Arthur Forrest, the three-time Daytime Emmy-winning director whose 70-year profession in tv included work on The Honeymooners, The Dick Cavett Present and Whose Line Is It Anyway?, has died. He was 95.
Forrest died Oct. 25 of pure causes at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, his spouse, Marcy Forrest, advised The Hollywood Reporter.
A live-event specialist, Forrest helmed NBC’s annual Event of Roses Parade telecast from Pasadena from 1977-2017, when he retired from present enterprise at age 90. “I like beginning the brand new 12 months with marching bands!” he mentioned.
For greater than 4 a long time, from New York to Las Vegas, Forrest additionally produced and directed Jerry Lewis’ Labor Day Telethon, which raised funds for the Muscular Dystrophy Affiliation. In 1976, he and Frank Sinatra secretly organized Lewis’ emotional reunion together with his estranged showbiz associate Dean Martin on this system. (His spouse served because the telethon’s expertise coordinator for a few years.)
Forrest received his Emmys for steering the 1995 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade telecast from New York and for helming the discuss exhibits Leeza in 1996 and The Rosie O’Donnell Present in 1999. He collected 17 Emmy nominations throughout his profession.
Born in 1926 in Brooklyn and raised within the Bronx, Forrest accomplished an NYU extension course in tv manufacturing, then accepted the one job supplied to him — janitor — on the DuMont community, the place he could be promoted to web page, then studio assistant, stagehand, mike growth operator, grip, cameraman, affiliate director and so forth.
Forrest labored a digicam for The Honeymooners and Captain Video and His Video Rangers whereas collaborating at DuMont with such TV icons as Sid Caesar and Ernie Kovacs.
Forrest left DuMont for New York’s Channel 5, the place he directed the favored youngsters present Wonderama and labored on applications hosted by David Susskind, David Frost and Soupy Gross sales, then left in 1973 to helm ABC’s The Dick Cavett Present.
Two years later, he moved to Los Angeles, the place he established his area of interest in dwell tv.
He directed the early actuality TV hit That’s Unimaginable! for ABC and greater than 120 episodes (from 1998-2007) of the improvisational comedy present Whose Line Is It Anyway?, for ABC and ABC Household.
His résumé additionally included rock ‘n’ roll tribute exhibits with Murray the Okay, Casey Kasem and Don Kirshner; the sport exhibits Cash Maze and Matchmaker; and discuss exhibits hosted by Montel Williams, Wil Shriner, Vicki Lawrence, Donny & Marie Osmond and Pat Sajak.
He spent the final 27 years of his life residing in Chevy Chase, Maryland.
Along with his spouse, survivors embody their youngsters, Zak and Nicole; son-in-law Steve; grandchildren Max and Dahlia; his son from a earlier marriage, Richard; and stepson Kyle.
