Dick Cavett

AKA: Richard Cavett

Born 1936 Gibbon, NE (USA)

The Dick Cavett Show was said to be a smarter, more controversial counterpart to The Tonight Show with its wide range of guests and subject matter. John Neihardt appeared on The Dick Cavett Show as a guest in 1972 at the age of 92, and was one of the most loved interviews Mr. Cavett ever did. Cavett said of the interview, "Meeting and getting to know John Gneisenau Neihardt was one of those thrills of a lifetime. It gladdens me that he was able—thanks to those who had urged me to do a show with him—to live on long enough to enjoy a large dose of well-deserved, and much relished, celebrity in his final years, and that his large body of rich works can now reach a still growing audience of readers who might have missed them."

A 2018 documentary "Dick Cavett's Watergate," recalled the importance of Cavett's show in reporting the Watergate scandal, as from 1972-1974, Cavett interviewed almost all the major players on both sides of the controversy. Despite its recognized depth and critical success, including three Emmy Awards and multiple nominations, an eventual lull in ratings—coupled with the feeling that it was too intellectual for the average viewer—prompted ABC to cancel The Dick Cavett Show in 1974. Following its cancellation, Cavett resurfaced with similarly formatted shows on PBS, USA and CNBC. He has also worked as an actor on stage and screen and is the author of numerous books and articles.

Places Lived

Gibbon, NE
Lincoln, NE
New Haven, CT
New York City, NY
Montauk, NY

Author Of

Biography
Journalism

Keywords

Autobiography; Television; Humor

Education

High School Diploma, Lincoln High School, Lincoln, NE
Bachelor's Degree in Drama, Yale University, New Haven, CT

Occupation

Caddie, Lincoln Country Club
Copyboy, Time Magazine
Actor
Comedian
Talent Coordinator and Writer, the Tonight Show
Comedy Writer
Host of the Dick Cavett Show from 1969-1975
Television Personality

Places Worked

Lincoln Country Club, Lincoln, NE
Time Magazine
ABC Television

Honors

“150 Notable Nebraskans”, Number 16 on the Journal Star Sesquicentennial List of Significant Nebraskans
Emmys for the Dick Cavett Show

Associations

Longtime Mari Sandoz Society Board Member
Helped dedicate Sandoz High Plains Heritage Center in 2002

Bibliography

Cavett. 1974. (with Christopher Porterfield)
Eye on Cavett. 1983. (with Christopher Porterfield)
Fresh Air. 1985. (audiocassette)
The Story of Mari Sandoz. 1992. (video)
Talk Show: Confrontations, Pointed Commentary, and Off-Screen Secrets. 2010.
Brief Encounters: Conversations, Magic Moments, and Assorted Hijinks. 2014.

We appreciate corrections and additions to our information about authors, but please read the following guidelines and caveats carefully.

The Nebraska Authors database is based on publicly available sources. Unless you are the author contacting us in person, it helps us if you cite the source or sources of your information. We cannot include unsourced information in the database.
We may be appreciative of information we choose not to include in the publicly available database.
To include an image on an author profile, please send jpg attachment to nebraskaauthors@lincoln.ne.gov. A photo-release agreement is required before the image will be published on this site.
Because of the way we are staffed, expect corrections or additions to take time, sometimes up to three months.
While we initially included some actual links to external URLs in the database, we will in the future no longer provide functioning links. We will instead record the presence of specific external materials in language that we hope will help intelligent users find it themselves. Web rot, in which actual materials remain online but undergo changes in their URLs, is too demanding in terms of staff time for us to hope to keep external links current.

Please copy, fill out the form below, and email it to heritage@lincoln.ne.gov to suggest a change.