Alan W. Livingston

Alan Wendell Livingston (born Alan Wendell Levison; October 15, 1917 – March 13, 2009) was an American businessman best known for his tenures at Capitol Records, first as a writer/producer best known for creating Bozo the Clown for a series of record-album and illustrative read-along children's book sets. As Vice-president in charge of Programming at NBC, in 1959 he oversaw the development and launch of the network's most successful television series, Bonanza. Early years Livingston was born in the Pittsburgh suburb of McDonald, Pennsylvania on October 15, 1917. He was the youngest of three children, whose mother encouraged reading books and playing musical instruments. He had an older sister, Vera, and an older brother, Jay Livingston (1915–2001), who wrote or co-wrote many popular songs for films and television, including "Buttons and Bows", "Mona Lisa", "Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera)", as well as the popular Christmas song "Silver Bells". Alan Livingston began his career in the entertainment business leading his own college orchestra as a student at the University of Pennsylvania. After graduating from the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce with a B.S. in economics, he moved to New York where he worked in advertising for three years. At the start of World War II, he enlisted in the army as a private and served as a second lieutenant in the infantry. After his discharge, he borrowed some money, hitched a ride on an Army plane and headed for Los Angeles, California where he obtained his first position with Capitol Records, Inc. in Hollywood as a writer/producer. Capitol Records Livingston's initial assignment was to create a children's record library for the four-year-old company, for which he created the "Bozo the Clown" character. He wrote and produced a popular series of storytelling record-album and illustrative read-along book sets beginning with the October 1946 release of "Bozo at the Circus." His record-reader concept, which enabled children to read and follow a story in pictures while listening to it, was the first of its kind. The Bozo image was a composite design of Livingston's, derived from a variety of clown pictures and given to an artist to turn into comic-book-like illustrations. Livingston then hired Pinto Colvig to portray Bozo on the recordings. Colvig, a former circus clown, was also the original voice of Walt Disney's Pluto, Goofy, Grumpy, Sleepy and many other characters. Billy May produced the music.