Sunday mornings for more than 20 years, the late Betty Smyser interviewed notable island guests, politicians and national celebrities on her "Conversation" talk show. This month we look back at Smyser and her talk show — the longest-running show of its kind in local television.
Smyser was born Elizabeth Harrison Avery in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1921. Her father was a U.S. naval commander, and as a child she lived in Panama, Hong Kong and the Philippines and visited Hawaii. She married A.A. "Bud" Smyser in New York City on Christmas Day 1943 and moved to Hawaii in January 1946 when her husband began his 55-year career as reporter and editor with the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.
Betty Smyser was hired by KGMB radio as a radio personality in 1946 and had a popular program, "Want Ads of the Air," where she sold, wrote and read the ads. The Affordable Dress Shop on Hotel Street was the station’s biggest account, according to Smyser in a 1982 Star-Bulletin interview.
The popularity of this program led to another radio show, "Today in Hollywood," on KGMB radio where she interviewed top movie stars of the day. Clark Gable, Mario Lanza, Bob Hope and John Wayne all chatted live on the radio program during their trips to the islands.
In December 1952 KGMB became the first local television station in Hawaii, and Smyser was there from the start, making her television debut on Dec. 2, 1952, preceding the "Lili Palmer Show" on KGMB.
Smyser would interview many of the cast of "From Here to Eternity" (Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Deborah Kerr and Frank Sinatra) in 1953 during filming in Hawaii, and baseball great Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe on their brief honeymoon in Honolulu, en route to Japan in 1954.
Smyser left KGMB in 1957 to work at KPOA radio and in 1960 moved to KHVH television (now KITV).
There she was the hostess of a cooking show. "When Stan Anderson (then operations manager of KHVH television) called me about this, I told him it was ridiculous. I can’t cook. So I brought in guests: a Matson Lines chef, a hotel chef, women who cook well. I did the interviewing and they did the cooking," Smyser recalled.
"After a while of this, Stan said. ‘You should be doing an interview show, not a cooking show,’ and that was the beginning of ‘Conversation,’" said Smyser in the 1982 Star-Bulletin article by Lois Taylor.
"Conversation" had a simple format. Guests (usually four) would sit at a round table, drink coffee and talk story. The show never had a formal introduction or closing to the program, and when it ran 29 minutes and 30 seconds, the show ended. There were no commercials during the show as it was considered a public service program and sponsorship was not permitted.
Over the years "Conversation" had many special guests including David Copperfield, Debbie Reynolds, James Michener, Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, Danny Kaye, Jack Lord, Jose Ferrer, William Holden, Van Heflin, Tom Dooley, Vice President Nelson Rockefeller and Arthur Murray, who was a longtime island resident.
Local guests on the show over the years included every Hawaii governor from Ingram Stainback to George Ariyoshi, U.S. Sen. Spark Matsunaga, Honolulu Mayor Eileen Anderson, U.S. Rep. Patsy Mink, Pat Saiki, Clare Booth Luce, Al Harrington and comedians Rap Reiplinger, Andy Bumatai and Frank De Lima.
Smyser refined the art of interviewing guests and was able to make interesting conversation with almost anyone. A major reason she was so successful at it, she told Bob Krauss in a 1982 Honolulu Advertiser interview, was because "good conversationalists come in all shapes, sizes, ages, sexes, races, socioeconomic groups and religions. The only requirement is to be alive and interested in what’s going on."
On Sunday, Dec. 26, 1982, "Conversation" ended its 22-year run.
In the last episode, Smyser paid tribute to the behind-the-scenes people who made the show possible by making her directors Jim Anderson and John Peterson, KITV programming director Charlie Riley and Emme Tomimbang her guests.
Tomimbang said, "I couldn’t believe it when Betty Smyser invited me to her last show. Looking back now, I think she wanted to encourage me to do the kinds of interviews she did, with a variety of people who visited, lived or had interesting connections to the islands.
"Her ‘Conversations’ with people were certainly effortless and most insightful. She was my mentor, my local version of Barbara Walters. And in that time there were so few women to emulate. She was certainly one of my inspirations very early on," Tomimbang said.
The group reflected on the show and the variety of special guests who made appearances.
Smyser died of cancer on April 15, 1983, at age 61. That same year, the City Council honored her with a special resolution recognizing her "pioneering role in Hawaii’s radio and television industry."
A.J. McWhorter, a collector of film and videotape cataloging Hawaii’s TV history, has worked as a producer, writer and researcher for both local and national media. Email him at flashback@hawaii.rr.com.
