lancaster and Chester Railway
Lancaster and Chester Railway
The Lancaster and Chester Railway is a railway headquartered in Lancaster, South Carolina, in the United States. The original route connects Lancaster, in Lancaster County, with Chester in Chester County...
of South Carolina appointed him Press Agent, in N.Y.C.
His wife of 58 years, Fran Ryan, who often traveled with him, died in February 1975. He was married a second time in 1977 to Marianna Munn. True to form, he embarked with her on a 50,000-mile honeymoon trip that took him to many of his favorite old destinations. Marianna died in Dayton, Ohio on January 28, 2010 after a long battle with renal failure.
Pawling (village), New York
Pawling is a village in Dutchess County, New York, USA. The population was 2,233 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Poughkeepsie–Newburgh–Middletown, NY Metropolitan Statistical Area as well as the larger New York–Newark–Bridgeport, NY-NJ-CT-PA Combined Statistical Area...
in 1981. He is buried in Christ Church Cemetery.
His son, Lowell Thomas, Jr.
Lowell Thomas, Jr.
Lowell Jackson Thomas, Jr. is a film and television producer who collaborated with his father, the accomplished reporter and author Lowell Thomas, on several projects before becoming an Alaskan State Senator in the early 1970s, and later the fifth Lieutenant Governor of Alaska .In the 1980s, he...
, was a film and television producer who collaborated with his father on several projects before becoming a State Senator, and later the Lieutenant Governor of Alaska, in the 1970s. Today, Lowell Thomas Jr. remains an active bush pilot and environmental activist in Alaska.
Lowell Thomas has the communications building at Marist College
Marist College
Marist College is a private liberal arts college on the east bank of the Hudson River near Poughkeepsie, New York. The site was established in 1905 by Marist Brothers, and the college was chartered in 1929...
(in Poughkeepsie, New York) named in his honor after receiving an honorary degree from the college in 1981. The Lowell Thomas Archives are housed as part of the college library.
In popular culture
Thomas was fictionalized in David LeanDavid Lean
Sir David Lean CBE was an English film director, producer, screenwriter, and editor best remembered for big-screen epics such as The Bridge on the River Kwai , Lawrence of Arabia ,...
's 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia
Lawrence of Arabia (film)
Lawrence of Arabia is a 1962 British film based on the life of T. E. Lawrence. It was directed by David Lean and produced by Sam Spiegel through his British company, Horizon Pictures, with the screenplay by Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson. The film stars Peter O'Toole in the title role. It is widely...
as American journalist Jackson Bentley, played by Arthur Kennedy
Arthur Kennedy (actor)
Arthur Kennedy was an American stage and film actor known for his versatility in supporting film roles and his ability to create "an exceptional honesty and naturalness on stage" especially in the original casts of Arthur Miller plays on Broadway.- Early life and education :Kennedy was born John...
. In the unofficial sequel to Lawrence, A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia
A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia
A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia is a made-for-TV movie depicting the experiences of T. E. Lawrence and Emir Feisal of the Hejaz at the Paris Peace Conference after the end of World War I. One of the conference's many concerns was determining the fates of territories formerly under the rule...
(1990), he was more accurately portrayed by actor Adam Henderson
Adam Henderson
Adam Henderson is a Canadian voice actor who works for Ocean Studios in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He started doing anime dubs in London, England for Manga Entertainment...
, who gave a recreated version of Thomas's slide lectures on Lawrence.
The Lawrence-themed play Ross
Ross (Play)
Ross is a 1960 play by British playwright Terence Rattigan.It is a biographical play of T. E. Lawrence- Plot synopsis :The play is structured with a framing device set in 1922, when Lawrence was hiding under an assumed name as "Aircraftman Ross" in the Royal Air Force, and is being disciplined by...
by Terence Rattigan
Terence Rattigan
Sir Terence Mervyn Rattigan CBE was one of England's most popular 20th-century dramatists. His plays are generally set in an upper-middle-class background...
featured another Thomas-like character named Franks, who hectors General Allenby and Lawrence for photographs and interviews after the fall of Jerusalem.
Thomas appeared in an episode of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles
The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles
The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles is an American television series that aired on ABC from March 4, 1992, to July 24, 1993. The series explores the childhood and youth of the fictional character Indiana Jones and primarily stars Sean Patrick Flanery and Corey Carrier as the title character, with...
. The episode takes place in Morocco in 1917. Fresh from his adventures with Lawrence in Arabia, Thomas (played by Evan Richards) meets up with young Indy (Sean Patrick Flanery
Sean Patrick Flanery
Sean Patrick Flanery is an American actor known for such roles as Connor MacManus in The Boondock Saints, Greg Stillson in The Dead Zone and for portraying Indiana Jones in The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, as well as Bobby Dagen in Saw 3D.He is currently known for his role as Sam Gibson on The...
) and the novelist Edith Wharton
Edith Wharton
Edith Wharton , was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, short story writer, and designer.- Early life and marriage:...
(Clare Higgins). He was also fictionalized in two Warner Brothers cartoons, She Was an Acrobat's Daughter
She Was an Acrobat's Daughter
She Was an Acrobat's Daughter is an animated short in the Merrie Melodies series, released by Warner Brothers in April 1937 and directed by Friz Freleng.-Plot:...
(as Dole Promise) and The Film Fan (as Cold Promise).
In addition, he was impersonated on SCTV
Second City Television
Second City Television is a Canadian television sketch comedy show offshoot from Toronto's The Second City troupe that ran between 1976 and 1984.- Premise :...
by Joe Flaherty
Joe Flaherty
Joe Flaherty is an American-Canadian actor and comedian. He is best known for his work on the Canadian sketch comedy SCTV, from 1976 to 1984, and as Harold Weir on Freaks and Geeks...
as "Lowell Thompson" in a parody of his 1970s series Lowell Thomas Remembers.
Lowell Thomas awards
Since 1980, the Explorers ClubThe Explorers Club
The Explorers Club is a professional society dedicated to scientific exploration of Earth, its oceans, and outer space. Founded in 1904 in New York City, it currently has 30 branches world wide...
, which Thomas was a member of, annually presents the Lowell Thomas award to "honor men and women who have distinguished themselves in the field of exploration". The awards are presented at a yearly dinner to a select group of people having made particular contributions in the specific area chosen to be that year's focus. Past awardees include Edmund Hillary
Edmund Hillary
Sir Edmund Percival Hillary, KG, ONZ, KBE , was a New Zealand mountaineer, explorer and philanthropist. On 29 May 1953 at the age of 33, he and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers known to have reached the summit of Mount Everest – see Timeline of climbing Mount Everest...
, Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...
, David Doubilet
David Doubilet
David Doubilet is a well known underwater photographer known primarily for his work published in National Geographic Magazine. He was born in New York and started taking photos underwater at the young age of 12. He started with a Brownie Hawkeye in a rubber anesthesiologist's bag to keep the water...
, Mary Cleave, Buzz Aldrin
Buzz Aldrin
Buzz Aldrin is an American mechanical engineer, retired United States Air Force pilot and astronaut who was the Lunar Module pilot on Apollo 11, the first manned lunar landing in history...
and Bertrand Piccard
Bertrand Piccard
Bertrand Piccard is a Swiss psychiatrist and balloonist.Born in Lausanne, Vaud canton, Bertrand Piccard, along with Brian Jones, was the first to complete a non-stop balloon flight around the globe...
.
Since 1985, the Society of (North) American Travel Writers (SATW) has held an annual Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition for outstanding print, online and multimedia works and for travel photography and both audio and video broadcast. Past awardees included Elisabeth Eaves
Elisabeth Eaves
Elisabeth Eaves is a Canadian author and journalist, born in Vancouver, British Columbia. She has been the opinions page editor at the tablet newspaper The Daily since its launch in 2011. From 2006 to 2010 she worked as a writer and editor at magazine, where in 2008 and 2009 she also wrote a...
, Jeff Biggers
Jeff Biggers
Jeff Biggers is an American writer, editor, journalist, playwright, critic, master storyteller and performance artist. He is the author of three books, and co-editor of a fourth....
and National Geographic Traveler
National Geographic Traveler
National Geographic Traveler is a magazine published by the National Geographic Society in the United States. It was launched in 1984. Local-language editions of National Geographic Traveler are published in Armenia, Belgium/the Netherlands, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Indonesia, Latin America,...
('08 and '09). In the 2008-9 awards, faculty members of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Mass Communication
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Mass Communication
The first UNC journalism class was taught in 1909 in the English department. The Department of Journalism was founded in 1924. It became a school in 1950. In 1990, Mass Communication was added to the name. In 1999, the School moved into Carroll Hall...
, coordinated by Monica Hill, judged the competition. There were 1,191 entries and awards in 25 categories. In the 2007-8 awards, faculty members of the Missouri School of Journalism
Missouri School of Journalism
The Missouri School of Journalism at University of Missouri in Columbia, claims to be the oldest formal journalism school in the world. Founded in 1908, only the Ecole Supérieure de Journalisme de Paris established in 1899 may be older...
judged the competition in 24 categories.
External links
- With Lawrence in Arabia at Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
. - Lowell Thomas at Find-A-Grave
- “Creating History: Lowell Thomas and Lawrence of Arabia” online history exhibit at Clio Visualizing History.
- Site dedicated to one of Britain’s Greatest Heroes