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E D M c M A H O N
Ed McMahon is a man whose career has surpassed his own dream. From his first magnetic
attraction to broadcasting, at the impressionable age of six, he has gone on to transform the job of
announcer into a star-quality role and become one of the most recognizable, respected and
popular men in his chosen field.
Famous for his 30 year stint as announcer on THE TONIGHT SHOW STARRING JOHNNY
CARSON, he followed that success with hosting the popular syndicated show, ED
McMAHON’S STAR SEARCH. plus numerous performances as host on specials and
telethons, and his activities on TV and radio commercials make McMahon more familiar to most
Americans than their own next-door-neighbor.
McMahon’s infatuation with “the air” started in his boyhood at his grandparents’ house in
Lowell, Massachusetts, the site of many of his fondest early memories. His grandfather converted
the whole house into a giant radio-aerial by wrapping it with wire, and through a crystal set &
homemade headphones, six-year-old Edward heard the distant sound of KDKA, Pittsburgh. He
was hooked! By the age of eleven he was practicing the techniques of announcing by reading
Time Magazine into his flashlight--Using it as a substitute microphone. Soon he was
experimenting with disc-jockey patter, cueing up records on his grandmother’s Victrola.
Another important step was McMahon’s discovery of his own natural talent as a salesman. Upon
hearing that he could earn a bicycle by selling subscriptions of The Saturday Evening Post, he
sold three the same afternoon. Soon he had not only the bicycle but a skill on which he knew he
could rely.
McMahon’s first professional stint as an announcer, at the age of fifteen, was on the sound-truck
of a carnival, ballyhooing the midway attractions. By eighteen he’d had three summers as
announcer for a traveling bingo game and had earned enough money to enroll in Boston College.
He also landed a job announcing on radio station WLLH in Lowell.
World War II interrupted both college and career. McMahon joined t