The clout of Jerry Williams

[Kevin Vahey]

The book also brings back the saga of the caller who claimed to be a
Vietman Vet and how wrong everything was.

Jerry made sure a tape of that call was distributed far and wide as
much as anything could have been in the early 70's.

At the time a friend who also hosted a talk show on another station
but by then had switched to sports was convinced the tape was a hoax
and that Jerry had set it up.

I only knew Jerry on a very casual basis then and I didn't have any
insight on what made him tick. A few years later he was helpful when I
took a job in Chicago.

He was obsessed with being on TV and he was clueless on why he bombed
at channel 4. The problem was not him per say but he replaced Bob
Kennedy who viewers considered warm and friendly. Jerry just came
across as someone who should have been in a gangster movie and just
was not suited for morning TV.

I did spend an interesting night with him at the bar at The Drake
hotel in Chicago some 2 0 years ago. A few months earlier I had helped
arranged Jerry being on WLS with Fred Winston and Les Grobstein during
Super Bowl week. Jerry went whacko as he must have figured I am back
on the air in Chicago and while he was supposed to talk only about the
Patriots he soon forgot about sports and was just vintage Jerry. BTW
he refused to go back on with Winston after the Patriots lost and
never paid his bet.

That night at the hotel he asked me the tech how NBC had a worse
signal in DC than WMEX. I didn't even know he had been at WRC and he
was ranting on how the FCC must have punished NBC for their political
coverage. It was also obvious he missed Chicago very much. He never
got over CBS dumping him and back then there was no way the Tribune
would hire him at WGN. He was positive that WLS was going to hire him
when they switched to talk but the reality was his stunt on the
Winston show was never forgotten by ABC.

I think what killed him more than anything was he never became a
player in New York.