John Guedel
John Guedel, who produced some of early television’s most popular shows, including Groucho Marx’s “You Bet Your Life” and Art Linkletter’s “People Are Funny” and “House Party,” died Saturday Dec. 15 of heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in L.A. He was 88.
Born in Portland, Ind., Guedel moved to Los Angeles with his family at age 8 and later attended Beverly Hills High School (where he was class president), but the Great Depression wiped out his family’s real estate fortune and he dropped out of college to dig ditches and do door-to-door sales work while trying to land a job as a writer. After amassing more than 100 rejection slips, he was hired by Hal Roach Studios in 1933 to work on the Our Gang and Laurel & Hardy comedies.
He met Linkletter in 1941 when he was V.P. in charge of radio for the Dan B. Miner Advertising Co. of Los Angeles. The two formed Guedel and Linkletter Prods. that same year.
Linkletter observed, “John and I were the perfect match for two people: We were both creative, we both had original ideas; he liked to produce, and I liked to star.”
Their first show was “People Are Funny,” which began on radio in 1942, moving to television in 1954. By the early 1960s they were turning out 17 half-hours of network broadcast weekly.
Producing partner Irv Atkins knew Guedel since 1939 and remembered him as a “great idea man,” something reflected in a signature bit Guedel developed for “You Bet Your Life”: the Groucho-lookalike duck that dropped in with $100 for any contestant who uttered the “secret word.’
Other programs Guedel produced included “Earn Your Vacation,” notable for introducing future “Tonight Show” host Johnny Carson.
In private life, Guedel established an anonymous checking account under the name “Santa Claus.” During holidays he would send checks to needy showbizers signed “Santa.”
Guedel is survived by wife Valerie, a son, a daughter, a granddaughter and a great-grandson.
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