SENIOR MOMENTS: Capturing History Through a Lens
Thursday, July 24, 2008 {from, alphaseeker.com}
By Norm Oshrin, Columnist
 
 
Early in 1972, cameraman George Klimcsak was called into his boss’ office at CBS Television.
 
”Georgie, close the door,” he was told.
 
”I thought I was being scolded,” recalled Mr. Klimcsak.
 
He wasn’t.
 
”How would you like to go to China with President Nixon?” Mr. Klimcsak was asked.
He jumped at the challenge.
 
”I was so proud to be asked,” said Mr. Klimcsak, who was chosen as the only cameraman from New York to accompany President Nixon on his historic journey. “Very proud, very proud.
 
”That was the biggest thing I ever did,” said the 81-year-old, three-year resident of the Encore adult community in Monroe Township.
 
Mr. Klimcsak’s career began after his discharge from the Navy — which he joined in his junior year at South River High School near the end of World War II – when he went for job consultation at Rutgers University and was told, “Hey, there’s this new thing called television.”
 
So he returned to complete his schooling at South River High School, went on to radio electronics school in New York under the GI Bill, and was hired at CBS, working his way up from apprentice, assistant technician, utility man to cameraman.
 
On his very first day, he said, he was working on the “Ed Sullivan Show.” His job: bringing the microphone on stage.
 
”It was the only thing I did,” he said. “One job led to another. They put me on soap operas (‘Guiding Light,’ ‘As the World Turns,’ ‘Love of Life’) and a quiz show, ‘I’ve Got a Secret.’ “
 
”Things were happening for the better,” he said, even as he was assigned to clean dirt on monitors, washing screens down, moving cables, “making sure nobody got hurt.
 
”The boss acknowledged what I was doing,” said Mr. Klimcsak, and asked if he wanted to become a fulltime technician and come into the field department.
 
He did, and later got another positive message from his boss, the general manager of field operations.
 
”Georgie, I like what you’re doing,” he told him. “Whatever you want to do at CBS, let me know.”
 
”I want to work on a field crew (as cameraman),” he replied.
 
”There are hundreds also wanting that,” he told him, “( but), Georgie, you got it.”
 
What followed were assignments for such shows as Edward R. Murrow’s “Person to Person,” a mélange of sports events — boxing, football, baseball, horse racing (including the Kentucky Derby), golf (39 Masters tournaments) — plus the “Miss America” pageant and Apollo landing in 1975.
 
Along the way, he picked up three Emmys for his camera work.
”I always had imagination and was getting more and more camerawork,” he said. “Lots of times cameramen came to me. I would tell them to do it this way, that way. Every time they came to me, I made it work.
 
”I developed different lenses and techniques in getting shots quicker. The different techniques I designed and created made me one of the top cameramen (of 200-plus there) at CBS,” Mr. Klimcsak said, unabashedly: accounting for getting all those choice assignments.
 
His assignment area: “Whatever was happening in the world.”
 
That included the trip to the Peoples’ Republic of China, where his chief role was to follow Nixon and Mao around.
 
”I want to express appreciation for your diligence and expertise in establishing communications facilities in the Peoples’ Republic of China,” wrote Ron Ziegler, Nixon’s press secretary, following the trip.
 
The letter, along with other memorabilia, hangs in his home. On the walls of his garage, too, near his car, bearing the license plate, “CBS-TV2,” are photos of Mr. Klimcsak with a host of sports and broadcasting luminaries.
 
George Klimcsak is proud in “being aggressive as hell” — a needed trait, he said: “There’s so much competition.”
 
But there’s also a risk.
 
This was demonstrated most dramatically, he recalled, in the aftermath of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963.
 
”I got a call to go to the hearing (in Dallas) for Jack Ruby,” charged with shooting Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged Kennedy assassin, said Mr. Klimcsak.
 
”There was a whole bunch of camera people trying to get in,” he recalled. “But I was always aggressive and plunged in” (all 185 pounds, plus another 10-plus pounds or so of equipment.)
 
”I jumped on a table and the sheriff tackled me.”
 
But, not to worry, he said: “I got the shot and felt no pain. When you’re doing something exciting, you don’t feel pain.”
 
In later years, however, the wear and tear led to two hip replacements, among other surgeries — contributing to his retirement in 1994 after about a half-century at CBS.
 
George Klimcsak might not be around CBS these days, but a Klimcsak presence remains at the network, with his son, son-in-law and two grandsons working behind the scenes. George Jr. is a cameraman on the “David Letterman Show.”
”I miss it tremendously,” Mr. Klimcsak said of his cameraman days.
 
Especially in this season of golf and tennis tournaments.
 
”Right now,” he observed, peering out the window, “a limousine might be picking me up to cover the golf tour.”
 
Or, next month, perhaps to take him to the U.S. Open Tennis tourney, which he used to cover when it was in Forest Hills.
 
George Klimcsak’s legacy is highlighted in a story in the September 1982 “Golf Digest,” specifically reviewing his golf-coverage career.
”His work has been seen by countless millions, and yet he remains one of the most anonymous figures in American sport,” it was noted.
 
Added Vin Scully, who reported on the World Series of Golf from the Firestone Country Club, Akron, Ohio:
 
”The announcers get the recognition, but it’s men like George who make our job possible. He’s a master of his trade...we know George is going to give us the picture...”
 
Everyone has a story to tell about now and then. If you, a neighbor, relative or a friend wants to share a tale, contact noshrin@aol.com, or 609-409-4384.

hom...you are slipping..my local library packed all their books into cardboard boxes while renovations took place. And you didn't post anything about this. I think you are cracking .

Have you ever written anuthing of your owm, or do you just spend your days posting shit that othetr people wrote? You are like a search engine that no one can turn off and all you do is fill these boards with this shit.

 
 
My cousin, Ron Powers was on the CBS Morning News for several years. He also co-wrote Flags of Our Fathers from which Eastwood made the movie.
 
Do you have a Pulitzer winner in you family Memory?
 
And do you make $500 per article? I do.
You are just a poster. You are a joke. Go away.