Line of Sight

This unique book, winner of the Irwin Award for "Best Historical Portrayal of 2016", traces the history of West Coast television from its infancy and centers on one of its foremost pioneers, Klaus Landsberg. Born in Germany, Landsberg fled Nazi oppression in 1937 and his "passport to freedom" to the United States was an invention of high value to the Allied war effort. As a new immigrant, Landsberg found work with NBC and RCA as the company debuted television at the 1939 New York World's Fair. He later went on to achieve many firsts in the fledgling industry after founding Paramount Pictures' experimental television station W6XYZ in Hollywood, that later became KTLA, the first commercial TV station west of the Mississippi. In the early days of television, Landsberg and his "dream team" of people in front of and behind the cameras helped invent a whole new medium of communication and entertainment. Everything was live and there were no do-overs. Known as the "golden boy" of television, he discovered an amazing roster of stars from wrestler "Gorgeous George" to bandleader Lawrence Welk. He realized early on that television could turn its viewers into eyewitnesses at major news events and began hauling his cameras to the places where stories were breaking. He set the standard for the long-form live news coverage that we take for granted today. When the U.S. government gave permission for the press to cover an early atom bomb test in the Nevada desert, Landsberg pushed for the chance to televise it live. Others said it couldn't be done...that it was impossible given the state of the early television art...but Klaus Landsberg didn't listen to the naysayers and pulled off the broadcast by hauling bulky electronic equipment to the tops of mountains and setting up a chain of relay stations. When the bomb went off, viewers across the country saw it, live. Told from the vantage point of longtime journalist Evelyn De Wolfe, Landsberg's first wife, this is an intimate portrait of an engineering genius and showman who was part Edison, part P.T. Barnum. George Lewis, a veteran of 42 years with NBC News who started his career as a war correspondent in Vietnam, assisted Ms. De Wolfe. Most histories of television have concentrated on the early efforts of the broadcast networks in New York. This book offers a fresh perspective on the landmark contributions of a West Coast pioneer who did so much to shape television as we know it today.