Mister Rogers - Biography
Fred "Mr. Rogers" Rogers was an American educator and television host. Though we was best known as the host of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, he also composed and performed a series of albums which married the classic pop stylings of Cole Porter and Noel Coward to lyrics designed for children but with something to say for everyone.
Fred McFeely Rogers was born in Latrobe, Pennsylvania on March 20th, 1928 to James and Nancy Rogers. He had one older sister, Elaine. His maternal grandfather, Fred McFeely, had an interest in music and, with Nancy on piano, Fred would sing along. He began playing piano at the age of five. After graduating from Latrobe High School in 1946, he enrolled at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire before transferring to Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida in 1948, where he received a Bachelor of Arts in Music Composition in 1951. That year he landed a job at NBC where he worked on NBC Opera Theater and The Gabby Hayes Show. On June 9th, 1952, he married Sara Joanne Byrd, an Oakland, Florida native and fellow Rollins student.
Rogers felt that advertising and merchandising undermined the benefits of children's programing and quit NBC to start his own program, The Children's Corner, at Pittsburgh's public television station, WQED, in 1955. For the next seven years he worked with Josie Carey on the live, unscripted program and debuted many of will well-known puppets including Daniel Striped Tiger, King Friday XIII, and Curious X the Owl. The show won a Sylvania Award for best children's show and was briefly broadcast nationally on NBC. During it's run, the Rogers' gave birth to two sons, James (b. 1959) and John (b. 1961).
In 1963, Rogers graduated from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary where he was ordained as a Presbyterian minister. The family moved to Toronto, where the CBC had commissioned him to develop his own program, Misterogers, which placed him in front of the camera for the first time and ran for three seasons. In 1966, he acquired the rights to the show and returned with it to WQED.
In 1967, Rogers debuted a new show, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, in Pittsburgh. He also released his debut, Won't You Be My Neighbor (1967 Mister Rogers Neighborhood Records), recorded with his frequent collaborators, Robert Boswell on bass, Joe Negri on guitar and John Costa on piano. It included what came to be some of his most recognized songs, including "Won't You Be My Neighbor" and "It's Such a Good Feeling."
Mister Rogers' Neighborhood was picked up by PBS on February 19th, 1968. He released his sophomore album the same year, Let's Be Together Today (1968 Mister Rogers Neighborhood Records). He also released Mister Rogers Tells the Story of Josephine the Short-Neck Giraffe (1968) and was appointed Chairman of the Forum on Mass Media and Child Development of the White House Conference on Youth the same year.
You Are Special (1969 Mr. Pickwick) was released on Canada's Mr. Pickwick and included some French lyrics, presumably by Rogers' Quebecois fans. Faced with Nixon's proposed cuts in government funding of children's television, Rogers gave a speech before the US senate in 1969 and PBS funding increased, as a result, from $9 million to $22 million annually. Rogers's next album was A Place of Our Own (1970 Mr. Pickwick). The following year he formed Family Communications, Inc. (FCI).
Rogers returned two years later for what would be his last musical release, Come on and Wake Up (1973 Mr. Pickwick). It was recorded with Bob Trow, Francois Clemmons and Yoshi Ito. The new line-up incorporated jazz and electronic elements, especially heard on "Come on and Wake Up." Songs like "The People You Like the Most," "Good People Sometimes" and "I'm Angry" were especially strong examinations of confusing, conflicted emotions and the result may be Rogers greatest musical achievement.
In the 1980s, Rogers, in addition to hosting his show, moved to book-writing, beginning with 1983's Mister Rogers Talks with Parents. In 1984, he donated his red cardigan to the Smithsonian. That same year, when Burger King used an actor impersonating Mister Rogers for a TV commercial, ("Can you say Flame Broiled? I knew you could") Rogers proved that, despite his gentle demeanor, he held strong views about children and advertising. He shamed the company in a press conference for "confusing innocent children," presaging Ralph Naders's 2002 denunciation of child-targeted advertising as "a pervasive form of electronic child molestation" by almost twenty years. Burger King apologized and the commercial was pulled.
More books followed with 1985's The New Baby, 1987's Making Friends, 1988's How Familes Grow and 1994's You are Special. In 1994, he created a special, Fred Rogers' Heroes. In 1996, he made his first and only appearance on TV as a fictional character, playing Reverend Thomas on the Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman episode, "Deal with the Devil." He was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1999, despite being famously ambivalent about the medium, having once told an interviewer, "I got into television because I hated it so. And I thought there's some way of using this fabulous instrument to nurture those who would watch and listen."
Shortly after retiring, Fred Rogers was diagnosed with stomach cancer in December 2002. He underwent surgery on January 6th, 2003, but it was unsuccessful. He died on February 27th, 2003 in Pittsburgh. Over 2,700 people attended the public memorial at Heinz Hall. A couple of months later, in May, asteroid no. 26858 was named Misterrogers in his honor. On New Years Day of 2004, Michael Keaton hosted the PBS TV special Mr. Rogers - America's Favorite Neighbor. On November 5th, 2009, the 10'10", 7,000 pound Fred Rogers Memorial Statue was opened to the public on the North Shore near Heinz Field in Pittsburgh.
