Pacific Pioneer Broadcasters will present its distinguished Art Gilmore Career Achievement Award to legendary television producer Bob Banner at its March 19th Celebrity Luncheon at the Sportsmen's Lodge.
Bob Banner has been responsible for some of the most memorable and popular programs on television, among them "Showtime at the Apollo," "Star Search," "Solid Gold" and "The Carol Burnett Show." Other Banner landmark programs included "Candid Camera," "The Jimmy Dean Show," "The Kraft Summer Music Hall," "The Entertainers" and numerous movies for television.
Mr. Banner is a native of Ennis, Texas, and he attended Southern Methodist University where he arranged for the Mustang Band and the Pigskin Revue, directed Script and Score, and organized his dance band that toured with Interstate Theaters Production of “College Capers,” where he met his wife, Alice. After college he served 3 years on a destroyer in the Navy.
Bob Banner began his career in television in 1948. While pursuing his Ph.D. and teaching radio courses on campus at Northwestern University,
he worked evenings in Chicago at local television station WMAQ as a production assistant on the children’s show “Kukla, Fran and Ollie.” Advancements came quickly in those early days, and he soon became Director of “Garroway at Large,” a local show that was picked up by NBC.
Fred Waring, impressed with his directorial skill asked Banner to join him at CBS as Producer/Director of the new “Fred Waring Show. The challenge of working in this new experimental medium proved great enough to lure Bob away from academia. So, with only eleven hours needed to obtain his doctorate degree, he opted to leave Northwestern to pursue a television career in the Big Apple.
In the early 1950's, Mr. Banner moved to Los Angeles when the once-experimental medium had matured and was heading west. During "The Golden Age of Television," he became one of the prime movers of variety programming. "The Dinah Shore Chevy Show," which he produced and directed, garnered a myriad of awards including three Emmys, two Christopher Awards and two Peabodys.
In 1958, he formed Bob Banner Associates. BBA's first production was “The Garry Moore Show” with regulars Durward Kirby, Carol Burnett and Marion Lorne. The program ran for 218 episodes and won several Emmy Awards.
In the early 1960s, Carnegie Hall was targeted for demolition and Bob Banner was asked by Isaac Stern to produce a special to save the cultural landmark. “Salute to Jack Benny at Carnegie Hall” starred Isaac Stern, Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra, Van Cliburn, Benny Goodman and Roberta Peters. This was quickly followed by another special, “Julie and Carol at Carnegie Hall,” starring Julie Andrews and Carol Burnett which garnered three Emmys and the International Golden Rose Award.
Mr. Banner and his wife live in Calabasas and have three sons living in Santa Fe, San Francisco and here in Los Angeles.