He served in the Navy during World War II and, as communications officer on an attack transport, USS Mellette, saw action at Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

Next he was a talent agent for Century Artists, ultimately ending up in the Music Corporation of America's newly minted television programming department, managing Dinah Shore, Jerry Lewis, and others.

[5] In the 1960s it was the first nationally broadcast television talk show to feature people speaking out against American involvement in the Vietnam War.

[6] During his close to three decade run, Susskind covered many controversial topics of the day, such as race relations, transsexualism, and the Vietnam War.

[7] His interview of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, which aired in October 1960, during the height of the Cold War, generated national attention.

According to presidential historian Michael Beschloss, Truman flatly told Susskind, "This is Bess's house" and that there had never been nor would there ever be a Jewish guest in it.

[6] In a now notorious interview with then 25-year-old Muhammad Ali during a recently-unearthed 1968 appearance on the British program The Eamonn Andrews Show, Susskind displayed an intense antipathy and vitriol towards the famous boxer, whom he excoriated with withering criticism for refusing to be conscripted into the U.S. military for the Vietnam War.

His legacy is that of a producer of intelligent material at a time when TV had left its golden years behind and had firmly planted its feet in programming which had wide appeal, whether or not it was worth watching.

Among other projects, he produced television adaptations of Beyond This Place (1957), The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1958), The Moon and Sixpence (1960), Ages of Man (1966), Death of a Salesman (also 1966), Look Homeward, Angel (1972), The Glass Menagerie (1973), and Caesar and Cleopatra (1976); the television films Truman at Potsdam (1976), Eleanor and Franklin (1976), and Eleanor and Franklin: The White House Years (1977); and the feature films A Raisin in the Sun (1961), Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962), and Loving Couples (1980).

[6] In 1987 at the age of 66, Susskind suffered a fatal heart attack in New York City, hours after Andy Warhol died, also in Manhattan.