Gordon McLendon
September 14, 1986 (aged 65)
- Businessman
- investor
- intelligence officer
-
Gay Noe(m. 1943; div. 1958)
Background[edit]
McLendon was born in Paris, Texas, and spent his early childhood in Oklahoma. The family moved to Atlanta, Texas, where he attended high school and began to develop his interest in broadcasting. He covered sports events and broadcast commentary over the school's public address system. He graduated from Kemper Military Academy. He won a nationwide political-essay contest judged by journalists Arthur Brisbane, Henry Luce, and Walter Lippmann. After being accepted to Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, he decided to attend Yale because it was the only school that didn't offer him a scholarship. At Yale, he was editor of the Yale Literary Magazine and a member of Chi Psi, a Yale fraternity. McLendon fought in World War II and was commissioned as an intelligence officer in the Office of Naval Intelligence. He was later reassigned, giving him the opportunity to extend his style of commentary to political events over a United States Armed Forces Radio Service station. He then briefly attended Harvard Law School but left prematurely to buy an interest in a station in Palestine, Texas, KNET.
McLendon was married in 1943 to Gay Noe, daughter of James A. Noe, former governor of Louisiana; in 1973 he married Susan Stafford, a syndicated columnist, radio talk-show host, and actress.
McLendon was known for his elaborate practical jokes, orchestrated on such notables as sitting President Richard Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover both of whom he called friends. He was a member of the board of stewards of Highland Park Methodist Church in Dallas and the board of directors of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Texas chairman of the March of Dimes, and an honorary chairman of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Poppy Drive. In 1964–65 he served as a communications adviser to the United States Peace Corps. In 1971 he conducted a month-long all-expense-paid broadcasting course for nine minority-group members, including African Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Mexican-Americans.
Broadcasting[edit]
Liberty Broadcasting System[edit]
McLendon, who nicknamed himself "The Old Scotchman", is also noted in radio history as the founder of the Liberty Radio Network (noted for its daily national broadcasts of Major League Baseball) in the 1940s. Liberty was the second largest radio network in the U.S. at the time with over 458 affiliated stations. Most of Liberty's MLB broadcasts were re-creations of games, utilizing McLendon himself and future sportscasting stars such as Lindsey Nelson and Jerry Doggett on play-by-play.
It was a live, not recreated game that provided McLendon and Liberty with their greatest career moment. The Old Scotchman himself was behind the Liberty microphone at the Polo Grounds in New York for the October 3, 1951, finale of the three-game National League play-off series between the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers. Bobby Thomson of the Giants swung at Dodger Ralph Branca's 0–1 pitch in the last of the ninth with two runners aboard, and McLendon barked:
Movies and theatres[edit]
In 1959, McLendon co-produced and co-starred in two sci-fi monster movies filmed in Texas, The Killer Shrews and The Giant Gila Monster. He produced over 150 motion-picture campaigns for United Artists from 1963 to 1966. At one point, he became the largest shareholder in Columbia Pictures. He was the executive producer of Escape to Victory, directed by John Huston and starring Michael Caine, Sylvester Stallone, and Max von Sydow. He also owned McLendon Theatres, which operated more than forty movie theatres throughout the south, including many drive-ins.[5]
Oil[edit]
McLendon's father-in-law was former Louisiana Governor and oil magnate James A. Noe who, along with his partner, Governor Huey Long, formed the controversial Win or Lose Oil Company. The firm was established to obtain leases on state-owned lands so that the directors might collect bonuses and sublease the mineral rights to the major oil companies. Although ruled legal, these activities were done in secret and the stockholders were unknown to the public. Noe and Long made a profit on the bonuses and the resale of those state leases, using the funds primarily for political purposes.
Author[edit]
McLendon became an authority on precious metals and wrote a book entitled Get Really Rich in the Coming Super Metals Boom, published in 1981. He also authored a number of other books, including How to Succeed in Broadcasting (1961), Correct Spelling in Three Hours (1962), Understanding American Government (1964), and 100 Years of America in Sound (1965).
Politics[edit]
McLendon, a conservative Democrat, garnered 43% of the vote in a primary race against liberal incumbent US Senator Ralph Yarborough in 1964. During the campaign he was accompanied by such Hollywood luminaries as John Wayne, Chill Wills, and Robert Cummings.
He entered the primary for the 1968 Texas gubernatorial election, but withdrew from both the election and the Democratic Party, citing President Lyndon Johnson's Vietnam War policies.
Jack Ruby was an admirer of McLendon.[6]
Later life[edit]
In December 1985, McLendon was reported to have been critically wounded while cleaning his .38-caliber pistol.[7] He died of cancer at his ranch home near Lake Dallas, Texas, on September 14, 1986. He was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 1994.