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Concept
Bill Slater (broadcaster)
Summary
William Ernest Slater (December 3, 1902 – January 25, 1965) was an American military officer, educator, sports announcer, and radio/television personality from the 1920s through the 1950s, hosting the radio shows Twenty Questions and Luncheon at Sardi's. He was the great uncle of actor Christian Slater.
Slater earned a master's degree in political science from Columbia University and was a 1924 graduate of West Point. An imposing man of 6 ft 3in, he subsequently taught English and math at his hometown of Parkersburg, West Virginia.
He then joined the Greenbrier Military School in Lewisburg, West Virginia as commandant. Next, he was on the faculty of the New York Military Academy where he also coached football. He was then the head of the math department and football coach at Blake School in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He left Blake School in 1933 to begin his final teaching post, as headmaster of Adelphi Academy in Brooklyn, New York (1933–1942).
He served as a lieutenant colonel in public relations for the U.S. Army, beginning in 1942.
While teaching at the Blake School for Boys in Minneapolis, it was suggested by a student, whose father was a radio executive, that Slater had the voice and knowledge to be a sports announcer. His first network break came while at Adelphi Academy, when NBC network officials heard him calling the 1933 Army-Navy football game on CBS with Ted Husing, whose voice was similar.
In addition to covering many sporting events on network radio, Slater hosted a Thursday night quiz show on CBS radio, Askit-Baskit, in 1940, using the stage name "Jim McWilliams".
Slater hosted/emceed many early television shows:
Birthday Party (1947), aka King Cole's Birthday Party
Charade Quiz (1947)
Messing Prize Party (1948)
Twenty Questions (1949) DuMont and NBC versions
Fishing and Hunting Club (1949)
Broadway to Hollywood Headline Clues (1949)
With This Ring (1951)
Slater was the primary voice of Paramount News reels for many years beginning in 1936.
Official source
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