He was a cultural TV icon best known for introducing Elvis and the Beatles, but Ed Sullivan had a much deeper effect on American music and culture than most ever realized. For twenty-three years, tens of millions of people gathered around the television to see what new and different acts he might feature on his […]| Ed Sullivan Show
Long before HBO turned Sunday night into TV-monoculture ground zero, there was Ed Sullivan. Born in Harlem and raised in Port Chester, New York, the sportswriter, syndicated columnist and radio-program personality was tapped by CBS to host a weekly variety show for the television network. The master of ceremonies had a few ideas about what […]| Ed Sullivan Show
Watching Sunday Best is a bittersweet experience. Mostly because so many of the people featured in this brilliant Netflix documentary are no longer with us, including director Sacha Jenkins, who passed away in May of this year. The finished product is a beautiful special that pays homage to the wonderful legacy of Ed Sullivan and the legendary artists he showcased. Whether it’s Nat King […]| Ed Sullivan Show
As the opening credits of the documentary “Sunday Best” roll, Billy Preston in a killer chartreuse suit takes to “The Ed Sullivan Show” stage. Ray Charles pounds the keyboards and brass players ready to enter a sped-up version of “Agent Double-O-Soul.” From the get-go, Sacha Jenkins’s film about the variety show trailblazer Ed Sullivan and […]| Ed Sullivan Show
On July 21, Netflix debuted Sunday Best, a documentary about The Ed Sullivan Show—the longest-running variety show in U.S. broadcast history—and how it featured Black American performers at a time when discrimination was still rampant in the U.S. in the 1950s and 1960s. Though the U.S. Supreme Court ruled segregated schools unconstitutional in 1954, and the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, the documentary highlights […]| Ed Sullivan Show
The new Netflix documentary Sunday Best charts Sullivan's life and career on his 23-year run as host of The Ed Sullivan Show.| Ed Sullivan Show
We're proud to share that Sunday Best, a new documentary from director Sacha Jenkins, is set to premiere exclusively on Netflix, July 21st.| Ed Sullivan Show
Since 2020, The Ed Sullivan Show has found an entirely new audience online where its collection of celebrated TV moments has amassed more than two and a half billion views across YouTube, Facebook, and Apple Music. Now, The Ed Sullivan Show has reached another milestone in its celebrated history: It’s surpassed one million subscribers on its popular […]| Ed Sullivan Show
For more than twenty years, The Ed Sullivan Show was at the epicenter of American culture showcasing the very best in the world.| Ed Sullivan Show
This May marks the 60th anniversary of Richard Pryor’s debut on The Ed Sullivan Show, a milestone in comedy history.| Ed Sullivan Show
Known as “The World’s Greatest Rock and Roll Band,” The Rolling Stones have been the bad boys of Rock ‘n’ Roll for five decades. The Beatles on Ed Sullivan started the British Invasion, and The Stones elevated it. They were the antithesis of The Beatles. While The Beatles were cute and beloved by teenagers and […]| Ed Sullivan Show
A record setting 73 million people tuned in that evening making it one of the seminal moments in television history. Nearly fifty years later, people still remember exactly where they were the night The Beatles stepped onto Ed Sullivan’s stage. In the weeks leading up to the performance, several Beatles records had already hit number […]| Ed Sullivan Show
