Bob Banner
| Bob Banner | |
|---|---|
| Born |
August 15, 1921 Ennis, Texas, U.S. |
| Died | June 15, 2011 (aged 89) Los Angeles |
| Occupation | Television producer, writer and director |
| Years active | 1948–1997 |
Robert James Banner, Jr. (August 15, 1921 – June 15, 2011) was an American producer, writer and director. From 1967 to 1972 he co-produced The Carol Burnett Show.
Bob was a native of Ennis, Texas, and credited his hometown with providing him the opportunity to prepare for his career. In high school he accompanied every singer in town, played in the high school band and was part-time organist in the Presbyterian Church. He credited band director Thomas Granger as the mentor who gave the biggest push to send him on his way. While a junior in high school he assisted Mr. Granger in writing and arranging the school Alma Mater "Maroon and White" that has lasted since 1937.
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 three years on a destroyer in the United States Navy.
Bob began his career in television in 1948. While pursuing his PhD and teaching radio courses on campus at Northwestern University, Banner 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 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 New York City.
While in New York, Bob also directed Omnibus, hosted by Alistair Cooke. The weekly series on CBS is often credited as the forerunner to television's cultural PBS network. In the early 1950s, he moved to Los Angeles when the once-experimental medium had matured and was heading west.
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