Crane

Best remembered for his 1971 spoken word smash "Desiderata," Les Crane was born Lester Stein in San Francisco in 1935; after first rising to local success as a rock and roll DJ at Bay Area station KKYA, he moved to KKGO, where station manager Don Curran gave him the new surname Crane, and tapped him to host a late-night talk show. Crane's program quickly became a hit, its star's growing renown further enhanced by his marriage to actress Tina Louise; in 1964, ABC television signed him to host Nightlife, one of the network's many failed attempts to combat NBC's The Tonight Show....