Fred Robbins (broadcaster)

Fred Robbins was born in Baltimore, Maryland. His birth name was Fred Rubin. He attended Baltimore City College and the University of Baltimore Law School, graduating in 1938. While at the University of Baltimore, Robbins was the features and radio editor of The Baloo (the official campus news weekly), and he was also a member of the tennis team and dramaticclub.

He began a career in broadcasting, at a Baltimore station. Robbins later became the disc jockey of the Robbins Nest radio show on WINS, WABC and WNEW in New York, and the host of television variety and quiz shows there. He was briefly the host of The Talent Shop and Cavalcade of Bands for the DuMont TV network. From 1953 through 1956, he was the announcer/host, and Coca-Cola's spokesman, on Coke Time with Eddie Fisher on NBC.

Robbins did interview programs for many radio networks and filmed nearly 100 behind-the-scenes features on movie making (through his "Robbins Nest" production unit), which were broadcast for nearly a decade on CBS Movie Nights. Robbins starred or played himself in more than two dozen television shows or movies from the 1940s through the 1980s. He was also a feature interviewer for CNN's Showbiz Tonight[2] and wrote profiles of celebrities for many magazines.[1]

In 1948, The New York Times' writer Carter Harman credited Robbins for "doing much for bop". Robbins also co-produced and presented (with Ernie Anderson) live concerts, one of which was Billie Holiday's comeback concert at Carnegie Hall at midnight on March 27, 1948, right after she was released from a prison stay at Alderson prison for women in West Virginia.

Robbins's career expanded, and he began interviewing celebrities. On October 29, 1966, he interviewed John Lennon on the set of the movie How I Won the War in Carboneras, Spain.

Robbins also had an hour-long disc-jockey program that was syndicated via electrical transcription. In 1948 the trade publication Broadcasting noted that the show was carried by more than 100 stations.[3]

He was immortalized by two jazz compositions, one by Billy Strayhorn called "Snibor", his name spelled backwards. It was recorded by the Duke Ellington Orchestra in 1947 and subsequently in 1967. The other composition was "Robbins Nest" by Sir Charles Thompson and recorded by many artists'. It became a jazz standard.

Robbins died of lymphoma on June 23, 1992, at the Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. He was 73 years old.

• University of Baltimore. "The Reporter Yearbook 1938". Accessed November 23, 2009.
• Carter Harman, "Bop: Skee, Re or Be, ‘It's Still Got to Swing’". New York Times (December 5, 1948). Accessed October 6, 2009.
• Spangler, Jay. "Lennon Interview: Carboneras, Spain with Fred Robbins 29 October 1966."
• The Ultimate Beatles Experience. Accessed October 20, 2009.