The Pecan Park Eagle

Bob Marich of Channel 2 brought music into the heart of Houston homes from the early 1950s forward.

Former 1950s-1960s producer Bob Marich of KPRC-TV in Houston has died. Marich passed away from coronary and pulmonary health issues in Houston on January 23, 2012, just one day shy of his 89th birthday. Born in Chicago, Marich met his widow and soul mate life partner Marietta while both were employed at Channel 2. The couple spent their lives promoting and running a network of live theater houses in the Houston area over the past sixty years.

Marich is survived by his widow, Marietta Marich, and daughter Allison. One son, Michael Marich, preceded his father in death in 1997.

My memories of the Bob and Marietta Marich are purely visceral. Together they apparently were the heart of Channel 2’s live musical and talk show presentations from the earliest days of television’s on-the-air discoveries of its differences from radio and potential for audience-involved programming.

I’m reasonably sure that Bob Marich was the force behind Matinee, Channel 2’s 4 PM one-hour, small studio audience talk show with host Dick Gottlieb, the same Channel 2 figure who happened to telecast Houston Buffs baseball games and be on the air that fated night in the early 1950s when a drunk and mentally disturbed man blew his brains out at Buff Stadium on live (for everyone else) TV.

I also know for sure that Marich was behind building the “Midnight with Marietta” talk show that featured his wife as host of a local early version of the popular “Tonight Show” in Houston.

Marietta Marich was a talent in her own right – and a beautiful blonde with a gifted voice, especially for Broadway production numbers. After graduating from SMU in the early 1950s, the Texas girl went on the road as a band singer with Tommy Dorsey for a while before going to work at Channel 2, meeting Marich, and starting a musically-inspired life with her husband Bob.

One Internet account says that Bob even retained enough air and soul on his last day of life to even whisper sing one last song to his wife and daughter. And I guess I’m not surprised to hear that news. I never had the pleasure of meeting Bob Marich, but he always came across as the smiling, soft-speaking figure who like people and loved what he was doing. The missed opportunity is my loss.

In all those early years at Channel 2, Bob Marich made sure the telecasting halls never strayed far from music. Marich brought in operatic/show singers like the great Howard Hartman to belt out songs like “The Night Has a Thousand Eyes” in between half hour programs – and other guys like crooner Don Estes to sing a smooth-flowing softer sounding version of “Gee It’s All – Fine and Dandy” in other similar spots. Let’s also not forget pianist Paul Schmidt and the Tune Schmidts, plus pianist Johnny Royal who also came along to keep the songs flowing live.

Marich also acquired some early TV juke box videos of nameless singers doing band ballads at other time-filler spots in the programming. Guess I’ll never know the name of that cute little girl who sang “It’s Only a Shanty – in Old Shanty Town. – It’s Roof was so Slanty – It Touches the Ground. – Just a Tumble Down Shack – By the Old Railroad Track – Like a Millionaire’s Mansion – It’s Calling You Back. – You’d Give Up a Palace – If You Were a King. – It’s More than a Palace – It’s Your Everything. – I’m the Girl Waiting There – in an Old Rocking Chair – In a Shanty – In Old Shanty Town.”

Wow! The video just played again in my head and it’s still powerful. Thank you Bob Marich for putting it there.

The sad thing to me is that all this history of Channel 2 is apparently lost to the folks who run the station now, sixty years later. I do not recall KPRC-TV Channel 2 passing on a broadcast note of Bob Marich’s death about a month ago, If they did, and I just missed it, my apologies. I had to learn of Marich’s passing last night on the KTRK-TV Channel 13 News after the Academy Awards Show.

I don’t really blame the specific folks at Channel 2 for such an oversight. The fault rests in the more general way we fail to keep history on a daily basis as a community. We simply ignore many events, the people who brought them about, and the lessons that came with the experience. Bob Marich was a pioneer in Houston television. For that reason, among others, I’m sure his family and friends would agree, he also deserves to be remembered by the community he gifted with his time and creative energy.

Rest in Peace, Robert Marich. – And thanks too for the sunshine of music that you brought to Houston television as a young man.

Tags: Bob Marich, KPRC-TV History, Marietta Marich, Midnight with Marietta

This entry was posted on February 27, 2012 at 1:45 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.