Small-Screen View of a Titan

By Richard Zoglin

IN ALL HIS GLORY: THE LIFE OF WILLIAM S. PALEY

by Sally Bedell Smith; Simon & Schuster; 782 pages; $29.95

In the summer of 1927, Sam Paley, a Philadelphia cigar manufacturer, paid $50 a week to a fledgling local radio station to air The La Palina Hour, a musical-variety show that would advertise his cigars. His son Bill, a company vice president, objected to the decision, which had been made while he was traveling in Europe. But years later, when William S. Paley recalled that early encounter with radio, the story had changed. He was the one, Paley said, who started the radio show -- while his father was traveling in Europe.

A case of faulty memory? Or conscious mythmaking? Either way, the anecdote sets the tone for Sally Bedell Smith's big, bruising portrait of the late CBS founder. Her book charts the trajectory of Paley's extraordinary career, from his purchase of a small group of radio stations in 1928 through his nurturing of CBS to become America's pre-eminent broadcast organization to his long, long goodbye and final, reluctant embracing of new owner Laurence Tisch. But in stark contrast to the encomiums written and uttered after his death last month, Smith's biography cuts a broadcast titan down to 21-in. size. Maybe smaller.

In Smith's telling, Paley consistently inflated his own achievements and minimized the contributions of others. A pioneer in television? The CBS chief actually tried to obstruct the new medium's development, fearing it would cut into his radio profits. Champion of broadcasting's most respected news organization? Paley acquiesced to blacklisting in the 1950s and canceled Edward R. Murrow's See It Now because he feared it was too nettlesome to the Eisenhower Administration. As a decision maker, Paley was cautious and vacillating; underlings snickered over his frequent "540-degree turns." Some of his most decisive moves -- like dumping Walter Cronkite from the anchor booth at the 1964 Democratic Convention -- were the most ill-advised.

The private Paley appears even less admirable. An inveterate social climber, he downplayed his Jewish heritage in a quest for acceptance by the Wasp upper crust. Despite two beautiful and socially accomplished wives, he chased women relentlessly. He was aloof with employees, cold to his children and lavish in his personal life-style. "Paley," says Smith, "was as spoiled as a man could be."

In All His Glory is an impressive, meticulously researched work of broadcast history as well as a piquant glimpse inside CBS's corporate culture. Especially poignant is Smith's description of the complex relationship between Paley and Frank Stanton, the longtime president and "conscience" of CBS, who was crushed when Paley cast him aside rather than accept him as successor. It was a pattern that would be repeated with one heir apparent after another. By the end of his reign, Smith says bluntly, Paley, well into his 80s, "had become an albatross for the network."

And by the end of this nearly 800-page biography, a reader may wonder just how this Paley fellow ever got so far. Smith makes ritual bows toward his personal charm and "genius for mass programming." But concrete examples are scarce. More typically, we hear of the deals Paley botched, the employees he treated badly and the hit CBS shows, like All in the Family and The Dukes of Hazzard, that he initially opposed. Even in victory -- like his famous talent raids of the late 1940s, when CBS wooed Jack Benny, Edgar Bergen and other big stars away from NBC -- Paley seems curiously passive and remote. (His role is described in phrases like "Paley agreed instantly" and "Paley loved the idea.") Smith's workmanlike prose fails to give her main character the fascination of either his triumphs or his flaws. It is, perhaps, the quintessential TV story. Not heroic epic, not tragic drama; just a good soap opera.