Lowell Thomas, Reporter/Broadcaster/Author

Lowell Thomas
"High Adventure with Lowell Thomas"
Originally From CBS TELEVISION
Press Information Photo Division
Broadcast Date: November 12, 1957

Biography
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Lowell Thomas

Lowell Thomas was one of the first radio and television broadcasters and was a long time narrator of Fox Movietone News. His signature radio sign-on of "Good Evening Everybody" and sign-off of "So Long Until Tomorrow" were among the best known in broadcast history and were the titles he chose for the two volumes of autobiography he wrote. Book/Movie List.

Biography

Lowell Thomas was born in Woodington, Ohio April 6, 1892. He had a sister named Pherbia, who was twelve years younger. His parents, Harry George Thomas and Harriet Wagner, were married July 30, 1890 and were both school teachers at the time of Lowell's birth. Lowell's father would later attend medical school and become a doctor. At the urging of his father's older brother, the family moved to Cripple Creek, Colorado, a mining town in need of a doctor, when Lowell was eight. There Lowell's father made him practice public speaking. Lowell had a strong deep voice, was a gifted writer and went on to have the longest running radio program in history, forty-six years, ending May 14, 1976.

Lowell Thomas went to the University of Northern Indiana in Valparaiso from 1909 to 1911, graduating in two years with a Bachelors and Masters degree by taking a double class load. He returned to Victor, Colorado, where his parents had settled and soon got his first journalism job as a reporter at the Victor Daily Record. About six months later Lowell accepted the position of editor at the then newly formed Victor News. In 1912, Lowell went back to school for a year at the University of Denver earning another Bachelors and Masters degree. While at the University of Denver, Lowell would meet Fran Ryan whom he would later marry.

After a summer home with his parents, Lowell decided to move to Chicago and attend Law school. To support himself during this period he decided to work part time as a reporter. He got a job at the Chicago Evening Journal and enrolled at the Kent College of Law, also becoming a part time professor in the department of forensic oratory. In 1914, on a trip to the west coast to write a series of travel articles about the scenic wonders of the west, which would include his first trip to Alaska, Lowell Thomas stopped off in Denver and asked Fran Ryan to marry him. She later accepted and they were married on August 4, 1917. They had one son and were married fifty-eight years until her death in 1975. Upon his return to Chicago, Lowell would continue with his second year of law school and his reporting position with the Evening Journal. In 1915 he would witness the tragic sinking of the Great Lakes excursion steamer Eastland in the Chicago river on July 15, in which 844 of the approximately 2,500 passengers would loose their lives. On a second trip to Alaska in 1916, Lowell Thomas would take a motion picture camera to record the events of the trip and on the returning portion of his trip would visit the Grand Canyon.

Upon his return to Chicago, Lowell Thomas had an acceptance letter to Princeton, which he attended during the 1916-1917 school year, also becoming the speech professor at the University. While at Princeton, Lowell Thomas began giving narrated shows of the movies he had taken in Alaska. Early in 1917, Secretary of the Interior, Franklin K. Lane, invited Lowell Thomas to give his Alaska presentation to a conference of western governors and dignitaries for a "See America First" travel campaign. To prepare for the conference presentation, Lowell Thomas traveled to New York looking for a public speaking coach. There he met Dale Carnegie, who would go on to fame as the author of How To Win Friends and Influence People, and worked with him to modify his presentation for the conference, which was a great success resulting in Secretary Lane asking Lowell Thomas to head the new "See America First" campaign.

The United States entry into World War I on April 6, 1917 put the "See America First" campaign on hold and Secretary Lane suggested to Lowell Thomas that a good reporter was needed in Europe to report the war news back to the United States. Lowell Thomas traveled back to Chicago to raise funds for the trip and would also hire his long time cameraman, Harry Chase, to accompany him on the trip. Within two weeks he had raised $100,000 and began to finalize plans for the trip. On August 4, 1917 Lowell Thomas and Fran Ryan were married and a few day later they set out for Europe along with Harry Chase. After several months in France, they moved on to Italy. There Fran would volunteer with the Red Cross and Lowell would begin hearing reports of the British war campaign in the Middle East led by the newly installed British General Edmund Allenby. In January 1918, Lowell and Harry moved on to Egypt to begin covering the British activities there. On the streets of Cairo, Lowell Thomas would first see T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia) and soon began accompanying him and reporting on his war activities with the Arabs. Lowell Thomas would later write a book about the time he spent with Lawrence titled With Lawrence in Arabia, which would go on to more than a 100 printings.

Lowell Thomas would become world famous bringing the story of T.E. Lawrence and British General Edmund Allenby first to audiences in New York city, then London and later around the world. This was just after the end of World War I, in 1919, before sound had been added to pictures, so Lowell would stand at the side of the movie screen stage and narrate the movies he and his cameraman had taken of Lawrence and Allenby. A wall size poster of the Lawrence of Arabia show is on display in a room on the second floor of the Lowell Thomas Museum in Victor, Colorado. The narrated movie presentation brought the audience into the war campaign and imparted a great sense of adventure. Lowell Thomas would begin his London presentation with these words:

"What you are about to see, the journey you are about to make-all this was intended solely for presentation in America. Until your impresario, Percy Burton, arrived in New York and insisted I come to London, I had never even dreamed you British might be interested in hearing the story of your own Near Eastern campaign and the story of your own heroes told to you through the nose of a Yankee.
"But here I am and now come with me to lands of mystery, history and romance."¹

Lowell Thomas first radio appearance was on KDKA in Pittsburgh on March 21, 1925. In 1926, Lowell Thomas moved to Quaker Hill in Pawling, New York and lived there while not traveling for the rest of his life. His regularly broadcast "Lowell Thomas and the News" began September 29, 1930 and ran to May 14, 1976. The program began with his signature "Good Evening Everybody" and was initially broadcast on both the NBC and CBS radio networks until 1946, then only on CBS. Lowell Thomas would also be the first anchor for NBC television news beginning February 21, 1940 for a year simulcasting his radio and television news reports.

In the summer of 1949 Lowell Thomas set out on his most thrilling and unusual trip of all² across the Himalayas to the remote country of Tibet, granted access to visit by the Dalai Lama, ruler of Tibet at that time. In Tibet, the Dalai Lama was considered the living Buddha and worshipped as the spiritual leader. Lowell Thomas writes at the time of his visit only six Americans had ever previously seen him.³

Lowell Thomas traveled by plane from New York via the Pacific ocean to met his son, Lowell Junior, in Calcutta, India and together they set out July 31st with their supplies by train to Siliguri in northeastern India, and from there by truck to Gangtok, capital of the then independent country of Sikkim, which voted to join India in 1975. In Gangtok, Lowell and Lowell Junior were joined by Tsewong Namgyal, a Tibetan who was to be their interpreter. Together they all set out for Lhasa, capital of Tibet, by pack mule on August 5th. Three hundred miles and four weeks later, through the rugged Himalayan mountains, crossing multiple passes as high as 15,000 feet with sixteen miles covered by Yak-skin boat near the end, they arrived in Lhasa.

In a brief ceremonial meeting, Lowell and Lowell Junior met the Dalai Lama, a meeting that Lowell Thomas described "would live on in our memories forever".⁴ Lowell Thomas was allowed to take the first color and motion pictures of the Dalai Lama and also recorded the first radio broadcasts from Tibet and first ever broadcasts made anywhere with battery powered equipment. Also while in Lhasa, Lowell Thomas Junior proposed to Tay Pryor, in Greenwich, Connecticut by short-wave radio, she accepted and nine months later in May 1950 they were married.

On September 12th the Thomas party set out on their return journey along with a Tibetan trader and his two half broken horses. On the fifth day out, while attempting to mount one of the horses, Lowell Thomas was thrown over the edge of the steep mountain trail they were traveling on, breaking his hip in eight places and nearly ending his life. Lowell Thomas writes that without Lowell Thomas Junior's resourcefulness and determination he never would have made it out alive.⁵ Three weeks later, after being carried out by teams of four Tibetan bearers in an improvised sedan chair, the Thomas' party reached Gangtok on October 8th and flew in an Air Force plane to Calcutta. Lowell Thomas would fly on to London and then to New York, completing an around the world journey, before having surgery at the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center to repair his broken hip. After less than a year of rehabilitation, Lowell Thomas had fully recovered from his injury. Lowell Thomas Junior wrote a book about this trip titled Out of this World: Across the Himalayas to Forbidden Tibet.
The Thomas' also produced a 75 minute documentary about the trip in 1954 titled Out of this World with Lowell Thomas narrating and memorabilia from trip is on display in the Lowell Thomas Communications Center at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York

Later in his career, Lowell Thomas would be a co-founder of Cinerama, invented by Fred Waller. Cinerama was developed to give the audience the sense of actually being at the time and place of the image being presented on the screen. Cinerama had/has an extra wide curved screen requiring three film projectors and an expanded sound system, a forerunner of today's surround sound. There are three movie theaters showing films in Cinerama; the Cinerama Theatre in Seattle, ArcLight Cinema in Hollywood and Pictureville Cinema in Bradford, England.

From 1957 to 1959 Lowell Thomas was host of the High Adventure television series produced for the CBS network. The series was filmed in some of the remotest spots on earth and won a Christopher Award for excellence in television programming for family viewing. The first show was about New Guinea titled "The Land That Time Forgot". Other shows featured "Burma" Jack Girsham, Alaska and a flight to Ice Station Alpha appoximately 300 miles from the North Pole. At the start of the series Newsweek magazine featured Lowell Thomas in a cover story titled "Man in Perperual Motion" November 25, 1957.

Lowell Thomas was an avid skiing enthusiast. At the 1932 Winter Olympic Games in Lake Placid, New York Lowell Thomas met and took skiing lessons from Erling Strom, a young Norwegian with experience teaching skiing to the Norwegian royal family. While Lowell Thomas had skied some before, he became an avid skier after the 1932 Lake Placid Olympics and would remain so for the rest of his life occasionally making his nightly radio broadcasts from ski resorts.

After Lowell Thomas' first wife of fifty-eight years, Fran Ryan, passed away in 1975 Lowell Thomas would remarry Marianna Munn on January 5, 1977. Lowell Thomas had met Marianna Munn in 1967 at the dedication of the Lowell Thomas wing of the Garst Museum in Greenville, Ohio and she would go on to be Executive Director for ten years during the 1960's and 1970's of Bertha Spafford Vester's Spafford Children's Center Association in Jerusalem.

Lowell Thomas would live on to August 1981, passing away at the age of 89.

There are two Lowell Thomas museums with memorabilia about Lowell Thomas; one the Garst Museum is near his birthplace in Greenville, Ohio and a second, the Lowell Thomas Museum is in his boyhood hometown of Victor, Colorado. Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York also has Lowell Thomas memorabilia on permanent display in their Lowell Thomas Communications Center and Lowell Thomas memorabilia is also featured at the John Kane House in Pawling, New York. The primary sources for this biography were the two auto biographical books Lowell Thomas wrote; the first Good Evening Everybody From Cripple Creek to Samarkand and the second So Long Until Tomorrow From Quaker Hill to Kathmandu.

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Links
Cinerama
Cinerama Premiere Book - Extensive information about Cinerama from This is Cinerama Premier Book - Scott E. Norwood's Home Page.
Cinerama - Detailed information about Cinerama film process, history and restoration of Cinerama films - Wide Screen Museum.
Cinerama Adventure - Website of 2002 Cinerama film Cinerama Adventure from film maker, editor David Strohmaier. Listen to Lowell Thomas' original Cinerama introduction from 1952 - C-A Productions.
Cinerama - Variety Magazine article about Cinerama restoration and Cinerama film maker, editor David Strohmaier - June 14, 1999.
Cinerama Theatre - Seattle, WA - Shows movies on Cinerama screen with lots of Cinerama information.
Pictureville Cinema - Bradford, England - Has Cinerama screen to show movies.
ArcLight Cinema - Hollywood, CA - Has Cinerama screen to show movies.

Lowell Thomas
Garst Museum - Greenville, Ohio - A wing of the museum devoted to Lowell Thomas, also has restored birthplace home.
Lowell Thomas Museum - Victor, Colorado - Lowell Thomas' boyhood hometown along with nearby Cripple Creek.
Marist College - Poughkeepsie, New York - Lowell Thomas memorabilia from 1949 Tibet trip on display in Lowell Thomas Communications Center.
John Kane House - Pawling, New York - Lowell Thomas' adult hometown has memorabilia on display at John Kane House.
Lowell Thomas - Biography with audio and photos - Cinerama Adventure.
Lowell Thomas - National Aviation Hall of Fame.
Lowell Thomas - Ohio Center for the Book - Brief biography and awards list.
Lowell Thomas - Radio Hall of Fame.
Lowell Thomas - Wikipedia Encyclopedia.
Lowell Thomas: Multimedia Personified - Newspapers & Technology Dec. 2003 by Rob Carrigan publisher Cripple Creek Gold Rush newspaper.

Lawrence of Arabia
With Lawrence in Arabia - Lowell Thomas' book about T.E. Lawrence of Arabia available online - Internet Archive.
Lowell Thomas with Lawrence of Arabia - PBS.
T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia) - Imperial War Museum London
T.E. Lawrence - online resources - Lawrence of Arabia resources available online.

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Movie Shorts Online

America Marching On - 8:44 min B&W movie short about benefits of industrialization - Lowell Thomas narrator - 1937 - Internet Archive.
Frontiers of the Future - 9:57 min B&W editorial short about looking ahead in 1937 - Lowell Thomas narrator - 1937 - Internet Archive.
More Power to You - 9:08 min B&W movie short about oil production - Lowell Thomas narrator - ca. 1930's - Internet Archive.
Polaroid Dealer Film - 25:02 min B&W Polaroid dealer promotional film - Lowell Thomas narrator - 1964 - Internet Archive.

More Lowell Thomas movie shorts available online in Movie Short section on Lowell Thomas Book List page.

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WebPost Footnotes:
1 - p.201 Good Evening Everybody From Cripple Creek to Samarkand. Back
2 - p.135 So Long Until Tomorrow From Quaker Hill to Kathmandu. Back
3 - p.136 So Long Until Tomorrow From Quaker Hill to Kathmandu. Back
4 - p.161 So Long Until Tomorrow From Quaker Hill to Kathmandu. Back
5 - p.167 So Long Until Tomorrow From Quaker Hill to Kathmandu. Back