GARRY MOORE

Garry Moore was a major figure in early television who hosted "The Garry Moore" show in the 1950s and 1960s, which launched the careers of Carol Burnett and Alan King. He is perhaps best remembered as the longtime host of TV's "To Tell the Truth" celebrity game show, but he actually got his start in 1937, at the age of 22, when he began writing for a Baltimore radio station, where he also worked as an actor and comedian under his birth name of Thomas Garrison Morfit. In 1940, he took his new stage name of Garry Moore, and he also met Durward Kirby, who would work with him throughout the rest of his life. He appeared on many radio shows in the early 1940s, and he was an announcer for Jimmy Durante, who was so impressed with him that they started a joint show together that ran from 1943 to 1947. CBS so liked Moore, that they offered him his own show, which started on the radio in 1949, and he soon started in television (see above).