Syd Cassyd

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Executive | Journalist | Producer | Television Station Founder

Born Dec. 28, 1908 in Teaneck, NJ

Died Feb. 4, 2000 of long illness in Los Angeles, CA

Syd Cassyd founded the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in 1946, which has grown into one of the most influential organizations in the entertainment industry today. In addition to sponsoring the annual Emmy Awards, which recognize outstanding entertainment and news achievement in television, the academy has a variety of outreach and archival programs.

Born in Teaneck, N.J., on Dec. 28, 1908, Cassyd worked for the Army Signal Corps as a film editor under then-Col. Frank Capra during World War II. After the war, Cassyd moved to Hollywood, where he worked as an editor for Box Office magazine, as well as a grip at Paramount Pictures.

It was at Paramount that he met and teamed up with legendary TV groundbreaker Klaus Landsberg, known for, among other things, pioneering live TV news coverage. Cassyd and Landsberg worked on an experimental Los Angeles television station that would eventually become KTLA-TV Channel 5.

While at KTLA, Cassyd felt that TV needed an organization in which people could share their ideas about the fledgling medium and talk about the future of the industry. He founded the academy with seven people who came to the first meeting. By the fifth meeting, there were 250 members.

Cassyd became the fourth president of the academy in 1950 and over the years held various other positions. In 1991, the academy's board of governors created the Syd Cassyd Founder's Award in his honor and presented the first to him.

— Susan King in the Los Angeles Times Feb. 5, 2000

Two thoughts about Syd Cassyd

“

Syd was a great role model and friend of the family. When I was a kid we used to go over to his home to visit him and his wonderful wife Meriam. His street used to have block parties that were so fun.
He used to have a bench swing at his home that was overlooking his back yard that was over a cement patio. The yard ground was four feet down and when we swung it was like a ride at an amusment park. He used to swim at our house in La Crescenta.
My father was a news writer for NBC in Burbank and that's maybe how they met but I am not sure. I need to ask my mom.
We attended the Hollywood Walk of Fame when he received his star. That was a fun day.
He was a great man and I miss him.

” — Steven Rosenthal, September 24, 2012 at 4:57 p.m.

“

"Get up and go!", "Go for it!", "Don't put off until tomorrow, what you can do today" ... These weren't just maxims, but a real, flowing part of Syd Cassyd's life. He always gave me the feeling that anything could be mine if I really believed in it - and that means with all my heart and soul, just like he jumped into everything with all his heart and soul. I had the great, good fortune of living with Syd and Miriam in the mid-1970's as an aspiring actor in my late teens. Syd introduced me to a chunk of old Hollywood that I shall cherish for the rest of my days. He is a great inspiration to me every living working day of my life.

My mother and father, Ernest and Renata Lenart, loved him for his real friendship and neverending devotion to any artistic cause. His help with ANTA (The American National Theater and Academy) provided my father and countless others with the needed support to further theatrical arts in Southern California.

My late sister Susie loved him for also having given her a chunk of Hollywood that was unforgettable: she was but a teenager and he took her to the 1965 Academy Awards. She still remembers Syd running after a radiant Julie Andrews, a portable tape recorder in his hand, begging to her to say "Hi, Frank" – which she did! I am Frank, and I loved that little snippet of a recording. And it meant so much to me! And to my family. Syd, you meant everything to us.

” — Frank Lenart, May 22, 2013 at 3:55 a.m.

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