“Everyone was behind Bob Shanks,” one anonymous staff member told Newsweek. Robert Horton Shanks was born on Oct. 8, 1932, in Sullivan, Ill. His father, W. Glenn Shanks, worked for an oil company, and his mother, Deveta (Benoit) Shanks, was a homemaker. Mr. Shanks grew up in Lebanon, Ind., and attended Indiana University in Bloomington, where he sometimes called basketball games on the campus radio station, WFIU. John Shanks said his father went to New York thinking he might become an actor, but soon found himself working in television. She had been lobbying for a slot, the book said, but Mr. Paar wasn’t interested because he thought she looked and sounded too Jewish.

Source: New York Times October 15, 2020 21:33 UTC