Frank Ford (broadcaster)
| Frank Ford | |
|---|---|
| Born |
September 30, 1916 Philadelphia, United States |
| Died | March 3, 2009 (aged 92) Philadelphia, United States |
| Occupation | Radio personality, Businessman |
Frank Ford was the stage name of Edward Felbin (September 30, 1916 – March 3, 2009), a Philadelphia radio talk show host. He was married to Lynne Abraham, a former judge and District Attorney of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Along with partners Lee Guber and Shelly Gross, Ford founded the Valley Forge Music Fair in 1955 and the Westbury Music Fair the following year. He served on the board of trustees for Science Service, now known as Society for Science & the Public, from 1957-62.
Born as Edward Felbin, he grew up in the Logan neighborhood of upper North Philadelphia, graduating from that city's Simon Gratz High School in 1934. He attended the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 1939.
While in college, he got a job at radio station WHAT as an announcer, earning $15 weekly plus transportation. He used the name "Eddie Hoyle" while hosting Hollywood According to Hoyle, a gossip program. While selling radio time in 1946, a customer called Frankford Unity Grocery Store wanted to sponsor a music show; He decided that he would host the show himself to pick up a few extra dollars, and adopted the name "Frank Ford" for the show, a name that stuck with him for the rest of his life. In a 1995 interview with the Philadelphia Daily News, he wondered "what my name would be if the sponsor was the Piggly Wiggly stores."
Together with partners Lee Guber and Shelly Gross, he opened the Valley Forge Music Fair in Devon, Pennsylvania in 1955, featuring such shows as its inaugural production of The King and I. Originally housed in a tent, a building was constructed on the site as a theater. Opened on an investment of $100,000, the business brought in a profit of about $50,000 their first summer, leading to the establishment of the Westbury Music Fair in Westbury, New York and other locations in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and near both Baltimore and Washington, D.C., employing 2,000 performers and musicians at their peak.
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