Behind the Scenes at To Tell The Truth

You wouldn’t think people need to be taught how to lie (insert your own politician joke here) but it came in handy on one TV show.

To Tell The Truth featured two liars trying to convince a panel of TV/stage actors they were someone else. They got a little bit of help, and for good reason.

Here are a couple of neat little backstage stories about the game show from the years Bud Collyer hosted it. The first is from the Associated Press and appeared in papers that published on Christmas Day 1966. The second is from the Niagara Falls Gazette of September 16, 1963.

In going back 50-some-odd years and thinking about it, To Tell The Truth was probably my favourite of all the Goodson-Todman game shows. It was on every day, so you got to know the panelists and they all seemed to have a good rapport. (The Match Game and Password had different people every week). And it was fun to guess along.

On 'To Tell the Truth'
Contestants Are Taught to Lie
EDITOR'S NOTE: Fooling the panel of To Tell the Truth isn't easy, so the producer runs a "school for liars." The imposters get all the dope on Oman, an oil sheikdom in Arabia, along with tips like don't volunteer information and never say "I don't know." But watch out, the panel's sharp.
By CYNTHIA LOWRY
NEW YORK (AP) —The two gentleman liars, scribbling furiously on legal-size yellow paper, listened intently as the honest man paced the room, describing the weather of Oman, the small oil-rich state on the Arabian Peninsula.
"Muscat, the capital," said the pacing man with the air of a lecturer, "is one of the three hottest cities in the world. I've read the thermometer at 120 degrees at midnight three nights in a row."
It was a briefing session for contestants on CBS' "To Tell the Truth," a panel show that has been around the network for 10 seasons. This month it made the jump to Monday evening's schedule as an emergency replacement for "The Jean Arthur Show."
The briefing, held the day before the show was taped, took place in a small room in the 30th floor offices of the show-packaging firm, Goodson and Todman.
Presiding was Bruno Zirato Jr., producer of the show. The lecturer was Wendell Phillips, an oil millionaire, honorary sheik of Oman, archaeologist and author of a new book, "Unknown Oman."
He and Zirato were teaching Thomas Gillis, a professional fund-raiser, and Howard Larson, an advertising man, how to fool a panel of four experts.
The object of the game is for the panel — Tom Poston, Peggy Cass, Orson Bean and Kitty Carlisle — to try to pick the truth teller from the imposters on the basis of brief questioning.
"We get the southeast monsoon," continued Phillips, "and it lasts from May to September — it stops around my birthday, Sept. 26 . . . ."
"Libra is his sign of the Zodiac," interrupted Zirato. "Peggy Cass might hit you with that kind of a question — she's interested in astrology."
Then Zirato addressed himself to Phillips:
"What's a Caftan? It's a cloak but women around here are wearing them and Kitty Carlisle knows fashion."
"That's Morocco," Phillips said. "I've only been there once."
"Zirato turned to the two liars: "That's a good answer — brush if off like that."
Gillis asked Phillips, "What are your oil interests?"
"They consist of rights covering 65 million acres — no, make it 75 million because I picked up some more last week. That's to look for oil or drill for oil, although some acres are producing now."
Zirato and the two contestants looked impressed.

"What makes oil?" asked Larson, the second liar.
"The Arabian Peninsula was an inland sea during the Jurassic Period, the age of dinosaurs," replied Phillips. "Oil comes from either marine or animal organisms—no one is quite certain about that."
"What if someone asks my opinion about the Israel-Jordon thing?" asked Gillis.
Zirato broke in: "Just look at them sternly and tell them they can hardly expect an unbiased opinion from an Arabian sheik—and don't forget to pronounce it 'shake.' "
The session went on for more than two hours. Finally the contestants left, carrying with them copies of Phillips' book for homework.
Zirato relaxed and pushed away a pile of notes from in front of him. Mostly they covered subjects he knew, from long experience, might be the basis of questions from the panel.
"We know, for instance, that Orson and Peggy are real experts on flying saucers, and if you think of a spot involving comic strips, forget it. Orson knows everything about comic strips and he knows old movies, too."
POSTON is likely to trip liars with detail questions, like asking the location of the brakes in a small plane. Both Peggy and Kitty have traveled widely, but, according to Zirato, where Kitty would ask for the name of a hotel in a town, Peggy "would know the name of the hotel manager and the name of the sacristan of the local church, too."
Zirato always instructs the liars never to provide unsolicited information, and never to say "I don't know."
Thus if a panelist asked one of the liars to name his college archeology teacher, he was briefed to parry with a question: "Which one of my teachers? I had many, but if you mean in Egyptology, it was John Wilson."
"Use any name that comes into your head," said Zirato, "and if you can't think of one that sounds read, use your own name—which you probably can remember. In a lot of instances, the vague answer to a technical question—'I don't think that has ever really been established'—works well."
The panel has remained intact now for the past couple of years.
"People sometimes want to know why we keep the same panel, and the answer is that they are good and we couldn't do better," Zirato said. "And Bud Collyer, the moderator, adds a lot, too. He has probity. It isn't necessary for us to make statements that the show is absolutely on the level."
In their hunt for contestants, Zirato and four assistants wade through newspapers, magazines and books, and also accept nominations from press agents. The liars are found among volunteers, friends, of the producers and friends of friends.
Zirato interviews all the candidates for the imposter spots. From long experience he can judge whether they will be able to think quickly before a camera and not forget vital information.



Panelists Spot Him
Reporter Struggles 'To Tell the Truth'
EDITOR'S NOTE —Earlier last week Gazette reporter Austin Hoyt took part in the production of a segment of "To Tell the Truth" in New York.
• • •
By AUSTIN HOYT
Gazette Staff Writer
SUPPOSE your name is Barbados Gunglefinger and you just went over Niagara Falls in a rubber ball.
The papers make a big scene over it, and the next day the phone rings. It's a producer for the TV show "To Tell the Truth." He offers you a round trip flight to New York, $50 expense money, and what you, as the "real Barbados Gunglefinger," can make by fooling the panel of four. No mention of a date with Miss America, a free evening of dancing at the Ritz or a set of luggage in case you win nothing else, but you decide to go anyway.
The day before the show is to be taped, you appear at a producer's office on the 35th floor of a glassed-in building.
A secretary's slim digit with a well polished nail motions you to an office where you meet your two impersonators, a shoe clerk and a pediatrician, both from New York.
• • •
FOR TWO HOURS the producer briefs you on the show and you help the impersonators fabricate likely stories. The shoe clerk's motive will be that he always liked rivers and water falls. You decide the pediatrician has had a life long fancy for rubber balls. You are to be yourself, the Pine Avenue butcher who just got sick of 20 years of hacking up meat.
You see that the imposters learn how high the Falls are and all the facts of your voyage.
• • •
EARLY THE NEXT DAY you walk through the stage door of the CBS-TV studios. You are given a blue shirt to cut down glare from the lights, and you take your place for another briefing. Across from you are the "three Cookie Gilchrists," and the "three barbers for Harry Truman" being filmed for Wednesday's show. You and the "three Dr. Salks" will be taped for Thursday's show.
A minor functionary passes out coffee and doughnuts as the imposters nervously recollect their stories.
An assistant producer arrives with more advice. "When you hear a voice say, 'What is your name?', that is your cue, number one," he says, addressing the shoe clerk. "The cue for the number twos and threes will be the spot light turned on you."
"When you turn to walk down to your seats, just stick out your left foot and walk. No army turns or marches," he warns.
Then there is a dress rehearsal with a mock panel, using the real panel's names: Joan Fontaine, Phyllis Newman, Jan Murray, and Dana Andrews.
There is another wait backstage as the audience fills the house. You can hear them practicing applause. They must be old ladies or degenerates, you think. Who else would be out there at 10:30 in the morning?
Then reassuring words from Bud Collier, the master of ceremonies. He wants you all to meet him so you feel "you have one friend out there."
• • •
HE REMINDS YOU there are no awards given for dramatic performances and not to upstage the panel when you chat with them at the close of the show. And, he goes on, when the game is over and he says "Goodbye and God bless you," that means "up and out."
The three Cookie Gilchrists and the three Truman barbers traipse off to the platform and you watch them on closed circuit TV.
Have to sit through the commercials, too. You're not nervous. All you have to do is tell the truth, but the imposters are writhing and smoking, wishing they had never volunteered.
• • •
"WHAT IS YOUR NAME?", a voice asks. What if the imposters keel over or say their real names, you think, but they all say, "My name is Barbados Gunglefinger." The quizzing goes quickly and you try to stall and underplay the truth and hope the imposters will feel casual. You enjoy the game and wish the panel would ask you more and not call so much attention to themselves.
Then it's over. Three panelists guess you. Why? You shouldn't have smiled at Joan Fontaine, and as Phyllis Newman said, you did "look like a Barbados Gunglefinger." And the shoe clerk should have known what a back eddy was.
• • •
THE IMPOSTERS reveal their true identities. Someone forgot his real name once, so they have cards saying who they are, but they manage without them.
A prompter beckons the audience to applaud, and the ladies muster what enthusiasm they can.
"Well that's one wrong answer, $100; split three ways, that's not enough for a new rubber ball," Bud says, "but next time you go over the falls, take our best wishes with you."
Up and out. There's a man waiting for your blue shirt. As another holds open the door for you, a voice says:
"Will the three James Meri .....