Les Crane
Encyclopedia
Les Crane born Lesley Stein, was a radio announcer and television
talk show
host, a pioneer in interactive broadcasting who also scored a spoken word hit
with his 1971 recording of the poem Desiderata
, winning a "Best Spoken Word" Grammy.
Born in Long Beach, New York
(or the Bronx
or San Francisco, according to conflicting sources), Crane graduated from Tulane University
, where he was an English major. (Freedman, 1964). He spent four years in the United States Air Force
, as a jet pilot and helicopter flight instructor.
in Philadelphia. In 1961, he became a popular and controversial host for the radio powerhouse KGO (AM)
in San Francisco. With KGO's strong evening signal reaching as far north as Seattle, Washington
, he attracted a regional audience far outside the San Francisco area. A pioneer in the development of the radio talk show, Crane delighted and irritated callers and listeners with his forthright style and unwillingness to suffer fools quietly, often hanging up on callers in contravention of the polite ethos of the times.
A late-night program airing weekdays from 11pm to 2am, Crane at the hungry i
(1962–63) found Crane interacting with owner and impresario Enrico Banducci
and interviewing such talents as Barbra Streisand
and Professor Irwin Corey. Crane's style was rapid-fire and contentious, arguing with Banducci or Corey about politics or how the club was run. The call-in number, EXbrook 7-2860, was frequently repeated on air, along with the fact that Crane was only 27 years old.
Les Crane and John Barrett, the general manager of KRLA [radio station], were the original people "responsible for creating the Top 40 (list of the most requested pop songs)," said Casey Kasem
in a 1990 interview.
to host a 1:00 a.m. talk show
on WABC-TV
, the American Broadcasting Company
flagship station. The first American TV appearance of The Rolling Stones
was on Crane's program in June 1964 when only New Yorkers could see it. The program debuted nationwide with a trial run (telecast nightly for two weeks) in August 1964 starting at 11:15 p.m. on the ABC schedule and titled The Les Crane Show. It was the first network program to compete with The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
. ABC used kinescopes of two episodes from that month to pitch the show to affiliates that hadn't yet signed up to carry the series. One featured the mother of Lee Harvey Oswald
debating Oswald's guilt with Melvin Belli
, Crane and audience members. The other featured Norman Mailer
and Richard Burton
. Burton encouraged Crane to recite the "gravedigger speech" from Hamlet
, and Crane did. More affiliates signed up for a November relaunch of The Les Crane Show, and Look (American magazine)
ran a prominent feature story with captioned still photographs from the August episodes. One image shows Shelley Winters
debating a controversial issue with Jackie Robinson
. While some critics found the late-night series innovative, it never gained much of an audience. In late June 1965, following a three-month hibernation, it was retitled ABC's Nightlife with network executives having removed most of the controversy and emphasizing light entertainment. Producer Nick Vanoff was another interested party who started forbidding guests from broaching controversial topics. After the summer 1965 run, they relocated the show from New York to Los Angeles
. The Paley Center for Media has available for viewing the first 15 minutes of one of the last episodes before ABC finally cancelled ABC's Nightlife in November 1965. Crane can be seen and heard delivering his monologue, joking about words that could be censored and bantering with his sidekick Nipsey Russell
.
The two kinescopes that ABC used to pitch The Les Crane Show to its affiliates in 1964 constitute the only surviving video and audio of Crane's controversial show. An archive of source material on Malcolm X
has audio only of the civil rights leader's December 1964 appearance with Crane. Audio only of Bob Dylan
talking to Crane in February 1965 has circulated and been transcribed. The National Archives has a transcript of the Oswald/Belli episode in its documents related to the JFK assassination that were declassified and released publicly in 1993 and 1994. Most Les Crane Show episodes pictured in the Look feature story, such as the one with Winters and Robinson, were completely destroyed, and what the participants said is not known.
Les Crane's confrontational interview technique, along with a "shotgun" microphone he aimed at audiences, earned him the name "the bad boy of late-night television." In truth, critical opinion was divided. Some critics, like The New York Times
media critic Paul Gardner, thought he was an incisive interviewer who asked tough questions without being insulting. One of the critics who did not like his show also found Crane's trademark shotgun microphone distracting. "Each time he points this mike into the audience, it looks as though he's about to shoot a spectator." (Laurent, 1964) The one thing nearly every critic agreed with was that Crane was very photogenic—or as one critic described him, he was "a tall, handsome and personable lad..." (Smith, 1964) In fact, expectations for Crane had been quite high, but like many others, Crane would not be able to make a dent in Carson's ratings, and his new show lasted just 14 weeks before ABC executives transformed it into the more show-business-oriented ABC's Nightlife. Although his ratings proved disappointing, Crane was able to get some outstanding guests. Bob Dylan, who rarely appeared on American television, was one of them. Along with such offbeat subjects as the voice of radio's The Shadow, Bret Morrison
, Crane also interviewed (in addition to the aforementioned Malcolm X) leading figures such as Richard Burton
, Martin Luther King, Jr.
, George Wallace
and Robert F. Kennedy
.
Because of his good looks, it was not surprising that he tried his hand at acting, but his acting
career was brief, with an appearance in the film An American Dream
(1966), based on the Norman Mailer novel, and a few guest roles on television shows. Folksinger Phil Ochs
mentioned him in the lyrics of his satirical 1966 song "Love Me, I'm a Liberal." Some sources say that Crane gave the rock group The Mamas & the Papas
their name, but this is disputed in other sources, which say John Phillips
came up with the name. (see Bronson, 2003)
Crane was one of the first interviewers to have an openly gay person, Randy Wicker
, on his television show, in January 1964. But when Crane tried to invite members of a lesbian advocacy group, the Daughters of Bilitis
to be guests on his show in June 1964, WABC ordered him to cancel the show, and he did. ("Homosexual Women", 1964) Crane was also known as an advocate for civil rights, and was praised by the black press for his respectful interviews with such black newsmakers as Muhammad Ali
. (Young, 1968)
After Crane's final television appearance in the 1970s, he refused to discuss his television career and did not respond to queries about his copies of the two surviving kinescopes from 1964.
In late 1971, the 45rpm recording of Les Crane's reading of Desiderata reached #8 on the Billboard
charts. It had a great influence on mainstream society and became a counterculture
anthem
of sorts, and in particular introducing many to the culture of prose poetry
and spoken word recording. The recording was considered inspirational and positive during a somewhat negative time. It won him a Grammy.
Though Crane thought the poem was in the public domain
when it was recorded, the rights in fact belonged to the family of author
Max Ehrmann, and royalties
were distributed accordingly.
A parody
of Desiderata by National Lampoon on their comedy album
, Radio Dinner (1972) went on to fame via the Dr. Demento
and Howard Stern
radio shows. Called Deteriorata
and voiced by Norman Rose
, the parody declared to listeners: "You are a fluke of the universe. You have no right to be here. And whether you can hear it or not, the universe is laughing behind your back". Melissa Manchester
, then a little-known session singer, performed the gospel
-tinged background vocals.
When asked about the recording
during an interview by the Los Angeles Times
in 1987, Crane replied, "I can't listen to it now without gagging." He admitted to being more fond of the National Lampoon satire.
In the 1980s, Crane transitioned to the software industry and became chairman of The Software Toolworks, creators of the three-dimensional color chess series, Chessmaster
and the best-selling educational series, Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing
. Toolworks was also responsible for such classics as The Original Adventure and the PC version of Pong
. The Software Toolworks was sold and renamed Mindscape
in the early 1990s.
actress Tina Louise
, whom he married in 1966 and divorced in 1974. They had one daughter, Caprice Crane
(b. 1974), who became an author, screenwriter and television producer.
Crane died on July 13, 2008, in Greenbrae, California
, north of San Francisco. He had been living in Belvedere, California
with his wife, Ginger, at the time of his death.
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
talk show
Talk show
A talk show or chat show is a television program or radio program where one person discuss various topics put forth by a talk show host....
host, a pioneer in interactive broadcasting who also scored a spoken word hit
Hit parade
A hit parade is a ranked list of the most popular recordings at a given point in time, usually determined by sales and/or airplay. The term originated in the 1930s; Billboard magazine published its first music hit parade on January 4, 1936...
with his 1971 recording of the poem Desiderata
Desiderata
Desiderata is a 1927 prose poem by American writer Max Ehrmann...
, winning a "Best Spoken Word" Grammy.
Born in Long Beach, New York
Long Beach, New York
Long Beach is a city in Nassau County, New York. Just south of Long Island, it is located on Long Beach Barrier Island, which is the westernmost of the outer barrier islands off Long Island's South Shore. As of the United States 2010 Census, the city population was 33,275...
(or the Bronx
The Bronx
The Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City. It is also known as Bronx County, the last of the 62 counties of New York State to be incorporated...
or San Francisco, according to conflicting sources), Crane graduated from Tulane University
Tulane University
Tulane University is a private, nonsectarian research university located in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States...
, where he was an English major. (Freedman, 1964). He spent four years in the United States Air Force
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
, as a jet pilot and helicopter flight instructor.
Radio
He began his radio career in 1958 at KONO in San Antonio and later worked at WPENWPEN (AM)
WPEN is an AM radio station broadcast on 950 kHz. The station is licensed to Philadelphia and serves that market. WPEN is owned and operated by Greater Media and offers a Sports Talk format. The station is known as "950 ESPN"-The Early Years:...
in Philadelphia. In 1961, he became a popular and controversial host for the radio powerhouse KGO (AM)
KGO (AM)
KGO is a news/talk-format radio station radio with offices and studios in San Francisco, California. Unlike most other American news/talk stations, KGO originates nearly all of its own programming locally. Since 1978, KGO radio has received Arbitron's number-one ranking in the Bay Area...
in San Francisco. With KGO's strong evening signal reaching as far north as Seattle, Washington
Seattle, Washington
Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...
, he attracted a regional audience far outside the San Francisco area. A pioneer in the development of the radio talk show, Crane delighted and irritated callers and listeners with his forthright style and unwillingness to suffer fools quietly, often hanging up on callers in contravention of the polite ethos of the times.
A late-night program airing weekdays from 11pm to 2am, Crane at the hungry i
Hungry i
The hungry i was originally a nightclub in North Beach, San Francisco. It was launched by Eric "Big Daddy" Nord, who sold it to Enrico Banducci in 1950.-The name:How the club's name came about is something of a mystery...
(1962–63) found Crane interacting with owner and impresario Enrico Banducci
Enrico Banducci
Enrico Banducci was an American impresario. Banducci operated the hungry i nightclub in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood, where he launched the careers of Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, Bill Cosby, Jonathan Winters, and Barbra Streisand, and featured Woody Allen and Dick Cavett before they were...
and interviewing such talents as Barbra Streisand
Barbra Streisand
Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...
and Professor Irwin Corey. Crane's style was rapid-fire and contentious, arguing with Banducci or Corey about politics or how the club was run. The call-in number, EXbrook 7-2860, was frequently repeated on air, along with the fact that Crane was only 27 years old.
Les Crane and John Barrett, the general manager of KRLA [radio station], were the original people "responsible for creating the Top 40 (list of the most requested pop songs)," said Casey Kasem
Casey Kasem
Kemal Amin "Casey" Kasem is an American radio personality and voice actor who is best known for being the host of the nationally syndicated Top 40 countdown show American Top 40, and for voicing Shaggy in the popular Saturday morning cartoon franchise Scooby-Doo.Kasem, along with Don Bustany and...
in a 1990 interview.
Television
In late August 1963, Crane moved to New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
to host a 1:00 a.m. talk show
Talk show
A talk show or chat show is a television program or radio program where one person discuss various topics put forth by a talk show host....
on WABC-TV
WABC-TV
WABC-TV, channel 7, is the flagship station of the Disney-owned American Broadcasting Company located in New York City. The station's studios and offices are located on the Upper West Side section of Manhattan, adjacent to ABC's corporate headquarters, and its transmitter is atop the Empire State...
, 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...
flagship station. The first American TV appearance of The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...
was on Crane's program in June 1964 when only New Yorkers could see it. The program debuted nationwide with a trial run (telecast nightly for two weeks) in August 1964 starting at 11:15 p.m. on the ABC schedule and titled The Les Crane Show. It was the first network program to compete with The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson is a talk show hosted by Johnny Carson under the Tonight Show franchise from 1962 to 1992. It originally aired during late-night....
. ABC used kinescopes of two episodes from that month to pitch the show to affiliates that hadn't yet signed up to carry the series. One featured the mother of Lee Harvey Oswald
Lee Harvey Oswald
Lee Harvey Oswald was, according to four government investigations,These were investigations by: the Federal Bureau of Investigation , the Warren Commission , the House Select Committee on Assassinations , and the Dallas Police Department. the sniper who assassinated John F...
debating Oswald's guilt with Melvin Belli
Melvin Belli
Melvin Mouron Belli was a prominent American lawyer known as "The King of Torts" and by detractors as 'Melvin Bellicose'. He had many celebrity clients, including Zsa Zsa Gabor, Errol Flynn, Chuck Berry, Muhammad Ali, Sirhan Sirhan, the Rolling Stones, Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye Bakker, Martha...
, Crane and audience members. The other featured Norman Mailer
Norman Mailer
Norman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S...
and Richard Burton
Richard Burton
Richard Burton, CBE was a Welsh actor. He was nominated seven times for an Academy Award, six of which were for Best Actor in a Leading Role , and was a recipient of BAFTA, Golden Globe and Tony Awards for Best Actor. Although never trained as an actor, Burton was, at one time, the highest-paid...
. Burton encouraged Crane to recite the "gravedigger speech" from Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
, and Crane did. More affiliates signed up for a November relaunch of The Les Crane Show, and Look (American magazine)
Look (American magazine)
Look was a bi-weekly, general-interest magazine published in Des Moines, Iowa from 1937 to 1971, with more of an emphasis on photographs than articles...
ran a prominent feature story with captioned still photographs from the August episodes. One image shows Shelley Winters
Shelley Winters
Shelley Winters was an American actress who appeared in dozens of films, as well as on stage and television; her career spanned over 50 years until her death in 2006...
debating a controversial issue with Jackie Robinson
Jackie Robinson
Jack Roosevelt "Jackie" Robinson was the first black Major League Baseball player of the modern era. Robinson broke the baseball color line when he debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947...
. While some critics found the late-night series innovative, it never gained much of an audience. In late June 1965, following a three-month hibernation, it was retitled ABC's Nightlife with network executives having removed most of the controversy and emphasizing light entertainment. Producer Nick Vanoff was another interested party who started forbidding guests from broaching controversial topics. After the summer 1965 run, they relocated the show from New York to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. The Paley Center for Media has available for viewing the first 15 minutes of one of the last episodes before ABC finally cancelled ABC's Nightlife in November 1965. Crane can be seen and heard delivering his monologue, joking about words that could be censored and bantering with his sidekick Nipsey Russell
Nipsey Russell
Julius "Nipsey" Russell was an American comedian, best known today for his appearances as a guest panelist on game shows from the 1960s through the 1990s, especially Match Game, Password, Hollywood Squares, To Tell the Truth and Pyramid...
.
The two kinescopes that ABC used to pitch The Les Crane Show to its affiliates in 1964 constitute the only surviving video and audio of Crane's controversial show. An archive of source material on Malcolm X
Malcolm X
Malcolm X , born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz , was an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its...
has audio only of the civil rights leader's December 1964 appearance with Crane. Audio only of Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
talking to Crane in February 1965 has circulated and been transcribed. The National Archives has a transcript of the Oswald/Belli episode in its documents related to the JFK assassination that were declassified and released publicly in 1993 and 1994. Most Les Crane Show episodes pictured in the Look feature story, such as the one with Winters and Robinson, were completely destroyed, and what the participants said is not known.
Les Crane's confrontational interview technique, along with a "shotgun" microphone he aimed at audiences, earned him the name "the bad boy of late-night television." In truth, critical opinion was divided. Some critics, like The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
media critic Paul Gardner, thought he was an incisive interviewer who asked tough questions without being insulting. One of the critics who did not like his show also found Crane's trademark shotgun microphone distracting. "Each time he points this mike into the audience, it looks as though he's about to shoot a spectator." (Laurent, 1964) The one thing nearly every critic agreed with was that Crane was very photogenic—or as one critic described him, he was "a tall, handsome and personable lad..." (Smith, 1964) In fact, expectations for Crane had been quite high, but like many others, Crane would not be able to make a dent in Carson's ratings, and his new show lasted just 14 weeks before ABC executives transformed it into the more show-business-oriented ABC's Nightlife. Although his ratings proved disappointing, Crane was able to get some outstanding guests. Bob Dylan, who rarely appeared on American television, was one of them. Along with such offbeat subjects as the voice of radio's The Shadow, Bret Morrison
Bret Morrison
Bret Morrison was an American actor best known as the voice of the mysterious crusader for law and order on radio's The Shadow....
, Crane also interviewed (in addition to the aforementioned Malcolm X) leading figures such as Richard Burton
Richard Burton
Richard Burton, CBE was a Welsh actor. He was nominated seven times for an Academy Award, six of which were for Best Actor in a Leading Role , and was a recipient of BAFTA, Golden Globe and Tony Awards for Best Actor. Although never trained as an actor, Burton was, at one time, the highest-paid...
, Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for being an iconic figure in the advancement of civil rights in the United States and around the world, using nonviolent methods following the...
, George Wallace
George Wallace
George Corley Wallace, Jr. was the 45th Governor of Alabama, serving four terms: 1963–1967, 1971–1979 and 1983–1987. "The most influential loser" in 20th-century U.S. politics, according to biographers Dan T. Carter and Stephan Lesher, he ran for U.S...
and Robert F. Kennedy
Robert F. Kennedy
Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy , also referred to by his initials RFK, was an American politician, a Democratic senator from New York, and a noted civil rights activist. An icon of modern American liberalism and member of the Kennedy family, he was a younger brother of President John F...
.
Because of his good looks, it was not surprising that he tried his hand at acting, but his acting
Acting
Acting is the work of an actor or actress, which is a person in theatre, television, film, or any other storytelling medium who tells the story by portraying a character and, usually, speaking or singing the written text or play....
career was brief, with an appearance in the film An American Dream
An American Dream
An American Dream is Norman Mailer's fourth novel, published by Dial Press. Mailer wrote it in serialized form for Esquire, consciously attempting to resurrect the methodology used by Charles Dickens and other earlier novelists, with Mailer writing each chapter against monthly deadlines...
(1966), based on the Norman Mailer novel, and a few guest roles on television shows. Folksinger Phil Ochs
Phil Ochs
Philip David Ochs was an American protest singer and songwriter who was known for his sharp wit, sardonic humor, earnest humanism, political activism, insightful and alliterative lyrics, and haunting voice...
mentioned him in the lyrics of his satirical 1966 song "Love Me, I'm a Liberal." Some sources say that Crane gave the rock group The Mamas & the Papas
The Mamas & the Papas
The Mamas & the Papas were a Canadian/American vocal group of the 1960s . The group recorded and performed from 1965 to 1968 with a short reunion in 1971, releasing five albums and 11 Top 40 hit singles...
their name, but this is disputed in other sources, which say John Phillips
John Phillips (musician)
John Edmund Andrew Phillips , was an American singer, guitarist, songwriter and promoter . Known as Papa John, Phillips was a member and leader of the singing group The Mamas & the Papas...
came up with the name. (see Bronson, 2003)
Crane was one of the first interviewers to have an openly gay person, Randy Wicker
Randy Wicker
Randolfe Hayden "Randy" Wicker is an American author, activist and blogger. After involvement in the early homophile and gay liberation movements, Wicker became active around the issue of human cloning....
, on his television show, in January 1964. But when Crane tried to invite members of a lesbian advocacy group, the Daughters of Bilitis
Daughters of Bilitis
The Daughters of Bilitis , was the first lesbian rights organization in the United States. It was formed in San Francisco in 1955, conceived as a social alternative to lesbian bars, which were considered illegal and thus subject to raids and police harassment...
to be guests on his show in June 1964, WABC ordered him to cancel the show, and he did. ("Homosexual Women", 1964) Crane was also known as an advocate for civil rights, and was praised by the black press for his respectful interviews with such black newsmakers as Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali is an American former professional boxer, philanthropist and social activist...
. (Young, 1968)
After Crane's final television appearance in the 1970s, he refused to discuss his television career and did not respond to queries about his copies of the two surviving kinescopes from 1964.
Crane flies West
In 1968, he was back on the West Coast, hosting a talk show on KLAC in Los Angeles. Critics noted that in the style of the 1960s, he now dressed in a turtleneck and moccasins, sprinkling his speech with words like "groovy." ("Communicasters," 1968). But he was still doing interviews with major newsmakers and discussing topics like civil disobedience, the hippies and the rising popularity of meditation. (Sweeney, 1968) He also did some local TV talk. Crane left KLAC when the station switched to a country music format.In late 1971, the 45rpm recording of Les Crane's reading of Desiderata reached #8 on the Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
charts. It had a great influence on mainstream society and became a counterculture
Counterculture
Counterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Counterculture can also be described as a group whose behavior...
anthem
Anthem
The term anthem means either a specific form of Anglican church music , or more generally, a song of celebration, usually acting as a symbol for a distinct group of people, as in the term "national anthem" or "sports anthem".-Etymology:The word is derived from the Greek via Old English , a word...
of sorts, and in particular introducing many to the culture of prose poetry
Prose poetry
Prose poetry is poetry written in prose instead of using verse but preserving poetic qualities such as heightened imagery and emotional effects.-Characteristics:Prose poetry can be considered either primarily poetry or prose, or a separate genre altogether...
and spoken word recording. The recording was considered inspirational and positive during a somewhat negative time. It won him a Grammy.
Though Crane thought the poem was in the public domain
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
when it was recorded, the rights in fact belonged to the family of author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
Max Ehrmann, and royalties
Royalties
Royalties are usage-based payments made by one party to another for the right to ongoing use of an asset, sometimes an intellectual property...
were distributed accordingly.
A parody
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
of Desiderata by National Lampoon on their comedy album
Comedy album
A comedy album is an audio recording of comedic material from a comedian or group of comedians, usually performed either live or in a studio. Comedy albums may feature skits, humorous songs, and/or live recording of stand-up comedy performances, but the most common type of comedy albums are stand...
, Radio Dinner (1972) went on to fame via the Dr. Demento
Dr. Demento
Barret Eugene Hansen , better known as Dr. Demento, is a radio broadcaster and record collector specializing in novelty songs, comedy, and strange or unusual recordings dating from the early days of phonograph records to the present....
and Howard Stern
Howard Stern
Howard Allan Stern is an American radio personality, television host, author, and actor best known for his radio show, which was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2005. He gained wide recognition in the 1990s where he was labeled a "shock jock" for his outspoken and sometimes controversial style...
radio shows. Called Deteriorata
Deteriorata
Deteriorata is a famous parody of San Francisco radio and television personality Les Crane's spoken word recording of Desiderata. It was written by Tony Hendra. It was recorded by National Lampoon as part of their National Lampoon Radio Dinner album of 1972...
and voiced by Norman Rose
Norman Rose
Norman Rose was an actor, film narrator and radio announcer whose velvety baritone was often called "the Voice of God" by colleagues...
, the parody declared to listeners: "You are a fluke of the universe. You have no right to be here. And whether you can hear it or not, the universe is laughing behind your back". Melissa Manchester
Melissa Manchester
Melissa Manchester is an American singer-songwriter and actress. Beginning in the 1970s, she has recorded generally in the adult contemporary genre. She has also appeared as an actress on television, in films, and on stage....
, then a little-known session singer, performed the gospel
Gospel music
Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
-tinged background vocals.
When asked about the recording
Recording
Recording is the process of capturing data or translating information to a recording format stored on some storage medium, which is often referred to as a record or, if an auditory medium, a recording....
during an interview by the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
in 1987, Crane replied, "I can't listen to it now without gagging." He admitted to being more fond of the National Lampoon satire.
In the 1980s, Crane transitioned to the software industry and became chairman of The Software Toolworks, creators of the three-dimensional color chess series, Chessmaster
Chessmaster
Chessmaster is a chess playing computer game series which is now owned and developed by Ubisoft. It is the best-selling chess franchise in history, with more than five million units sold .-Timeline:...
and the best-selling educational series, Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing
Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing
Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing is an application software program for teaching touch typing. The typing program was initially released in late 1987 by The Software Toolworks and has been published regularly ever since. It was originally created by a team of developers from Software Toolworks...
. Toolworks was also responsible for such classics as The Original Adventure and the PC version of Pong
Pong
Pong is one of the earliest arcade video games, and is a tennis sports game featuring simple two-dimensional graphics. While other arcade video games such as Computer Space came before it, Pong was one of the first video games to reach mainstream popularity...
. The Software Toolworks was sold and renamed Mindscape
Mindscape Group
Mindscape is an international software publishing company, previously part of The Learning Company. They are now affiliated with EA . As of 2004, the group has offices in Europe, Asia, Australia and South America. It has an annual turnover of €38 million and employs 150 people. Mindscape...
in the early 1990s.
Marriages
Crane's personal life included five marriages. His third wife (some sources say it was his fourth) was Gilligan's IslandGilligan's Island
Gilligan's Island is an American television series created and produced by Sherwood Schwartz and originally produced by United Artists Television. The situation comedy series featured Bob Denver; Alan Hale, Jr.; Jim Backus; Natalie Schafer; Tina Louise; Russell Johnson; and Dawn Wells. It aired for...
actress Tina Louise
Tina Louise
Tina Louise is an American actress, singer, and author. She is best known for her role as the "movie star" Ginger Grant on the television situation comedy Gilligan's Island .-Early life:...
, whom he married in 1966 and divorced in 1974. They had one daughter, Caprice Crane
Caprice Crane
Caprice Crane is an American novelist, screenwriter and television writer/producer.Crane was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of radio announcer/TV interviewer Les Crane and actress Tina Louise...
(b. 1974), who became an author, screenwriter and television producer.
Crane died on July 13, 2008, in Greenbrae, California
Greenbrae, California
Greenbrae is a small community in Marin County, California. It is located south-southeast of downtown San Rafael, at an elevation of 33 feet , located adjacent to U.S. Route 101 at the opening of the Ross Valley. Part of Greenbrae is an unincorporated community of the county while the remaining...
, north of San Francisco. He had been living in Belvedere, California
Belvedere, California
Belvedere is an affluent city in Marin County, California, United States. Belvedere is located northeast of Sausalito, at an elevation of 36 feet...
with his wife, Ginger, at the time of his death.