Gene Klavan, 79; Wacky Radio Host in New York City
Gene Klavan, half of “Klavan and Finch,” the successful New York morning radio show that ran in some form for more than a quarter-century, died Thursday, his son said. He was 79.
With straight man Dee Finch, Klavan created the successful morning radio program on WNEW-AM in 1952, giving voice to such wacky characters as Trevor Traffic, Sy Kology, Victor Verse and Emilio Percolator.
The four-hour show, done without writers and entirely improvised, became a model for morning radio.
When Finch retired in 1968, Klavan became his own straight man and continued alone as “Klavan in the Morning.” In 1977, he moved to WOR-AM. In 1980, he left radio.
In his later years, Klavan was host for television’s American Movie Classics, a columnist for Newsday and a comic commentator for WCBS-TV.
He wrote two books: “We Die At Dawn,” an account of his years on WNEW, and “Turn That Damn Thing Off,” about media.
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