Gabriel Heatter was an American journalist and radio commentator. His sign-on catchphrase "There's good news tonight" earned him a reputation for optimism that was rare in his field and appreciated by audiences.
Background
Gabriel Heatter was born on September 17, 1890 in Brooklyn, New York, United States. He was the son of Henry Heatter and Anna Fishman, Jewish immigrants from Austria-Hungary. When he was three, the family moved from Manhattan to Brooklyn.
Education
In Brooklyn Heatter attended elementary school and completed four years at Brooklyn Boys' High School. Unable to pass the State Regents' test in mathematics, he did not formally graduate.
He subsequently took a few courses at New York Law School but never pursued a career in law.
Career
At the age of fifteen, Heatter played a modest role in William Randolph Hearst's mayoralty campaign. Young Heatter had acquired a local reputation as "the boy orator" after winning a medal at a Settlement House contest and was hired to give brief street-corner declamations for the candidate. After the unsuccessful campaign, he was given a part-time assignment writing human interest stories from Brooklyn for Hearst's New York Journal.
The next decade and a half in Heatter's life was a period of painful frustration and depression, which he described in his autobiography. He held various reporting jobs but none ever led to any long-term association.
Heatter achieved greater employment stability in 1922 when he accepted a public relations position with three steel companies. His duties involved editing a four-page house organ and giving inspirational talks to employees and management. While in this position, two events helped propel him into his career as one of the best known radio commentators in the country.
The first was the result of a "debate" on the future of the Socialist party. The "debate" did not involve personal confrontation but consisted of publication in The Nation of "An Open Letter to Norman Thomas" by Heatter, accompanied by a response from the Socialist leader. Heatter's subsequent solo presentation of his views in a broadcast impressed the manager of station WMCA in New York, who offered him a contract as a newscaster in 1933. Heatter's coverage in 1936 of the execution of Bruno Richard Hauptmann for the kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby had an even greater impact on his career. The execution was unexpectedly delayed, and Heatter, who was on the scene, ad libbed for more than half an hour until he received a prearranged signal that the execution had occurred.
Pausing dramatically in his commentary, Heatter announced, a few seconds ahead of his competitors, "Bruno Richard Hauptmann is dead. " The performance was widely regarded as a tour de force and led NBC to invite him to become the host on its weekly program, "We, the People. " Heatter is remembered especially for his broadcasts in World War II. During the worst periods, he always confidently assured his listeners that Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo (he invariably personalized the war) would be defeated, and he fastened upon any story of personal heroism or small success to demonstrate that victory was inevitable. The oft-used opening words of his broadcasts, "Ah, there's good news tonight!" (which he chose as the title of his autobiography) became an irresistible temptation for nightclub mimics. His personal vendetta against Nazi leaders appealed to cartoonists. Thus, following Hitler's suicide, the New Yorker showed one of Helen Hokinson's stereotypical club ladies declaring, "I'm so glad for Gabriel Heatter. "
After the war, Heatter's crusading zeal for particular causes such as increasing Social Security benefits or raising postal workers' salaries led some of his audience to believe that an appeal to Gabriel Heatter would always produce results, a belief parodied by comedienne Jean Arthur in a popular 1948 film, A Foreign Affair, when she vowed that if the President of the United States would not listen to her, she would bring her case to Gabriel Heatter.
Heatter's success as a broadcaster lay partly in his ability to dramatize events and to sentimentalize. Each night it was his goal to find some human (or animal) interest angle to uncover ("a Heatter story, " as he put it). A dog's saving a boy would produce a full emotional response. A request to his audience to leave out bread crumbs in winter for hungry robins became a Heatter perennial. As social historian Dixon Wecter observed, "Heatter is really an exhorter, not an analyst. His influence is good because his heart is in the right place, even though it is a considerably enlarged organ. "
His critics sometimes suggested that his emotionalism was contrived because he seemed to speak with equal fervor in describing the role of the United Nations in advancing collective security and in praising the role of his sponsor's toothpaste in preventing dreaded gingivitis.
As the television age dawned in the late 1940s, there was speculation that Heatter might do a program called Gabriel Heatter's Opportunity Show. Spokespersons for the Mutual Broadcasting System tentatively announced that he would be master of ceremonies in a program that would feature amateur and professional dancers. The program never materialized, however. Instead, Heatter in 1950 briefly narrated a half-hour dramatic radio program, "A Brighter Tomorrow, " in which he described episodes of triumph over handicap and adversity.
In 1951, Heatter and his wife moved from New York City to a permanent residence in Miami Beach, where he continued to broadcast until 1965. He also wrote a daily column for the Miami Beach Sun until 1968. He still liked human interest stories and also did an occasional humorous piece. His own favorite column in the latter category was a paean to the martini cocktail. Following his wife's death in 1966, he lived with his daughter and her family in Miami Beach until his death.
Heatter's political views, though nonpartisan, remained those of a mainstream liberal and ardent believer in collective security on the international level.
Views
Quotations:
"The only time some people work like a horse is when the boss rides them. "
"If you were happy every day of your life you wouldn't be a human being, you'd be a game show host. "
"More power than all the success slogans ever penned by human hand is the realization for every man that he has but one boss. That boss is the man--he--himself. "
Personality
Heatter was a ruggedly handsome man slightly over six feet tall whose voice reminded some of his hearers of a clergyman's; he claimed that he was occasionally asked if he had been trained for the ministry. Some of his correspondents addressed him as the "Reverend Gabriel Heatter. "
Connections
The one bright spot during Heatter's twenties was his marriage in 1915 to Saidie Hermalin, a schoolteacher and daughter of the editor of The Day, a Yiddish newspaper. They had two children, Basil, a published novelist, and Maida, who achieved a national reputation as "the Julia Child of desserts. "