Being a television stage manager requires a gift for remembering details and the ability to think quickly on your feet.
Diane Sawyer likes Diet Coke. Dan Rather is a Dr Pepper man.
When a maintenance worker appears in the studio and obliviously starts emptying the trash while the newscast is live on-air, you try and shoo him away.
When the guest on “Nightline” that evening happens to be married to anchor Peter Jennings’ ex-wife, you make sure the two men don’t accidentally run into each other.
For nearly 50 years, Daniel Morgan toiled behind the scenes in TV, working in both news and entertainment for CBS, ABC, PBS and NBC (and dealing with all the aforementioned experiences).
Morgan, 69, recently published his memoir, “Last Stage Manager Standing.”
The book, with an introduction by Connie Chung, tells the story of how he went from growing up in Atlantic City, N.J., to a career in New York City, managing various sets from local to national programs. (Morgan says he left the business for good in 2013, after he was let go by ABC. The network had no comment.)
Here are some of his most newsworthy memories.
Peter Jennings: Ladies’ man
“Peter Jennings used to run around a lot. He just had a radar for women. He would sleep with a tree if it had a skirt. In between wives and girlfriends, he did very well. He was a good-looking guy — tall, intelligent, well-spoken.
“He never brought [women] to the studio. He was smarter than that. His makeup artist kind of rode herd on him about that and kept him in line.
“I remember one time Peter had just gotten back from a trip somewhere, and he was talking about how [singer] Barbara Mandrell was ‘naughty.’ He had a look like the Cheshire cat. Then he sat at the desk for a while, editing some copy, and then he says to his makeup artist, ‘And what about those photos Sheena Easton sent me?’ The smile on his face — I could see all his teeth!”
Braless wonder
“I was working on the soap opera ‘Search for Tomorrow’ in the ’70s. The producer comes over to me and says, ‘Your job today is to make sure [star] Morgan Fairchild is wearing a bra. Go to her dressing room.’ I guess the day or week before, she hadn’t been wearing one, and there were problems with Standards and Practices.
“I went back there and started talking to her about cats or something, as a pretext to look down her blouse. She was wearing a sheer something, but she was wearing something.”
Icebox
“Studios are usually cold. But Peter Jennings demanded that the studio be kept at 48 degrees. If it wasn’t cold enough, he’d rip me a new one. It was for his comfort under the hot lights. You never wanted to see anyone sweat on TV for any reason.
“I had to bring a sweater to work, and the vice presidents and writers were always complaining. But it was Peter’s show.”
Screw-up
“I worked CBS’ New Year’s Eve coverage from Times Square for 10 years. It was an easy gig. All people cared about with these shows was seeing the ball drop.
“In the late ’70s, Roy Jackson was the cameraman. He was to pan up and follow the ball down as it dropped. It got to midnight, but in Roy’s shot, the ball didn’t drop.
“The control room burst into chaos. Everyone was screaming at Roy, ‘Get the ball! The f - - king ball isn’t dropping!’
“What happened? Well, all night long, Roy had framed and focused on . . . a full moon. No one had caught it before the big moment.”
Martha Stewart
“I only worked on her show for a week, but a week with Martha was like a month without sunshine. Martha had three female assistants under the age of 30. At any given point, one would be in tears.
“The props list for the shoot was incredible. Lots of food and sewing. The director came over to me with a straight face and says, ‘The most important part of your job is to make sure Martha knows where her salt and pepper are at all times.’ I thought he was joking, but he was serious.”
Captain Kangaroo
“Bob Keeshan [who played Captain Kangaroo] was a miserable bastard. He’d played Clarabell the Clown on ‘The Howdy Doody Show’ and had gotten fired. He was very temperamental; the slightest thing would set him off — and did. Sometimes he’d work for half an hour, rip off his wig and go pouting back to his dressing room. He’d start screaming, ‘I’m not Clarabell anymore.’
“I came back from lunch one day, and I noticed he’d gotten angry and annihilated this bird cage. I said to a stagehand, ‘Should we call the ASPCA?’ He said, ‘Don’t worry. It was a plastic canary.’
“At the beginning of each show, before the Captain came through the door, Mr. Green Jeans [Hugh ‘Lumpy’ Brannum] would be reading a voice-over behind the set. During the reading, unbeknownst to the little viewers, Bob would take out his [penis], put a pencil under it and wave it at Brannum.
“Once, Bob was backstage reading the final voice-over — and Lumpy began to pee on Bob’s leg. It was a tit-for-tat thing, not malicious.”
“The irony is that Bob could be very generous at Christmas time. Each year he would find a hot gift for everyone, like a Texas Instruments calculator or a Casio watch.”