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His first two tries at network shows failed. From 1945 through 1959, however, Godfrey seemed inexhaustibly appealing in a medium that overexposes performers almost overnight. Between radio and TV, Godfrey was on the air nationwide nearly ten hours a week, drawing a total audience estimated to have been as large as 82 million. On the eve of the 1960 presidential election, 71% of Americans in a poll identified John Kennedy's face; 91% recognized Godfrey's. The secret of his success, he said, came to him as he lay abed after a near fatal auto accident in 1931: he should not announce to listeners, but talk to them, one to one. Said he: "There is no radio audience, just one guy or one girl in a room. If the audience is ladies and gentlemen' together, they have better things to do than hear me on the radio."
—By William A. Henry III
BORN. To Karen Brown, 35, California model, and Peter O'Toole, 50, Irish-born movie actor (My Favorite Year): their first child, a son; in Dublin. Name: Lorcan (Gaelic for Lawrence, after O'Toole's greatest film role) Patrick. Weight: 7 Ibs. 7 oz.
MARRIED. Melissa Mathison, 32, screenwriter of the top moneymaking movie, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial; and Harrison Ford, 40, star of No. 2 (Star Wars), No. 3 (The Empire Strikes Back) and No. 5 (Raiders of the Lost Ark); she for the first time, he for the second; in Santa Monica, Calif.
MARRIED. David Frost, 43, inquisitive TV personality now appearing on the new (and so far unsuccessful) British morning chat show, TV-am; and Lady Carina Fitzalan Howard, 31; he for the second time, she for the first; in London.
SEEKING DIVORCE. From Werner Erhard, 47, Me-decade messiah of est, the self-realization cult best known for its grueling and expensive seminars: Ellen Erhard, 48, his second wife; after 23 years of marriage, three children; in San Rafael, Calif.
SENTENCED. Richard Jahnke, 16, high school junior convicted four weeks ago of voluntary manslaughter after he ambushed and killed his brutal, ultrastrict IRS-agent father with the help of his sister Deborah, 18; to a harsh 5-to-15-year prison term; in Cheyenne, Wyo. The court received pleas for mercy from hundreds who thought the siblings had been provoked by their father's abuse, but Judge Paul Liamos said no one should be allowed to be prosecutor, judge, juror and executioner.