Hubert Schlafly

In 2008, Hubert Schlafly was inducted into the Cable Television Hall of Fame. And for good reason. He ran one of the nation's first cable companies and orchestrated the first coast-to-coast satellite transmission of TV images. When he gave his acceptance speech, Schlafly, who died on April 20 at 91, used a teleprompter, which he had helped invent. Developed in the late 1940s, the teleprompter--initially a motorized scroll inside half a suitcase--took off when former President Herbert Hoover used it during the 1952 Republican National Convention. Over the years, it has proved essential to countless speechmakers, award-show presenters. Ironically, the 2008 induction was the first time Schlafly publicly utilized the device.