Daly, John Charles, Jr.

(b. 20 February 1914 in Johannesburg, South Africa; d. 25 February 1991 in Chevy Chase, Maryland), broadcast journalist, host of one of the longest-running television game shows, What’s My Line?, and head of the Voice of America radio network.

Daly was one of the two children of John Charles Daly, an American geologist and mining engineer working in South Africa, and Helene Grant Tennant, a homemaker. After the death of his father, who succumbed to a tropical fever, Daly’s mother took him and his older brother to Boston in the United States. Daly was enrolled in the Tilton School in Tilton, New Hampshire, and went on to junior college there. From 1930 to 1933 he completed his education at Boston College. He maintained his connection with the Tilton School throughout his life, later serving as chairman of its board. A portrait by Charles Andres of Daly in front of Tilton’s campus includes some of the buildings he helped fund.

On 7 January 1937, Daly married Margaret Criswell Neal, with whom he had three children. After they were divorced, he married Virginia Warren, a daughter of the U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, on 22 December 1960. With her, Daly again had three children. From 1935 to 1937 Daly worked for a transit company in the nation’s capital. He then joined NBC as a radio reporter in Washington, soon moving on to CBS. From 1937 to 1949, Daly worked at CBS, first as radio correspondent and news analyst, then as White House correspondent and special events reporter. It was his voice that interrupted a music program on 7 December 1941 to announce that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor, which triggered the entry of the United States into World War II.

Daly’s wartime assignments included reporting from London, the Middle East, and Italy from 1943 to 1944. In August 1943, while covering the U.S. invasion of Sicily, Daly learned that the American general George Patton had slapped two soldiers who Patton believed were malingering in an army hospital. Daly and other correspondents went to Patton’s superior, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, to suggest he be removed. Eisenhower, replying that he needed Patton for the war effort, asked the journalists not to report the incident. They kept their promise of silence. But three months later the radio commentator Drew Pearson broke the story, with a resulting uproar against Patton in Congress and the press.

In 1949 Daly moved to ABC as a correspondent. In 1953 he was promoted to vice president in charge of news, special events, sports, and public affairs. In addition to serving as anchor for ABC’s nightly news program, Daly helped evolve policies relating to television news coverage. One issue concerned the responsibility for the production of documentary programs. The matter became controversial when David Wolper, an independent producer, filmed a documentary on space. Wolper had an advertiser who sought to place the program on one of the major networks. However, all three networks turned it down, arguing that because they were responsible for content, they would carry only documentaries created by staff personnel.

Critics contended that this policy gave the networks a virtual monopoly in that influential area. However, the sponsor was able to purchase time, city by city, on a patchwork of individual stations. Meanwhile, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) protested the networks’ action. Daly replied to the WGA: “The standards of production and presentation which apply to a professional network news department would not necessarily apply to, for instance, an independent Hollywood producer.” NBC and CBS took similar stands.

Daly faced another controversy when Leonard Golden-son, president of American Broadcasting-Paramount Theaters, saw the work of a Time, Inc., film unit headed by Robert Drew. Goldenson entered into an arrangement with Time for Drew and his staff to produce programs for ABC as an ABC documentary unit. Daly felt his policy had been subverted and he resigned from ABC in 1960. He did not, however, give up his long-held post hosting CBS-TV’s celebrity game show What’s My Line? Daly is most remembered for that role, which went back to February 1950 when it premiered. Although What’s My Line? followed a score of other game-panel programs, it proved to have a winning mixture of puzzle, intriguing guests, a witty panel, and an affably erudite host in Daly. It outlasted all its rivals and later imitators to become the longest-running show in its category. Its premise called for the panel to guess the occupation of mystery guests by asking yes-or-no questions. When the guests were notables—such as Eleanor Roosevelt, playwright Noel Coward, and U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas—the panelists were blindfolded. Daly presided over the banter with urbane charm and erudition. After seventeen years, in 1967 CBS canceled What’s My Line? as audience interest waned. Later, reruns and updated versions were aired in syndication. Daly did not appear in any of the updated versions of the show.

Although it was later seen as inappropriate for a network newsperson to star in a purely entertainment program, this was not so in television’s early days. Mike Wallace was on Majority Rules in 1949 and 1950, and Walter Cronkite was on It’s News to Me in 1954.

In 1954 Daly was master of ceremonies at the first broadcast of the Miss America beauty pageant, which became an annual presentation. Daly also appeared on an innovative CBS-TV series, You Are There, in which historic events were covered as though they were taking place in the television era. For example, the program on the French Revolution showed Daly interviewing an actor playing King Louis XVI. Among his many other credits over the years were serving as narrator on ABC’s serious music program The Voice of Firestone, and moderator of The National Town Meeting (1974).

Daly received the Emmy Award as best reporter or commentator from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (1954). He also received Emmy nominations for best reporter or commentator in 1955, best news commentator in 1956 and 1957, and best news commentator or analyst in 1958.

In 1969 Daly succeeded John Chancellor, a former NBC journalist, as director of the Voice of America radio network, a broadcast service of the United States Information Agency. Daly resigned after one year because personnel changes had been made without his involvement. Daly, who had a long-standing interest in public health and the environment, served on the Water Pollution Control Advisory Board (1960-1962), the National Digestive Diseases Advisory Board of the National Institutes of Health (1962-1987), and the board of trustees of Norwich University. Daly died of cardiac arrest. He is buried in Washington, D.C.

For seventeen years on What’s My Line? Daly was watched on Sunday evenings by millions of American families who enjoyed his affable personality. Many of them also remembered his reporting, news analysis, and dedication to journalistic professionalism.

Gil Fates, the producer of the program, is the author of What’s My Line? (1978), which recounts the show’s history, including references to John Daly’s participation. Fates suggests that the program might have lasted longer had Daly accepted some format revisions. Obituaries are in the New York Times (27 Feb. 1991) and Time (11 Mar. 1991).

Bert R. Briller