Lloyd Thaxton

Lloyd Thaxton (May 31,1927- October 5, 2008) was an American writer, producer, and television host best known for his syndicated pop music television program of the 1960s, The Lloyd Thaxton Show, which began as a local show on KCOP Los Angeles in 1961. Thaxton, 81, died at his Studio City, California, home, of multiple myeloma, said his wife, Barbara. He was diagnosed with the disease in May.

Thaxton came to Los Angeles from Toledo, Ohio, in 1957, becoming, in his words, a "freelance announcer" and host of the highly-rated Leave It To Lloyd talk show on KHJ-TV. He casually coined the term "freelance announcer" since his work in commercials was most active toward the end of the era of live television; Thaxton would go from venue to venue performing the commercials live, since videotape was not in wide use then. Many of his commercials for KHJ and KNXT were for the now-defunct Southern California discount chain, White Front. His career at KCOP began in 1958 both as a commercial announcer and as announcer for The June Levant Show, an afternoon talk show starring the wife of celebrated pianist Oscar Levant. This led to his own afternoon show, Lloyd Thaxton’s Record Shop, in 1959. The program attracted quite a number of big-name guests, some of whom stopped by to promote their latest record and many of whom simply stopped by for the chance to chat with Thaxton. Among those early guests were Fred Astaire, Jerry Lewis, Johnny Green, and Dimitri Tiomkin.

In 1961, The Lloyd Thaxton Show debuted on KCOP as an hour-long presentation from 5 to 6 p.m. The format, much along the lines of American Bandstand, featured local high school students dancing on the soundstage to the latest records. The show was almost totally unscripted and spontaneous. Thaxton's description of the idea: “No one told me what I had to do. I was producing it myself. I was writing it myself.” Thaxton frequently clowned around on stage to the music, lip-synching the vocals and accompanying the records on guitar or piano. One favorite recurring skit had the costumed Thaxton on his knees, impersonating painter Toulouse-Lautrec, while lip-synching a current song. The Lloyd Thaxton Show, with its mix of new music and comedy skits, immediately shot to Number One in the time period, with a viewership of at least 350,000 homes, including those on the East Coast. Many leading rock 'n roll acts of the time, like The Byrds, Sonny & Cher, The Kinks, The Bobby Fuller Four, and others appeared on the program.

The show went into national syndication in 1964, becoming the highest rated musical entertainment program in the United States for the next eight years. Thaxton's ventures into other television programs and facets of the entertainment industry earned him five Emmy Awards and fifteen Emmy nominations.

His show was recalled in the lyrics of The Go-Go's song "Beatnik Beach," which appeared on the 1982 album Vacation: "We'll lipsync a go-go / Just like the Lloyd Thaxton show, yeah ..."

Thaxton lived in Studio City, California, and was the head of his own entertainment firm, LT Productions.

External links

• Los Angeles Times obit
• Metnews.com article on Lloyd Thaxton
• Summary of The Lloyd Thaxton Show at tv.com
• IMDb listing for Lloyd Thaxton
• Lloyd Thaxton's blog at lloydthaxton.blogspot.com on which he personally cites a Wikipedia entry

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