Late-night talk shows began with Faye Emerson on CBS
MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" ends this week. It's the end of an era of late-night talk shows on the network. An era that started on CBS by a TV pioneer back in 1949.
Before Colbert, before David Letterman, even before Johnny Carson or Steve Allen, there was Faye Emerson.
"She was the first late-night television talk show host. And she defined the genre," said Dr. Maureen Mauk, a media historian in Madison.
Dr. Mauk, who currently works in television standards and practices, is credited with bringing Emerson's story back to the forefront with her research at UW-Madison.
"Late-night television had not yet become a thing," she said.
Mauk says at the time, it was the evening news, maybe baseball, and that was it on television. In fact, at the beginning, 8:15 p.m. was considered "late night."
"She was bringing on these comedians, musicians, these politicians, journalists," Mauk said. "Just interesting people from the culture of the day."
Mauk says Emerson had full control over everything. The guests (even having guests to begin with), the set, the topics. A lot of it is still part of late-night TV.
"She also did, kind of similar to David Letterman and his mailbag, she started that," said Mauk.
Mauk says she didn't shy away from anything.
"There was this key letter that I really based a lot of my research on," she said. You can see clips from the episode in the story above.
"He says, 'better stick to the plunging neckline, Faye. Politics is not for little girls,'" Emerson says in the clip, reading from a letter from a viewer.
"She opened that live, read his full name and address," said Mauk.
"I think you have a perfect right to say what you think and to tell me about it," says Emerson to the camera in the episode. "But I don't think that's true altogether. I think politics is everybody's business. And I'm not a little girl, either."
"It was such a great moment, where she recognized the power of her platform," said Mauk. "She was highly intelligent."
Like Colbert, her willingness to speak boldly about what was important to her drew a certain reaction.
"The networks and the sponsors pushed back and asked her to cool it," Mauk said. "Then, eventually, by 1951 was her last episode, and then the late-night platform got pushed to men, and women were never to return."
Mauk hopes the late-night model, pioneered by Emerson on CBS and carried on by multiple networks for the last 75-plus years, finds a way to continue.
"As far as Colbert leaving and not being replaced by another late-night television talk show host," she said, "There's going to be a void."