Allegations of Anti-Semitism
Accusations of anti-Semitism shadowed Godfrey during the height of his career and persist even today. Eddie Fisher, in his autobiography, Been There, Done That, discusses the rumor:
One of the best-known anti-Semites in show business was Arthur Godfrey, the host of radio's most important amateur talent contest. Godfrey owned the Kenilworth Hotel in [Miami] Florida, which supposedly had a sign in front that read NO DOGS OR JEWS ALLOWED. But when I got the opportunity to appear on Talent Scouts, I leaped at it. I didn't care that Godfrey wouldn't let me in his hotel as long as he let me sing on his radio show.
Arthur J. Singer, author of Arthur Godfrey: The Adventures of an American Broadcaster (2000), rejects this accusation, citing Godfrey's good personal relations with a number of Jews in the entertainment industry including his longtime announcer Tony Marvin. As for Godfrey's association with the Kenilworth, the hotel established a "No Jews" policy in the 1920s, but this was abandoned when Godfrey acquired a stake in the hotel in the early 1950s.
Later in life
In 1959, Godfrey began suffering chest pains. Closer examination by physicians revealed a mass in his chest that could possibly be lung cancer. In 1959, Godfrey left Arthur Godfrey Time and Arthur Godfrey and His Friends after revealing his illness.
Surgeons discovered cancer in one lung that spread to his aorta. One lung was removed. Yet, despite the disease's discouragingly high mortality in that era, it became clear after radiation treatments that Godfrey had beaten the substantial odds against him. He returned to the air on a prime-time special and resumed the daily Arthur Godfrey Time morning show -- but only on radio. He continued the show, reverting to a format featuring guest stars such as ragtime pianist Max Morath and Irish vocalist Carmel Quinn, maintaining a live combo of first-rate Manhattan musicians as he'd had since the beginning. In view of declining listenership, Godfrey and CBS agreed to end the show in April 1972. Godfrey by then was a colonel in the US Air Force Reserve and still an active pilot.
He made three movies: 4 for Texas (1963), The Glass Bottom Boat (1966), and Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows (1968). He briefly co-hosted Candid Camera with creator Allen Funt, but that relationship, like so many others, ended acrimoniously; Godfrey hosted at least one broadcast without Funt. Godfrey also made various guest appearances, and he and Lucille Ball co-hosted the CBS special 50 Years of Television (1978). He also made a cameo appearance in the 1979 B-movie Angel's Revenge.
In retirement, Godfrey wanted to find ways back onto a regular TV schedule. He appeared in a 1920s-pop-style performance on the rock band Moby Grape's second album, and despite his political conservatism became a powerful environmentalist who identified with the youth culture that irreverently opposed the "establishment," as he felt he had done during his peak years. He was a master at dressage and made charity appearances at horse shows. He made commercials for the detergent Axion, only to clash with the manufacturer when he found that the product contained phosphates, implicated in water pollution.
During one appearance on The Dick Cavett Show, Godfrey commented that the United States needed the supersonic transport "about as much as we need another bag of those clunkers from the moon." The concern that the SST contributed to noise pollution is considered to have effectively ended SST interest in the United States, leaving it to Britain and France.[citation needed] (Cavett claims that Godfrey's statement also earned tax audits from the Richard Nixon-era Internal Revenue Service for the show's entire production staff.)
Despite an intense desire to remain in the public eye, Godfrey's presence ebbed considerably over the next ten years, notwithstanding an HBO special and an appearance on a PBS salute to the 1950s. A 1981 attempt to reconcile him with LaRosa for a TV reunion special, bringing together Godfrey and a number of the "Little Godfreys," collapsed. At an initially amicable meeting, Godfrey reasserted that LaRosa wanted out of his contract and asked why he hadn't explained that instead of insisting he was fired without warning. When LaRosa began reminding him of the dance lesson controversy, Godfrey, then in his late seventies, exploded and the meeting ended in shambles.
Personal life
Godfrey was married to the former Mary Bourke from 1938 until his death in 1983. They had three children.