Art Linkletter Collection, 1940-2005 | Special Collections & University Archives: Finding Aid Database

Title: Art Linkletter Collection, 1940-2005

ID: MS-0391

Created by: Linkletter, Art (1912-)

Arthur Gordon Linkletter was born July 17, 1912, in Moosejaw, Saskatchewan. He was abandoned by his parents immediately after his birth, and adopted as an infant. He moved to Lowell, Massachusetts with his adoptive parents, and then migrated to California at the age of three. Linkletter attended high school in San Diego, where he was a star basketball player and swimmer. He graduated when he was 15, and subsequently spent 3 years drifting from state to state, working as a bus boy, meatpacker, and sailor until he was 18 years old. In 1930 he returned to California to attend San Diego State College. He participated in a wide number of extracurricular and athletic activities while at State, and graduated in 1934 with degrees in English and Psychology.

KGB, a local radio station, offered Linkletter a job as a radio announcer during his junior year at San Diego State. During the 1930s he participated in hundreds of radio programs, including one of the nation’s first man-in-the-street programs, which in turn led to one of the first live audience shows in radio. He was eventually promoted to Chief Announcer at KGB, and in 1942 decided to move to Hollywood and explore other opportunities in the radio and entertainment industries. While there he met John Guedal, with whom he partnered to create two of radio’s most memorable and popular productions – House Party and People Are Funny.

In the early 1950s Art Linkletter adapted both House Party and People Are Funny to the small screen, thus embracing the new medium of television, while continuing to air the programs on the radio. House Party ran on CBS for 25 years, and People are Funny aired on NBC for 19 years. Throughout these years he created several hare-brained audience participation shows, including Inside Beverly Hills (1955) and The Art Linkletter Show (1961). He was especially adept at interviewing children, whose unrehearsed and sometimes painfully honest remarks formed the basis of several popular shows including the television adaptations of House Party and People are Funny. These long-standing stints on radio and television have given Linkletter a trustworthy, easygoing, and honest image, which has made him an ideal spokesman for a variety of consumer products including breakfast cereals, canned foods, tobacco, and even new neighborhoods in suburbs across America.

Throughout his career, Linkletter has published books, articles, websites, and speeches on various subjects. He has written over 26 different books, the first of which appeared in 1947 and is eponymous with his most popular show, People Are Funny. His more recent interest in senior health and well-being prompted the book, Old Age is Not For Sissies, which was published in 1988. He has published two autobiographies, Confessions of a Happy Man (1960) and I Didn’t Do It Alone (1980). Linkletter’s most popular book, Kids Say the Darndest Things, has illustrations drawn by Charles Schultz, the creator of the Peanuts cartoons.

Art Linkletter is often referred to as “America’s Grandfather” and is renowned and trusted for his work with children because of the carefully constructed questions and lighthearted interviewing style that endeared him to many Americans during his long career in show business. His own family began with his marriage to Lois Foerster in 1935. Linkletter always credits his family (which now includes 8 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren) as the primary joy of his life. He and his family have borne tragedy with the premature deaths of two of his children. His daughter's death in 1969 prompted him to begin national and international dialog about the reasons for drug use and abuse in our everyday lives.

Linkletter has sat on the boards of directors for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Western Airlines, and Kaiser Hospitals. In 1979 he served on the President’s National Advisory Council for Drug Abuse Prevention, the Presidential Commission to Improve Reading in the US, the National Coordinating Council on Drug Abuse Education and Information, was the Ambassador of Goodwill Abroad for the US Department of Commerce, and a member of the US National Commission for UNESCO.

Today he owns and runs at least eight businesses, builds and manages public storehouses, office buildings, livestock operations, real estate development, and cattle and sheep stations in Australia. Linkletter Oil Enterprises has operated throughout South America and the US. He sits on the YMCA's board of directors, the Boy Scouts of America's public relations committee, chairs the John Douglas French Foundation for Alzheimer's Disease board, and is currently serving as the United Seniors Association's National Spokesman.Sources:
Selle, Robert R. “Linkletter: Man of Many Riches.” The World & I (May 2002): 46-49.

Arrangement: I. Subject Files, 1939-2005
II. Scrapbooks
III. Photographs
IV. Memorabilia
1.) General
2.) Keys to Cities
3.) Plaques and Certificates
V. Media

Extent: 16.78 Linear Feet

Finding Aid/Inventory
Series 1: Subject Files
Series 2: Scrapbooks
Series 3: Photographs
Series 4: Memorabilia
Series 5: Media
Series 6: Published Works (magazines, books, miscellaneous)

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Scope and Contents: The Linkletter papers document Linkletter's professional career as a radio and television personality, author, and public figure. The papers date from approximately 1940-2005, with the bulk of documents created in the 1960s and 1970s. The collection consists of subject files, scrapbooks, photographs, and memorabilia, and includes items in several differing media. The collection is divided into five series, Subject Files, Scrapbooks, Photographs, Memorabilia, and Media. The Memorabilia series includes three sub-series: General, Keys to Cities, and Plaques and Certificates.

The Subject Files are arranged alphabetically by file title, and date from 1939-2005. These files document numerous television and radio programs that Art Linkletter was involved with, including "The Art of Positive Thinking," "House Party," and "People are Funny," as well as other projects he involved himself in throughout his career. The series contains few records from Linkletter's very early career, or from his very late career, but is strong in documenting the middle of his career. The series includes scripts, teleplays, all correspondence in the collection, some marketing and promotional materials, and press clippings.

The Scrapbooks document Linkletter's advertising career, and the interaction between Linkletter, his family, and the media. One scrapbook documents Linkletter's anti-drug work, consisting of letters written to Mr. Linkletter from elementary school children in Appleton, Wisconsin, thanking Mr. Linkletter for speaking at their school. The scrapbooks are arranged numerically by scrapbook number.

The Photographs document Mr. Linkletter's varied career, including images of him shooting television specials with children, with Ronald Reagan, or Richard Nixon, and appearing on Great American Game Show. Most of the images are undated, and most individuals are unidentified.

The Memorabilia are arranged in three separate sub-series: General, Keys to Cities, and Plaques and Certificates. The General Memorabilia sub-series documents Linkletter's involvement in numerous community events, including the Pasadena Tournament of Roses and Friars Club. The Keys to Cities sub-series includes keys Linkletter was gifted from large and small cities and towns across the United States, and the Plaques and Certificates subseries includes numerous awards, certificates, plaques, honorary degrees, and other special recognition Linkletter received over his long career.

The Media series includes materials in various non-paper-based media. Several LPs, as well as books on tape and DVD's are included which document several of Linkletter's television, radio, and film performances throughout his career, as well as his subsequent career as a writer.