While the Archive of American Television, now The Interviews: An Oral History of Television was officially founded in 1997, the project first began producing oral history interviews with a pilot of six conversations recorded in 1996. The interviews conducted in that first year were with the founder of ABC Network Leonard H. Goldenson, television's first makeup artist Dick Smith, comedian/ performer Milton Berle, the widow of inventor Philo Farnsworth, Elma Farnsworth, producer Sheldon Leonard, and casting executive Ethel Winant. You can watch all of these interview in our full collection. The archive's first 50 interviews (1996-1997) can be found on this collection page. 

Learn more about the founding of this historic archive here: https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/our-history 

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The Archive of American Television (now known as "The Interviews: an oral history of television") was founded to capture, preserve, and make publicly available primary source interviews about the history of the television medium. This curated collection highlights the first fifty interviews recorded.

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Leonard H. Goldenson on his programming ideas for ABC and making a deal with Walt and Roy Disney

02:13
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Ethel Winant on rising up through the ranks at CBS as a woman

01:26
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Sheldon Leonard on the secret of The Andy Griffith Show's success: Andy Griffith's willingness to subdue his comedy talents

00:40
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Elma Farnsworth on the reaction of her and her husband, inventor Philo T. Farnsworth (and colleagues Cliff Gardner and Carl Christensen), on September 7, 1927 when he produced the first all-electronic TV picture (a simple straight line) with his Image Dissector tube

04:54
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Dick Smith on the tools of the makeup artist in the very early days of television

05:35
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Milton Berle on his thoughts on the future of television in the 21st century

02:09