The idea for “All Star Golf” was novel in the early days of sports programming: Match up the top names in golf in head-to-head competition, package the games in hourlong shows, then sell the productions to local stations across the country.
It was the brainchild of Arthur E. Pickens Jr., a longtime television producer in Chicago, and his collaborator and boss Walter Schwimmer.
“He and his partner Walter Schwimmer were really pioneers in that field,” recalled Reinald Werrenrath, a field director for the men. “Art was wonderful, he understood the business and he understood the sporting world. He understood what you were doing and he understood how to get good shows done.”
Mr. Pickens, 84, of Olympia Fields died Monday, June 26, in St. James Manor in Crete after a long battle with liver cancer.
In 1968, Mr. Pickens was named president of Walter Schwimmer Inc., a television syndication company. Its hits included several popular sports and game shows including “Championship Bowling,” “Let’s Go to the Races” and “Championship Bridge.”
But the breakthrough hit for the company was “All Star Golf,” which featured greats like Sam Snead and Cary Middlecoff. The show’s concept was Mr. Pickens’ idea, Schwimmer told the trade publication Broadcasting.
“He has a thorough understanding of the complex machinery of the television processes, a technical knowledge seldom possessed by an individual who specializes in the creative and sales end of the business,” Schwimmer, now deceased, said in a 1968 profile of Mr. Pickens.
By 1962, the men developed the “World Series of Golf Championship,” which brought together winners of the British Open, Masters, PGA Championship and U.S. Open at the Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio, said Mr. Pickens’ son Ted.
“My father was always very creative. He would see something and look for some way to do it differently,” Ted Pickens said. “What my father was excited about was how all of this metamorphosed. He had that sense of history, that he was creating a new thing. He liked to look back and see the genesis of it all.”
Before his television career, Mr. Pickens enlisted in the Army Air Forces in World War II, serving from 1943 though the end of the engagement, his son said.
The Peoria native was a tail gunner in a B-24, flying a total of 51 sorties, including during the Ploesti raid, according to his son. That bombing hit oil refineries near Bucharest, Romania.
After the war, Mr. Pickens attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and began his career in radio. He moved to Chicago in 1948, the same year he married Meta Jane Miethe.
Just before he became president of Schwimmer Inc.–later merged into Bing Crosby Productions–Mr. Pickens told Broadcasting that television must appeal to a viewer’s emotions.
“We like to think of ourselves as innovators and masters of the obvious when creating a new television program idea,” Mr. Pickens told Broadcasting in 1968.
In addition to his wife and son, Mr. Pickens is also survived by three other sons, Scott, Terry and Tom; a daughter, Penny; 12 grandchildren; and a great-grandchild.
Services have been held.
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tmaxwell@tribune.com
