Gordon McLendon
[3] He was later reassigned, giving him the opportunity to extend his style of commentary to political events over a United States Armed Forces Radio Service station.
He then briefly attended Harvard Law School but left prematurely to buy an interest in a station in Palestine, Texas, KNET.
McLendon was known for his elaborate practical jokes, orchestrated on such notables as sitting President Richard Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover both of whom he called friends.
Most of Liberty's MLB broadcasts were re-creations of games, utilizing McLendon himself and future sportscasting stars such as Lindsey Nelson and Jerry Doggett on play-by-play.
Bobby Thomson of the Giants swung at Dodger Ralph Branca's 0–1 pitch in the last of the ninth with two runners aboard, and McLendon barked: Gordon then went silent and let the crowd's roar speak for itself.
When that venture came to an end the vessel was brought back to Galveston, Texas, where the ship remained for a year until it was leased to a British operation.
Unfortunately due to blunders in keeping the project secret, these plans were shared with Jocelyn Stevens, editor of Queen magazine in London, who was a financial supporter of another station, Radio Caroline.
McLendon and his father founded radio station KLIF (The Mighty 1190) in Oak Cliff, Dallas, Texas in 1947, and introduced the Top 40 format there in the early 1950s to great success.
In addition to KLIF, McLendon owned KNUS–FM in Dallas, KOST in Los Angeles, WYNR (later WNUS) & WNUS-FM in Chicago, WWWW–FM in Detroit, KEEL in Shreveport, WAKY in Louisville, KABL in Oakland, KABL–FM in San Francisco, KILT in Houston, KTSA in San Antonio (that he briefly renamed KAKI due to the military bases in the city), and KELP in El Paso.
McLendon was one of the originators of the "beautiful music" format on his KABL in Oakland, California, in 1959; and as the founder of the first all-news radio station (WNUS in Chicago) in the 1960s.
McLendon especially attracted attention for his stern denunciations of French president Charles De Gaulle, whom he described as "an ungrateful four-flusher" who could "go straight to hell."
The McLendon family sold KLIF in 1971 to Fairchild Industries of Germantown, Maryland, for $10.5 million, then a record price for a radio station.
He was the executive producer of Escape to Victory, directed by John Huston and starring Michael Caine, Sylvester Stallone, and Max von Sydow.
The firm was established to obtain leases on state-owned lands so that the directors might collect bonuses and sublease the mineral rights to the major oil companies.
He also authored a number of other books, including How to Succeed in Broadcasting (1961), Correct Spelling in Three Hours (1962), Understanding American Government (1964), and 100 Years of America in Sound (1965).
