In 1940, his mother married James Morton "Jim" Latz, a draftsman and veteran of World War I, who by this time had already become Bertelmann's primary father figure.
[citation needed] During the years 1948–1955, Bertelmann's career began at Fairfield County radio stations in the New York suburbs surrounding Darien and strung along the Boston Post Road corridor.
[citation needed] In April 1948, shortly before graduating from high school, Bertelmann requested a tour of WNLK, a new daytime-only radio station being built in neighboring Norwalk, Conn., and was offered an unpaid position.
Initially writing and announcing news from his school, within a few months he was hosting The Hi Teen Show, a weekly Saturday morning program featuring local amateur singers, a band, and sketches performed by teenagers.
[citation needed] From September 1948 to June 1952 he concurrently commuted from Darien to Manhattan on the New Haven Railroad to earn a degree in broadcasting from New York University (NYU).
(On Election Night in 1948 Phillips would stay on the air for twenty-three straight hours covering the results of the presidential race between President Harry S. Truman and Governor Thomas E.
It was a test of an experimental FM station in Greenwich, WGCH (today WFOX), which due to a harmonic could be heard on the audio carrier of channel 9.
[citation needed] By January 1949, he was hosting The Teen Turntable on WGCH on Saturday afternoons, working for free to gain experience just as he was presently doing at WNLK.
[6] On Saturday nights he hosted a listener call-in show called Request Party and co-hosted Jazz Cavalcade with a local record collector, Bill Gray.
[citation needed] On Sunday nights, WNAB broadcast live performances of big bands appearing at the Ritz Ballroom in Bridgeport.
In this capacity, he interviewed famous musicians including Billy May, Lionel Hampton, Louis Armstrong, Charlie Spivak, Lou Monte, Don Cornell, Ralph Flanagan, and Steve Lawrence.
[12] When Bertelmann and his family first moved to Darien in 1944, he began listening to WSRR in Stamford, an affiliate of NBC's Blue Network, which would become the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) in 1945.
[citation needed] In 1954, WSTC hired him for the night shift, delivering the eleven o'clock newscast and conducting station breaks around network shows such as The Lone Ranger.
"[citation needed] One night in September 1954, one of Bertelmann's colleagues conceived a plan for them to meet women working as nurses in residence at Stamford Hospital.
Looking seventy-five miles away to Connecticut's capital city, Bertelmann resolved that he would find a new job in the Hartford - New Britain market, then ranked 27th nationally.
In December he played the master of ceremonies for The Christmas Carol Sing, an event organized by The Hartford Times newspaper, and announced the program on WGTH.
A tradition for many years, more than ten thousand people would gather outside the Hartford Times Building to join a choir singing Christmas carols and other holiday songs.
When the Mutual network comedy team Bob and Ray broadcast their show nationally from the Hartford State Armory, Bertelmann performed as their announcer.
They worked together again a couple of weeks later in Studio C, a small audience participation room, when Wade asked Bertelmann to return to audition for the program manager, Leonard J. Patricelli.
The staff announcers would read newscasts prepared by the newsroom, often fifteen minutes in length with no breaks, not even for actualities or commercials.
Guests would discuss historical subjects, current events, and cultural traditions from around the nation although stories with connections to Connecticut and its neighbors were most prominent.
Occasionally, they would be recorded on-location such as in the cab of a steam locomotive on the Valley Railroad in Essex, Conn., on a riverboat on the Connecticut River with a live jazz band, and during Thanksgiving on the grounds of Old Sturbridge Village.
Many times the shows incorporated guests such as illustrator and painter Norman Rockwell; Sleigh Ride and Christmas Festival composer Leroy Anderson; Virginia O’Hanlon Douglas, the inspiration for Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus; opera star and civil rights icon Marian Anderson; and Johnny Marks, the composer of Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer first sung by Gene Autry.
[23] Vincent Price, Don Ameche, Rudy Vallée, Mason Adams, Ruby Keeler, and Joan Fontaine are just a few examples of the notable people who appeared on this show.
The program made broadcast history because the studio-to-transmitter link was partially conducted on a laser beam engineered by the PerkinElmer corporation.
After the standard NBC five minute newscast at 2:00 p.m. EST ended, Bertel assumed anchoring duties at the direction of producer Bill Marks.
Bertel interrupted music selections with news updates from the wire services until NBC finally began providing its radio affiliates with continuous coverage at 2:11 p.m.
The Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Just as he was concluding his Conversation Piece program on WTIC Radio at 7:30 p.m. EST on April 4, 1968, Bertel was handed a bulletin, which he read while transitioning to a newscast, announcing that civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King had been shot in Memphis, Tenn. Later that evening, he anchored the 11 o'clock newscast on Channel 3 which was dominated by assassination-related demonstrations in Hartford's North End neighborhood.
From its founding in 1957 until it was sold in 1974, Bertel anchored newscasts and hosted public affairs shows on WTIC-TV, Channel 3 (today WFSB).
From 1991 to 1993, Bertel worked for two years in Munich, Germany managing affiliate relations for VOA Europe, the Voice of America's pop music service aimed at European listeners.