Ted Cordes, Longtime Broadcast Standards Executive at NBC, Dies at 87

Ted Cordes, Longtime Broadcast Standards Executive at NBC, Dies at 87

Ted Cordes, whose 35 years at NBC included telling Johnny Carson, Tom Snyder and others what they could and could not put on the air as the longtime head of broadcast standards for the network on the West Coast, has died. He was 87.

Cordes died Sunday night at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles of complications from Alzheimer’s disease, his husband, William J. Derby, announced.

In 1963, Cordes joined NBC as a page in the guest relations department in Burbank and answered fan mail for Bonanza. He called it a career at the end of 2003 overseeing Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and other programs as vp broadcast standards, West Coast.

On live broadcasts, Cordes would personally oversee the 10-second delay to prevent viewers from encountering objectionable material.

“In a nation where everyone believes in at least his own right to free speech, the censor is typically seen as the enemy not only of expression but of fun — one pictures him black-clad, pinched and mean, armed with a big pair of scissors and an inviolable list of shalt-nots,” Robert Lloyd wrote in a 2004 Los Angeles Times piece about the executive. “But this is not Cordes, a friendly, youthful sort who prides himself on flexibility and sees himself not as a spoiler but a facilitator.”

“Nobody believes more in free expression than I do,” Cordes told Lloyd. “I try to work with a producer — ‘Tell me what you want to say and I’ll do everything I can to get you to be able to say it.’ We try to help get something across, not prevent it. We’re no longer nannies to the nation. At one time we were. We worried about what is good for everybody. But now we more reflect society.

“We are broadcasters after all,” he continued. “That’s a real term. We’re not narrowcasters. It’s a big country out there, with a lot of diverse tastes, and they don’t seem to like extremes.”

In his chat with Lloyd, Cordes recalled one interaction with Carson regarding a “Carnac the Magnificent” bit on The Tonight Show.

“The way the gag worked, Ed McMahon would give the answer and Johnny would divine the question. The answer to this question was, ‘Bitch, horny and ass.’ And Johnny replied, ‘What three words can they say on Saturday Night Live that we cannot say on The Tonight Show.’ I said, ‘Wait a minute, he’s right, you can’t say those words on The Tonight Show.’

“I went up to the producer, Fred de Cordova, and said, ‘We have a problem.’ Fred, who was very amenable usually, said, ‘Can’t discuss it. Johnny Carson wrote this, and if you have an issue with it, you have to take it to [him].’

“So we went up to Johnny Carson’s office, and I started giving him the company line as to why he couldn’t do it, the affiliates and the sales and all that. And I could see that he just wasn’t buying it, his eyes were almost glazing over. So I interrupted myself and said, ‘Besides, it really isn’t funny. It’s funny to me and it’s funny to you cause we’re in the business, but it’s not going to be funny to some guy in Arkansas.’

“He didn’t even take a beat; he turned to Fred de Cordova and said, ‘He’s right, take it out.’

“I learned such a lesson there, by instinct: You discuss these things on [the artist’s level], not your level. Because your level is rules. And nobody wants to hear rules. You have to have a reason.”

Theodore Cordes was born in Santa Monica on Nov. 30, 1937. His father, Winston, was an architect whose designs included the iconic Streamline Moderne gold bands that now adorn the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures on Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue. (The building was formerly the home of a May Company department store.)

After Santa Monica High School, Cordes graduated from USC with a major in English and a minor in cinema and television, then earned his master’s in English at UCLA.

Stationed in Korea, he served in the U.S. Army from 1961-63, then upon his return was hired at NBC as a page. After being promoted to network film coordinator, he left in 1966 to work for the advertising agency Dancer-Fitzgerald-Sample but came back to NBC in 1972, when he began his long tenure in broadcast standards.

Cordes often said that his favorite program to work on was The Tomorrow Show, hosted by Snyder from 1973-81.

“Ted was with us when Tomorrow began,” Joel Tator, the show’s first executive producer and director, said in a statement. “He was always cordial, fair and patient even though he had to deal with shows at nudist colonies, various prisons and an arduous trip through the Far East. He was always supportive of our out-of-the-box projects. I will miss his smile and his professionalism.”

One such prison was Tennessee State Penitentiary, where a two-day shoot in 1974 ended with Snyder interviewing Martin Luther King Jr. assassin James Earl Ray in his cell. “There was only room for Tom, Ray, two cameramen, a guard, a stage manager and Ted,” Tator recalled.

In 1974, Snyder offered Cordes a job as a producer on the show, but he declined, explaining that while every TV series has a limited lifespan, his job as a network executive could go on for a long time.

In the same studio where Snyder taped The Tomorrow Show, Cordes also was the gatekeeper for content assigned to Tonight Show, which taped earlier in the day. (The exec was involved with Carson’s program from 1977-92.) Howard Papush, a talent coordinator in the 1970s, said he often relied on Cordes’ counsel.

“Several of my frequent guests were stand-up comedians. They were always required to preview their material with me before their appearances on the program,” he said. “I was sometimes concerned about some of the subject matter or its appropriateness and would seek out Ted’s advice. He was the final arbiter, and he was always sensible and wise.

“If he felt that a joke or a piece of material was offensive, he asked the comedian to rewrite it or eliminate it. Otherwise, Ted knew that it would have to be edited out of the show after the taping but before it was broadcast that night — and that would require extra costs to the network.”

During the two-season, 1973-75 run of Gene Roddenberry’s animated Star Trek series, produced by Filmation Studios, Cordes would view each finished episode on a Moviola in a studio in Reseda.

While watching the first-season installment “Once Upon a Planet” (a sequel to the original series’ live-action episode “Shore Leave”), Cordes saw Dr. McCoy (voiced by DeForest Kelley), with his back to the camera, urinating on the grass.

“You can’t do that!” Cordes exclaimed. And suddenly everyone in the room burst out laughing. “Oh, Ted, we just put that in to see if you would catch it,” he was told. It never made it to air, but Cordes didn’t rest easy until he saw the show on NBC the following Saturday morning.

Cordes was promoted to vp broadcast standards, West Coast in 1991 and replaced by Ken Samuel upon his retirement.

In addition to his husband, he is survived by his sister, Dorothy, and his nephews, Scott and William.

Among the people who knew Cordes best at NBC were the senior broadcast standards directors who worked for him, including Lynn Dowling. Her father, Jerry Stanley, was vp broadcast standards at the network from 1974-81 and Cordes’ boss.

“Ted’s mentorship while I was at NBC was clearly genuine and valuable, but his kindness and support extended to everyone in our department,” Dowling said. “And when our work relationship deepened into a warm personal friendship that included our respective spouses, I was fortunate to be able to share with him many wonderful experiences over the next several decades.

“Looking back over our time in broadcast standards, I have a particularly touching memory of Ted at a time of downsizing the department, when it was his responsibility to lay someone off. Before calling the person into his office, he closed the door and broke down in tears in front of me. Ted and I were close for half my life. I will always love him.”