William O. Harbach


William Otto Harbach was an American television producer, director and author. He won four Emmy Awards and a Peabody Award Harbach also produced and directed special events, including eight ASCAP celebrations for renowned composers, lyricists and librettists. He was the son of American lyricist, librettist and ASCAP co-founder Otto Abels Harbach.

Early life and education

Born on October 12, 1919 to Otto Abels Harbach and Ella Smith Dougal Harbach, William Otto Harbach began life in New York City. His brother Robert was born in February, 1921. The family moved to Mamaroneck, New York when he was six years old. His father was known as the "Dean of American Librettists," and penned tunes including Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.
Harbach attended the Horace Mann School's kindergarten and Pelham Day School. He spent five years at the Choate School where he met John F. Kennedy and Alan Jay Lerner. Harbach spent one year preparing for college at the Hun School of Princeton, after which he was accepted at Brown University. He spent one year at Brown before enlisting in the Coast Guard. In the spring 1946, after his military service, he was a student at The Neighborhood Playhouse.

Film career

MGM signed Harbach as a stock player during 1945–1947. He appeared in Good News with June Allyson and Peter Lawford; Killer McCoy > with Mickey Rooney; On an Island with You with Jimmy Durante, Esther Williams and Peter Lawford; and Song of the Thin Man with Jayne Meadows. A strike causing the studios to cut costs led to the elimination of stock players at MGM in 1947.

Television career

After a brief stint managing the nightclub acts Kay Thompson and the Williams Brothers, Harbach got an entry-level job in 1948 as editor at the NBC New York Studio. He spliced 35 mm film to add commercials and station breaks. Three years later he was offered the position of producer for a new show, the "Knickerbocker Beer Show". The show starred Steve Allen, who did not like the producer that had been assigned to the show. Harbach replaced him and the two became an award-winning team and followed their work on The Tonight Show with The Steve Allen Show, a variety series. During this time, he developed a partnership with Nick Vanoff, with whom he continued a personal and professional relationship and friendship until Vanoff's death in 1991. Harbach and Vanoff produced the acclaimed variety show The Hollywood Palace from 1964 to 1970, as well as multiple specials.
Harbach's other producing credits include:
Working with Vanoff, Harbach also served as co-executive producer for:
Harbach also served as co-producer with Vanoff on:
With George Stevens, Jr. and Vanoff, Harbach also co-produced the first two Kennedy Center Honors shows, as well as the Kennedy Center Tribute to the Premier of China.

Post-career

Harbach produced and directed ASCAP Celecrations for Johnny Mercer, Ira Gershwin, Arthur Schwartz, Howard Dietz, Harold Arlen Alan Jay Lerner, Frederick Loewe, and Jimmy Van Heusen. He also staged and directed the Mary Martin Tribute ad the Schubert Theater. He produced and directed the first New York International Festival of the Arts in 1988 and, in the following year, The 75th Anniversary of ASCAP in Los Angeles. That same year he produced An Evening with Alan Jay Lerner at Lincoln Center for the Memorial Sloan-Kittering Cancer Center, and produced and directed the Irving Berlin Tribute at the Music Box Theater on February 6, 1990.
On July 23, 2009, Harbach delivered a eulogy for his friend of half a century, Walter Cronkite.
Harbach died in December 2017 at the age of 98 following a brief illness.

Awards and honors

On March 4, 1992, Harbach was inducted in the Producers Guild of America Hall of Fame.