DICK CAVETT Biography - Other artists & entretainers

 
 

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DICK CAVETT

Name: Richard Alva Cavett                                                           
Born: November 19, 1936 Gibbon, Nebraska                                             
                                                                                     
Richard Alva "Dick" Cavett (born November 19, 1936) is an American television       
talk show host known for his conversational style and in-depth discussion of         
issues. He and Johnny Carson are the only talk program hosts to be seen on a         
regular basis on United States national television in five consecutive decades,     
in Cavett's case the 1960s through the 2000s. (While Larry King has also had         
television talk programs in those decades, the programs he had in the 1960s and     
1970s were limited to broadcast on local stations in Miami, WPST and WTVJ.)         
                                                                                     
Cavett was born in Gibbon, Nebraska, where he was raised, the son of Eva (née       
Richards) and Alva B. Cavett, both teachers. When grilled by Lucille Ball on         
his own show about his heritage, he said he was "Scottish, Irish, English, and       
possibly partly French, and, and uh, a dose of German". He also mentioned one       
grandfather "came over" from England, the other from Wales. Cavett's mother         
died when he was ten; his father, Alva, later remarried. In eighth grade, Cavett     
directed a live Saturday-morning radio show sponsored by the Junior League, and     
played the title role in The Winslow Boy. One of his classmates at Lincoln High     
School was actress Sandy Dennis. Cavett was elected state president of the           
student council in high school, and was a double gold-medalist at the state         
gymnastics championship.                                                             
                                                                                     
Before leaving for college, he worked as a caddy at the Lincoln Country Club. He     
also began doing magic shows for $35 a night under the tutelage of Gene Gloye.       
He attended the 1952 convention of the International Brotherhood of Magicians in     
St. Louis and won Best New Performer trophy. Around the same time, he met fellow     
magician Johnny Carson, eleven years his senior, who was doing a magic act at a     
church in Lincoln.