Tony Converse

Tony Converse (born August 7, 1935) is a television and film producer who began his professional career in New York in 1957 upon graduation from Yale University (BA Drama).

Having been President of the Yale Dramat (undergraduate theater) and Drama Critic for the Yale Daily News ( in a time when each week brought a new show heading for Broadway to New Haven ) was a big help in getting a job at CBS at a time when there were no TV schools and almost everyone involved in TV in New York came from a Theater background.

While employed as a production assistant at CBS TV, Converse also worked as an actor, stage manager and director in the legitimate theater, interrupted by two years in the Army where he became the Program Director for the Armed Forces Radio Network in Europe. On returning to the United States, he was assistant to the Artistic Directors of the American Shakespeare Festival at Stratford, Connecticut and the Williamstown (Mass.) Theater Festival.

In 1963 he returned to television as Producer of the daytime serial Secret Storm, producing well over 1000 episodes until 1969 when he left to produce The Dick Cavett Show. He created both the Emmy Award nominated summer prime time and late night Cavett formats and was responsible for many notable shows, such as "The Lunts and Noel Coward," "The Woodstock Rock Festival," and one-man shows with Groucho Marx and Jack Benny, as well as many highly controversial evenings on political topics during that volatile time.

In 1971 Converse joined CBS Television as Program Executive and was responsible for the CBS Daytime 90's, a unit he created for the production of 90-minute tape dramas, developing over 60 original teleplays and executive producing 12. He received an Emmy nomination for this program.

Appointed Vice President for Special Programs at CBS in 1974, he was responsible for the development and supervised the production of such films as Minstrel Man, Circle of Children, The Defection of Simas Kudirka, In This House of Brede, The Secret Life of Chapman, Goldenrod, The Deadliest Season and The Amazing Howard Hughes. He was also instrumental in the development of and supervised for the network such shows as Sills and Burnett at the Met, The Body Human, The Chuck Jones Animated Specials and The Carter Inaugural Gala.

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