BIG BAND ERA

  A musician when he was younger, a career choice was hard to male: "I played saxophone, but clarinet was my instrument and I made the New York State All State Band." He idolized Artie Shaw. Owned every one of his records. "I wore the old 78's through. I loved Goodman, too." He was a middle-teen-ager when the Big Band era came to an end. "And that's too bad because it'll never come back. It's a matter of economics."
  Do you know Arnold Dean from his TV Channel 3 sportscast at 11:25 p.m., Monday through Thursday, "Close-Up on Sports," Channel 3 on Saturday at 6:05, "Strictly Sports," on Saturdays at 6:20 on your radio? Perhaps you know him as one of the voices of the Hartford Knights (Doug Webster is the other). Arnold has been a sportscaster for the Knights home and away games since the team originated. Or could be you've followed him as anchor man on GHO coverage. He started this in 1966 and has done it ever since then. Then there is his coverage of the Harvard-Yale Regatta for radio and TV. He's also done color for UCONN football and basketball for both TV and radio.
  Included in the great variety of programs are Mike-Line. He substitutes for George Ehrlich, WTIC Sports Director when he is on vacation or assignment, takes over for Bob Steele when he is on vacation. He had substituted for about everyone but Art Johnson (and this isn't because of Art's crack about Arnold's grace on the ski slopes) Art has "The Other Side of the Day," on AM radio from 11:35 p.m. and on FM radio from 1 a.m. until 5 am.m. when "it's Don Tuttle Time."

THE FLIP SIDE

  Sports or music, the slip side of the record of Arnold Dean's life is really great. He started out in the world of radio at the age of 18 on WKRT, a 1,000 watt station in Cortland: "Small stations are great places to start. They gave me about two days to break in. I was taught to run the controls and started work on the regular shift, 5 p.m. until 11:15 p.m." The only one there, anything on the air he did it. He was there for three years, after which he could do play-by-play of any sport, report fires, you name it.
  "I decided to complete my education after that and went to Syracuse University Liberal Arts College, majoring in Broadcasting and Languages, and had the golden opportunity to get a job in a job in a radio station in Syracuse."
  The station was WAGE and he "was so wild about the place that when a sophomore in college I auditioned and was hired." From then on he worked a 40-hour week while he went to college.
  How do a career and college mix? " I was on academic probation my first year and on the Dean's list the other three."
  WAGE, a 5,000-watt station, had a larger staff, was more specialized: "One weapon I've got going for me today, it's versatility. Three stations in a row (for me) have been sold while I was working for them. WAGE was sold to WHEN, the pioneer TV station, that moved me to TV."
  There was no Teleprompter there. The staff did everything, "News-casts, station breaks. It was a well-rounded range of experience. The best work I do is when there is a problem of some kind, the old adrenalin pulls you through."
  After being at WHEN-TV for the better part of a year, Arnold who was in ROTC in college, went into the Air Force (this was after the Korean War ended) and did some flying and became a maintenance officer for the Strategic Air Command. "Which is something for a guy who can't even lift the hood of his car." As a Lieutenant, he spent his last year in the service at Westover, "My first contact with New England."

ANNA KARENOVA

  Well prepared for the work here, as a result of the work in Syracuse where they were not allowed to use a Teleprompter and had to memorize, he recalls one stint when he hosted, live, on-camera the late movie: "There was a fireplace set, with a chair by the fireplace and I sat in the chair like I was reading a book. At intermission I'd say, `Well, let's pause in our story,' and go into a commercial. When signing off a movie we had to name off the name of the top half dozen stars and the name of the next night's movie. This was a chore. One night there were six strange names and I said the move had an unforgettable name and couldn't remember the name (`Anna Karenenina') and asked the cameraman who said `It's Anna Karenova or something,' and this went out on the air."
  In 1968 Arnold Dean was named Connecticut's Outstanding Sportscaster of the Year on the vote of other sports reporters: "it was very flattering that they would have no honored me." This year his name is on the list of the three finalists for 1972. The others are George Erhlich, WTIC Sports Director, and Dick Galiette, Channel 8-New Haven, both full-time sports men and he is proud to be in that kind of company as a finalist.
  The University of Hartford named him an Honorary Alumni athlete. He is from a different area, has been here just eight years, and said: "I;m not an athlete and I'm not even very honorary."

ATHLETES AND MUSICIANS

  "Athletes and musicians always impress the heck out of me," he said, making reference to some of the guests he has interviewed: (Bart Starr; ex-Green Bay quarterback, lunch with Wilt Chamberlain, dinner with Arnold Palmer. "He's refreshing, not spoiled. One year when I was covering the GHO, Palmer finished out of the money. Instead of elbowing his was out of the crowd, Arnold signed autographs, held babies, posed for photographs. To have suffered a set-back like that. `He was as gracious as anybody could have been.
  "Stan Kenton, Charlie Barnett, Ray Mckinley (who lives in Stamford) Harry James, Benny Goodman, Ray Conniff," only a partial list of the Big Band names, he has interviewed and admires. "A tremendous amount of fantastic musicians around."
  For the program, "One Night Stand With the Big Bands," he wanted to do an interview with Artie Shaw, "on the spur-of-the-moment basis." For this he did a lot of preparation before going to New York with the producer and the engineer. He read Artie book "The Trouble with Cinderella,"too.
  Once in New York they were met by the receptionist who took them to Shaw's office-apartment with a narrow vestibule in which there was a trunk topped by an old saw and wrought iron twisted to look like a rooster. With the three men equipment and overcoats the little space became too little space: "and the thing went clattering off the trunk. The clatter went on and on. Artie left the guests in his living room, saying: "What the hell's that?"
  The interview was off to a bad start. "I think he was impressed that I knew so much about him and all of a sudden our voices started to loosen up and it became a very friendly thing."

ARTIE SHAW: NOT INTERESTED IN YESTERDAY

  Artie Shaw told his interviewer, "I'm not interested in yesterday at all. I'm interested in what I'm going to do tomorrow.
  By the time Shaw had finished the interview he asked if Arnold Dean would send him a copy of the tape, both edited and unedited (a great compliment), and on the way out of the apartment he said: "It was a much different thing," (than when they first met).
  Of Artie Shaw, a genius with the clarinet, with eight Gold Records to his credit (among then "Begin the Beguine") Arnold said, "He is very humorous and one of the most intellectual people I've ever met."
  While being interviewed, Arnold Dean moved to keep pace with his schedule to a TV Booth, a small studio surrounded by clock, monitor and technicians (on the other side of a glass wall). He made announcements, Station Breaks, commercials, was the voice one hears when the face is not appearing. Between breaks, on the job which Arnold describes as watching TV and getting paid for it, we talked about his career. Looking through the window into the control studio where there were a number of people with whom he works, he suddenly leaned back in his chair and said, "What a fine bunch of people there are in this place. A great group to work with."
  He feels the same way about his town, too, and has twice been President of Highcrest School PTA. In fact he was the first one, and the second.