John Charles Patrick Croghan Daly,(generally known by John Charles Daly or simply John Daly (Irish: Seán Searlás Ó Dálaigh: February 20, 1914 – February 24, 1991) was a 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, by marrying Virginia Warren.
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 postsecondary education at Boston College.
He married twice; first to Margaret Griswell Neal in January 1937. The marriage resulted in sons John Neal Daly and John Charles Daly III and daughter Helene Fitzgerald Daly. 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 Abath Taylor. He died in Chevy Chase, Maryland, of cardiac arrest.
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 Patton's infamous "slapping incident." 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. Daly was the mystery guest for the series' final episode; he explained that the plan had always been that if a planned mystery guest did not arrive in time for the live show, Daly would fill in as the mystery guest, but despite a few close calls, it had never been needed.
On the show, each panelist introduced the next in line at the start of the show. Following the 1953 departure of panelist Hal Block, Random House cofounder and humorist Bennett Cerf joined the panel. Upon Fred Allen's death in 1956, Cerf became the anchor panelist who would always introduce Daly, generally using Daly's full birth name of John Charles Daly. Cerf usually prefaced his introduction with a pun or joke which over time became a pun or joke at Daly's expense. Daly would then often fire back his own retort. Cerf and Daly enjoyed a friendly feud from across the stage for the remainder of the show's history.
According to executive producer Gil Fates, Daly was resistant to changes that would have appealed to a younger audience but might have diminished the show's dignity. For example, Daly usually referred to the panelists formally, such as "Mr. Cerf". The producers, Fates said, were unable to challenge Daly for fear of losing him as the show's moderator. The series spawned a brief radio version in 1952, which was also hosted by Daly. The series also inspired a multitude of concurrent international versions, and a syndicated U.S. revival in 1968 that Daly did not participate in.
Daly also did hosting duties on Who Said That?, It's News to Me, We Take Your Word, and Open Hearing, and was a narrator on The Voice of Firestone starting in 1958.
He also had several television and movie guest appearances from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s, including an uncredited role on Bye Bye Birdie (as the reporter announcing the title character's induction into the Army) and narrating the premiere episode of Green Acres in a mock documentary style.
During the 1950s, Daly became the vice president in charge of news, special events and public affairs, religious programs, and sports for ABC and won three Peabody Awards. From 1953 to 1960, he anchored ABC news broadcasts and was the face of the network's news division, even though What's My Line? was then on CBS. At the time, this was a very rare instance of a television personality working for two different networks simultaneously. His closing line on the ABC newscast was "Good night, and a good tomorrow."— Daly resigned from ABC on November 16, 1960 after the network pre-empted the first hour of election night coverage to show Bugs Bunny and The Flintstones cartoons from 7:30 to 8:30, CBS and NBC covered returns from the Kennedy-Nixon presidential election and other major races.
Daly continued on What's My Line? until 1967. In the 1962-1963 season, the program was in competition with Howard K. Smith's News and Comment program on ABC. A former CBS correspondent, Smith switched networks early in 1961, by which time Daly had already resigned from ABC. Smith's program ended, however, after a controversial broadcast, premature as it turned out, entitled "The Political Obituary of Richard M. Nixon".
In May 1967, during the final year of What's My Line?, it was announced that Daly would become the director of the Voice of America after the show ended. He assumed the position on September 20, 1967, but lasted only until June 6, 1968 when he resigned over a claim that Leonard H. Marks, his superior at the U.S. Information Agency had been making personnel changes behind Daly's back.
Daly retreated from the public eye. He did not host the syndicated version of What's My Line?, although he did cohost a 25th-anniversary program about the show for ABC in 1975. He was a frequent forum moderator for conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute throughout the 1980s.
Daly's legacy lives on at Tilton School, his alma mater. There is an award named for him given to "persons whose pursuit of excellence and deep commitment as a member of the school family resembles that of John Daly's involvement with Tilton: continuous and widely known expressions of support in word and deed, inspiring others to reach goals that common experience dictates are impossible."
