Bill Wendell (birth name:
William Joseph
Wenzel, Jr.) (March 22, 1924 – April 14, 1999) was an
NBC television staff
announcer for almost his entire
professional career.
Biography
Born in
New York
City
, Wendell served in the United States Army Air Corps
during World War II and graduated from
Fordham
University
with a degree in speech. He worked briefly
with the
DuMont Television
Network before beginning his long association with NBC. During
the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, Wendell formed part of a fraternity of
network staff announcers who held lifetime contracts; his
colleagues were
Don Pardo,
Wayne Howell,
Fred
Facey,
Bill McCord, Roger Tuttle,
and
Howard Reig.
Wendell was a radio announcer on programs towards the end of the
old-time radio era but the majority
of his announcing work was on television. He was a regular on the
1955-1956 version of
The Ernie
Kovacs Show, serving as the show's announcer, as well as a
participant in sketches such as "Mr. Question Man" (a parody of
The Answer Man). He also
worked with
Jack Benny,
Bob Hope and other NBC personalities.
Wendell was the announcer for a number of NBC's game shows. In
1959, he succeeded
Jack Barry (who was
implicated in the quiz-show scandals) as emcee of
Tic Tac Dough, until it was finally
cancelled in October of that year.
He succeeded Johnny Olson as the announcer of the syndicated
To Tell The Truth from
1972-1977, after Olson left New York City to assume the job on CBS' game
The New Price Is Right,
based in Southern
California. Wendell was also announcer for several years
on the
Macy's
Thanksgiving Day Parade.
His most notable stint on television was as the regular announcer
for NBC's
Late Night
with David Letterman, on which he appeared from 1982-1993,
the entirety of the show's NBC run. He moved with Letterman to
CBS in 1993, staying as announcer on
The Late Show
with David Letterman. He retired in mid-1995, with his
last episode airing on August 18. Following a two-week hiatus,
Alan Kalter succeeded him as announcer
on September 4.
Before he announced for David Letterman's
Late Night he
was announcer on
Tom Snyder's
Tomorrow Show when Tom moved from Burbank, California to
NBC in New York. Letterman's show replaced Snyder's and kept
Wendell as announcer.
Wendell's last major job was as the original
voiceover announcer in
Old
Navy's "fashion show" commercial campaign. Wendell also
appeared as a TV announcer in the movie,
Mr. Saturday Night, which starred
Billy Crystal as comedian Buddy Young,
Jr., a character Crystal originally created when he was a regular
on
Saturday Night
Live.
He died of
complications from cancer in 1999 in Boca Raton, Florida
.
References
External links
Wikis
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