James T. Aubrey, Jr.

James Thomas Aubrey, Jr. (December 14, 1918-September 3, 1994) was an American television and film executive.

Born in La Salle, Illinois, he grew up in the tony Chicago suburb of Lake Forest and attended Phillips Exeter in New Hampshire. After his graduation from Princeton University in 1941, he entered the Air Force rising to the rank of major. In the service, he taught Jimmie Stewart how to fly.

His first broadcasting job was as a salesman at the Columbia Broadcasting System's radio station in Los Angeles, KNX and within two years was the network's West Coast programming chief. In that capacity he put Have Gun, Will Travel on the air. In 1956, he jumped to ABC, the weakest of the three networks, then a perennial also ran with a weak roster of affiliates and programs--think Fox circa 1990. As vice president in charge of programs, he brought to the air Maverick, a western with James Garner; The Real McCoys, a rural comedy with Walter Brennan; The Donna Reed Show, a domestic comedy; and 77 Sunset Strip, a detective show with Efrem Zimbalist Jr.. Aubrey saw a limited future at ABC and asked to return to CBS, doing so in 1958, first as an assistant to CBS, Inc. president Frank Stanton. He was then made vice president for creative services (April 1959), executive vice president later that year, and, in December 1959, network president, replacing Louis G. Cowen , who was in ill-health and had been damaged for his connection to the quiz show scandals.

During his five years running the CBS network, he made it tremendously successful. In the 1963-1964 season, all twelve of the top day-time programs and fourteen of the top fifteen prime-time shows were on CBS--the lone exception was NBC's Bonanza, ranked number two. His formula was characterized as "broads, bosoms, and fun," resulting in such shows as The Beverly Hillbillies and Gilligan's Island, despised by the critics (and CBS chairman William S. Paley) but extremely popular with viewers. CBS's dominance was so great that when the fall schedules were announced, ABC and NBC would wait until CBS announced its plans, effectively making Aubrey programmer for all three networks. CBS had great success with rural-themed programs such as the Hillbillies, The Andy Griffith Show, Mr. Ed, Green Acres, and Petticoat Junction. Yet another hit that Paley hated was The Munsters. "The hucksters' huckster," David Halberstam labeled him "whos greatest legacy to television was a program called The Beverly Hillbillies, a series so demented and tasteless that it boggles the mind, depicting as it did, in the words of Murray Kempton , ' a confrontation of the characters of John Steinbeck with the environment of Spyros Skouras ."

He was a controlling man and a workaholic, working twelve-hour days, six days a week. He was endlessly reading scripts, watching episodes, and dictating reshoots or changes in the furniture on a set. In Only You, Dick Daring!, his scathing account of trying to make a show with CBS for the 1963-1964 season, Merle Miller talks of how Aubrey would simply walk out of meetings without offering any substantive comments, good or bad. Miller was assured that meant things were fine, but later learned of efforts to force him out. (A pilot for the show, Calhoun, to star Jackie Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck, was shot and put on the fall schedule, but never aired.) Such treachery led John Houseman to dub him "The Smiling Cobra." His outsize reputation--beaming smile, dapper dress, endless womanizing--inspired no less than three novelists to model characters after him: Keefe Brasselle , Harold Pinter, and Jacqueline Susann. (Aubrey is network executive Robin Stone in Susann's The Love Machine.)

Aubrey's success went to his head and he became even more arrogant. He was abusive to the network's affiliates, advertisers, and talent. He suddenly fired Paley's friend Jack Benny, who had been with CBS since 1948, deciding Benny was past it and no longer relevant. Benny took his show to NBC, where it was soon cancelled, proving Aubrey's point if not his tactics. "Lucille Ball couldn't say his name without calling him a S.O.B.," Stanton said.

In April 1964, charges were printed in a celebrity scandal sheet that Aubrey was taking kickbacks from producers and put a friend's shows on the air sight unseen. The Federal Communications Commission made inquiries and CBS learned that Aubrey's car and apartment were paid for by Filmways , the producer of the Hillbillies, Green Acres, Mr. Ed, and other CBS programs. While not illegal, CBS had not known of Aubrey's ties. More troubling were the charges of favoritism. Aubrey's friend Keefe Brasselle , who had bit parts in several movies in the 1940's and 1950's, had no experience as a producer, but yet Aubrey scheduled three of his shows for the 1964-1965 season (The Baileys of Balboa , The Reporter , and The Cara Williams Show ) all without pilots. Also troubling to CBS were the charges that Brasselle had ties to the Mafia. Costs skyrocked on Brasselle's shows and all three bombed.

In late 1964, Aubrey approached Stanton with a proposal. Claiming he had investors lined-up ready to buy the company, Aubrey said once in control, they would fire Paley, install Stanton as chairman, and make Aubrey CBS corporate president. This did not come to pass, but Aubrey's contempt for Paley knew no bounds, even showing his disregard in public. Paley ordered Staton to fire him and it was done, February 27, 1965. Aubrey was so despondent Stanton feared he would kill himself.

Aubrey lived to resurface in 1969 when Kirk Kerkorian bought Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for the first time. Like most of the big studios in the 1960's, MGM was struggling and Kerkorian said his new president, Aubrey, would bring the company back roaring back to its former glory. Instead, Aubrey presided over a bloodbath, firing over 3,500 workers, selling off MGM's historic collection of costumes and props (e.g. the Ruby Slippers from The Wizard of Oz), selling the backlot to developers, throwing the company archives into the trash, and bringing production to a standstill. Aubrey announced plans for faster and cheaper movies, but proved you get what you pay for when these inexpensive films bombed with critics and audiences. Aubrey resigned from MGM in 1973, leaving to become an independent producer. He produced about a dozen films, none memorable. His greatest success was a television movie featuring the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders--"broads, bosoms, and fun" once more.

He died in Los Angeles in 1994, largely forgotten. He was survived by a son, James T. Aubrey, III, and a daughter Susan Schuyler Aubrey. His daughter, who acts under the name Skye Aubrey , is writing a biography of her father, Variety reported in the summer of 2004.

Bibliography

• David Halberstam. The Powers That Be. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979. ISBN 0394503813
• Robert Metz. CBS: Reflections in a Bloodshot Eye. Chicago: Playboy Press, 1975. ISBN 087223407X
• Merle Miller. Only You, Dick Daring! Or, How to write one television script and make $50,000,000, a true-life adventure. New York: W. Sloane Associates, 1964.
• Robert Slater. This . . . Is CBS: A Chronicle of Sixty Years. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1988. ISBN 0139192344
• Sally Bedell Smith. In All His Glory : the life of William S. Paley, the legendary tycoon and his brilliant circle. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990. ISBN 0671617354