Biografia
In his youth, Bob Banner was a skilled organist for his church and played in his high school band. After finishing high school, he toured with the Interstate Theater Production of College Capers, where he met his wife, Alice.
Following three years of service in the Navy, he began his television career in 1948 while pursuing a PhD at Northwestern University. He worked as a production assistant at WMAQ in Chicago for the children's show Kukla, Fran and Ollie (1947). Eventually, he became the director of Garroway at Large (1949) on NBC. In December 1949, bandleader Fred Waring invited Bob Banner to join CBS as a producer and director for The Fred Waring Show (1949). With only a short time left to complete his doctorate at Northwestern, he decided to leave academia for a television career. He relocated to New York City and was hired at CBS, where he directed Alistair Cooke's weekly series Omnibus (1952). In the early 1950s, he moved to Los Angeles to produce and direct The Dinah Shore Show (1951) and later The Dinah Shore Chevy Show (1956), earning three Emmy Awards, two Peabody Awards, and two Christopher Awards.
During the 1960s, he founded Bob Banner Associates, with his first production being The Garry Moore Show (1958), which ran for 218 episodes and won several Emmys. Carol Burnett was part of the ensemble cast. Bob Banner also produced Julie and Carol at Carnegie Hall (1962), which aired on CBS on June 11, 1962, winning three Emmys. Additionally, he produced An Evening with Carol Burnett (1963), broadcast on CBS on February 24, 1963. His final production was the television series Real Kids, Real Adventures (1997).
Bob Banner passed away on June 15, 2011, at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California. He was 89 years old.
