Charles Vanda Collection (MS-00299)

Charles Vanda (1903-1988) was a writer, director, and producer of television and radio programs. Born June 6, 1903 in New York City, New York, Vanda began his professional career as a press agent in the 1920s. In 1935, Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) Radio New York appointed him to oversee all Hollywood, California radio originations. During World War Two, Vanda served in Army Intelligence; he is credited with co-authoring the plan to create the Armed Forces Radio Services (AFRS). In 1942, he directed the first five episodes of the AFRS program, Jubilee, which was designed to present African American artists and their music to armed forces personnel of the United States and allied nations around the world.

In 1946, Charles Vanda moved to Los Angeles, California and began writing and directing television programming, including Abbott and Costello and Rogues Gallery. During this period he also served as the president of the Directors Guild of America (DGA) in Hollywood. In the mid-1950s, Vanda worked for Philadelphia's WCAU-TV, where he produced live series; he returned to California in 1958 as the J. Walter Thompson Company's agency producer for the Jack Benny, George Gobel, and Milton Berle Music Hall shows.

Retiring in 1966, Charles Vanda moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, where he served as an adviser for the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), director of the Western Alliance of Arts Administrators, and executive producer of the St. Jude’s Ranch for Children's annual event Night of Stars. In 1975, then University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) president, Donald Baepler asked Vanda to serve as director of Concert Hall Programming; here he developed and directed programming for the long-running and highly successful Master Series of classical music at the Artemus Ham Performing Arts Center. In 1980, Marjorie Barrick asked Vanda to select the speakers for the newly endowed Barrick Lecture series at the university; using his connections and talents, he brought figures including Walter Cronkite, James Kenneth Galbraith, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, and Carl Sagan to the campus. Charles Vanda died on June 5, 1988 and was interred in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

Sources:

"Charles Vanda Is Dead; Television Writer, 84," The New York Times Archive, accessed February 14, 2019, http://www.nytimes.com/1988/06/07/obituaries/charles-vanda-is-dead-television-writer-84.html

"Charles Vanda; Ex-CBS Program Chief," Los Angeles Times, accessed February 14, 2019, http://articles.latimes.com/1988-06-11/news/mn-4160_1_charles-vanda

"Charles Vanda Honorary Concert," University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Performing Arts Center, accessed February 14, 2019, http://www.unlv.edu/pac/master-series

"Barrick Lecture Series," University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Performing Arts Center, accessed February 14, 2019," https://www.unlv.edu/pac/barrick

Eugene Moehring, The University of Nevada, Las Vegas: A History, (Reno, University of Nevada Press, 2007), 127-129.