9/11/17, "
Remembering My Friend Don Ohlmeyer," Rush Limbaugh
"RUSH:
I got a phone call. Oh, gosh, I don’t know when. It was during the football game last night, so 6 or 6:30.
I looked at the number; didn’t recognize the number. It was a local
number here. I didn’t recognize it, and so I didn’t accept the call,
because talking on the phone is a hearing challenge. And within seconds I
got a message from whoever it was that had called, It was just a
shocking thing,
so I called back, and it was from one of Don Ohlmeyer’s
sons. Don Ohlmeyer had passed away at 5:30 Pacific Time yesterday
afternoon. You know, Ohlmeyer was a beast in the television business. He
was with ABC during the inception of Monday Night Football.
And though he didn’t make Howard Cosell because nobody made Howard
Cosell, Ohlmeyer was instrumental in letting Cosell be Cosell. For those
of you that are too young to know, Howard Cosell…For those of us in
broadcasting, the thing about Howard Cosell was that he was one of the
first high-profile TV personalities that wasn’t technically in news who
had freedom to say, do what he wanted to do. Management was unable to
clock him, so to speak, and he became the envy of many people in media
for this.
Ohlmeyer was instrumental in protecting Cosell from efforts to tame
him or moderate him or whatever. And he then after leaving ABC after
many years there, went to NBC and became the president’s NBC’s prime
time division West Coast. And it was under his leadership that they came
up with this killer lineup of comedies and shows that just owned, for
example, Thursday nights. It had Seinfeld and just any number of other
shows that he, after seeing, purchased and arranged for them to air on
NBC. And he had Ohlmeyer Communications.
It was Don Ohlmeyer who invented the Skins Game, golf, that always
aired on Thanksgiving weekend. Four or five professionals would play in a
tournament over the weekend, call it the Skins Game, and now everybody
plays “Skins” in golf. I never knew Don Ohlmeyer during all this. I knew
of him, I knew his reputation, but I never knew him during all this.
When ABC/ESPN lost the rights to Monday Night Football to NBC, they
hired Ohlmeyer to produce the first year, to executive produce….
 |
| Don and LJ |
He was actually in the truck, produced the first year, and they were
looking for somebody to pair with Al Michaels. So I offered myself. I
thought, “This is something I would love to do, and I would be great at
it,” and I had Cosell in my mind. “I would love to do this.” So I’m on
the air making comments about how much I would love to do this, and at
the time there was a man named Howard Katz who’s now with the NFL who
actually is the chief of the unit in the NFL that does the schedule
every year. But at the time Howard Katz was an NBC Sports executive.
And he called Ohlmeyer and said, “I think this Limbaugh guy is
serious. Why don’t you talk to him?”
So Ohlmeyer was in Ft. Lauderdale
for a friend’s wedding and called and said, “Why don’t you come down;
let’s talk about this.”
I never thought this would happen. I mean, I’m
just bloviating about it on the air, but I never thought it would… I was
serious in wanting to do it, but I never thought it would happen. I
never made a call to anybody at NBC saying I was serious. I just did it
all on the air.
So I drove down. I’m listening to Mambo Number 5 by Lou Bega all the
way down to Ft. Lauderdale. It’s about… From my house it was about an
hour, and I was gonna play golf at Pine Tree on my way back from the
meeting with Ohlmeyer, and I got down to the hotel he was staying [at]... and his partner L.J. approached me and said,
“Don will be down in a moment.” I said, “Wow, this is cool. This is
big.” So Ohlmeyer came down and we had a chat about it and talked about
it.
He said, “Look, why don’t you come out; let’s do an audition.” I
said, “Really?” “Yeah. You come out and we’ll get a tape. I’m not gonna
tell you which… I will tell you the game. I’ll tell you the game. We’ll
get a tape.” It was the Music City Miracle game. It was the Titans and
Buffalo Bills. He said,
“We’ll replay the tape of that game, and you and
Al can pretend it’s live, and we’ll just see you do.” And I said,
“Really?” He said, “Yeah.” So I went out and did that. He picked me up
at the airport when I arrived.
I think I flew into Burbank. He picked me up. Now, I didn’t learn a
lot about Ohlmeyer in the Ft. Lauderdale meeting other than I liked him,
but it wasn’t an interview or anything like that.
So I’m thinking, “NBC
West Coast chairman, ABC. This guy’s got to be a typical media liberal.
Just has to.” So I figure my chances here are nil, but I’m gonna have
fun with it. So we’re in the car, and we’re driving to the hotel. He’s
gonna drop me off the hotel and have dinner, and the next day do the
audition.
And on the way to the hotel, he starts ripping the media just like I
do, and I thought, “I’m being set up here. He’s settin’ me up. I’m
supposed to be say, ‘Yeah, you’re right,’ and I’m supposed to launch,”
’cause I figured he’s gotta be part of the liberal leftist media
establishment. So I was standoff. I was very cool in the car and I
didn’t go, “Yeah, man, you’re right,” and offer my own examples. None of
that. I just nodded and I said, “Yeah, I can’t argue with that. Can’t
argue.”
So he dropped me off, we had dinner that night, then next day
did the audition. It went well, and he was shocked and Al Michaels was pleasantly
surprised and all that. I knew Al, but I’d never met Ohlmeyer.
Anyway,
that’s the year they chose Dennis Miller. But the point is through all
of this, Don Ohlmeyer became a really, really close friend. And he was a
really, really good guy. Do you remember, those of you been here a long
time, I’ve told the story of how I was with friends at a golf club down
in the desert in Palm Springs, Indian Wells?
A famous media person that you would all know joined us for dinner
and my friend just lacerated this guy on the subject of illegal
immigration? It was Ohlmeyer. And I’m not gonna tell you who the famous
media guest was, but you would know who it is. I never…
I also never
identified Ohlmeyer, always protected his privacy. But Ohlmeyer was one
of the funniest… He and Roger Ailes were some of the most naturally
funny people. But when Don got going on this stuff (laughing), it was
just marvelous to sit back and listen to it.
And he had this poor TV star backwards and forwards and pretzeled
inside out.
The TV star was reduced to, “Well, look, if poor people
around the world would have come to my country and improve their lot in
life, I’m not going to say no!” And Don said, “Well, what happens if the
guy jumps your back fence and wants to date your daughter?” “Well, that
would never happen, and I’m not…” Anyway, we played a lot of golf
together, and we had a lot of good times.
I would host a thing at my house every spring I called the Spring
Fling.
He was just somebody I never expected to meet, and when I did
meet him, I never expected him to be the kind of guy he was.
He was the
most unassuming, for the things that he had done in life, the things
that he had accomplished. It was just a cool thing to get to know him
and to have he and L.J. become friends of ours, become part of our life.
I was just shocked when I found out that he had passed away.
His son
Kemper is who called me. He had four sons. And the text message said,
“Don died at 5:30.”
I didn’t even know that he was sick. And it turns out that it had to
be a late discovery of cancer that had metastasized, so I gathered this
was all really, really sudden, I mean, like, days. And like a blow to
the stomach,
first Roger Ailes passes away this year
and now Don. It was just a shock and sadness, disappointment. I didn’t
even know. I hadn’t seen him in a while. This is a crazy thing, but when
the iPhone six plus came out, the big one, the five-and-a-half-inch
screen, I had an extra one and I said,
“Hey, Don, do you want an iPhone
six plus?”
He said, “Yeah!” So I FedExed him the six plus, and L.J. said, “This
is the greatest toy anybody’s ever given him. He won’t stop playing with
it.” It made my day. So when the new ones came, 6S Plus, I sent him
one, “You want an upgrade?”
“Well, if you’ve got one hanging around.”
So I sent him that one. He was a great golfer. He hit the ball
straight. By that I mean wherever it was aimed is where it went. The
envy of everybody. He didn’t bomb it, it didn’t go a long way, but if
the guy didn’t break 80, it was a bad day. So just a sad, sad turn of
events. And, you know, with Roger Ailes passing away, now
Vince Flynn and his movie, screening that this afternoon.
And all this happening within the time framework of the hurricane,
you know, it just really reinforces, folks, that you shouldn’t take
anything for granted, particularly with the people in your life that you
love. You should always try to stay in touch and don’t let any kind of
momentary disagreement you had with people cause distance. It’s just
silly because anything can happen at any time that changes everything.
He’s one of these people that you wish everybody could meet him and
get to know him. He was that charismatic and welcoming and very
confident — love hanging around confident people. And he was that. He
loved L.J. He often said, “You know, I decided there’s nobody in the
world I’d rather talk to than her. So excuse me for not playing golf
today.” Okay, that’s cool. So Don Ohlmeyer is 72 years old, same age
that my mother and father both passed away at." Image from RushLimbaugh.com
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Rush Limbaugh "Related link"
Los Angeles Times: Don Ohlmeyer, 'Monday Night Football' Producer and Originator of 'Must See TV,' Dies at 72
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