LIFE: Mister Rogers: The magical world of an American icon

102 Pages·2019·114.766 MB·English

by  Life magazine

Welcome to the Neighborhood
Mister
Rogers
The Magical World of
an American Icon

FRED ROGERS WITH KING
Friday XIII and other puppets
from the Neighborhood of
Make-Believe,1978.
Mister
Rogers
Mister Rogers
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Kostya Kennedy
EDITOR Eileen Daspin
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY Christina Lieberman
DESIGNER Patty Alvarez
WRITER Richard Jerome
COPY CHIEF Parlan McGaw
COPY EDITOR Joel Van Liew
PICTURE EDITOR Rachel Hatch
WRITER-REPORTER Gillian Aldrich
PHOTO ASSISTANT Steph Durante
PRODUCTION DESIGNER Sandra Jurevics
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EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Kostya Kennedy
CREATIVE DIRECTOR Gary Stewart
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY Christina Lieberman
EDITORIAL OPERATIONS DIRECTOR Jamie Roth Major
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PRINTED IN THE USA
Vol. 19, No. 29 • November 8, 2019
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For information on bulk purchases, please
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RogersÕ Neighborhood, in
Pittsburgh in 1993.
FRONT COVER: Fred Rogers, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,
circa 1979.
2 LIFE MR. ROGERS
4
INTRODUCTION
His Quiet Strength
and Simple Words
8
A Man in Pictures
18
Man on a Mission

$20 Million
Testimony
Time for Something
Very Different
34
1-4-3 I Love You
Freddish—or, Rogers’s
Rules of Language
The Woman Behind
The Neighborhood
48
A Musical Message
62
The Regulars
Supporting Characters
76
Iconic Episodes
84
His Legacy
96
Carry On
3
INTRODUCTION
Whatever turbulence roiled the world,
viewers found love and acceptance tuning in daily
to Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.
His Quiet
BY Strength and
RICHARD
JEROME
Simple Words
E
ven for Fred Rogers, it was a tall order. As The host started off with a dry
discussion of budgets and fund-
the host of the children’s public television
ing sources, then in his soothing lilt,
Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood
show , the
turned to the inner lives of his young
40-year-old was used to breaking down viewers—a topic that clearly resonated
with Pastore. When Rogers recited the
complicated topics: anger, sadness, jealousy.
lyrics to “What Do You Do with the
But on May 1, 1969, Rogers was scheduled to testify Mad That You Feel?”, a song based on
a child’s question, Pastore was visibly
in front of Congress on an even more emotional
moved. “I think it’s wonderful. I think
subject: money. Specifically, his job was to explain to
it's wonderful,” he gushed. “Looks like
the notoriously prickly Senator John Pastore why he you just earned the 20 million dollars.”
With his disarming brand of quiet
should earmark $20 million to fund the Corporation for
strength, simple language, and unvar-
Public Broadcasting, the sponsor of Rogers’s program.
nished sincerity, Fred Rogers owned
4 LIFE MR. ROGERS
WHEN MISTER ROGERS’
Neighborhood went
national in 1968, it was
a low-key affair with
handmade puppets and
a cardboard castle.
+ MR. ROGERS AND
HIS NEIGHBORHOOD
6 LIFE MR. ROGERS
the room that day in the Senate, capti-
vating legislators with the same magic
When Tom Hanks was preparing for A Beautiful
that entranced generations of chil-
dren during his show’s 31-season run,
Day in the Neighborhood, one of the first
between 1968 and 2001. Whatever tur-
bulence roiled the world or their fami-
questions he asked Joanne Rogers was
lies, millions of young viewers found
security and unconditional love in “Did Fred really talk that slowly?”
Mister Rogers’
their daily visits to
Neighborhood.
At a time when chil-
dren’s programming was speeding up,
Fred Rogers slowed down, offering
puppets who expressed children’s fears,
as well as messages of love through
music. Instead of presenting his audi-
ence a curriculum of ABCs and count- “His core message—I like you just composition—Rogers switched gears
ing, he cultivated in his small viewers the way you are—refl ects his belief that and applied for an entry-level position
a sense of wonder and self-confi dence. God likes us just the way we are,” says with NBC in New York. Within a few
To some present-day commenta- Shea Tuttle, author of the forthcoming years, he would return to Pennsylvania,
tors, Rogers is at least partly respon- book Exactly as You Are: The Life and where he would produce and write The
sible for the culture of entitlement Faith of Mister Rogers. “Rogers thought Children’s Corner, a new public televi-
among millennials, but there are few if people believe they’re loved . . . and sion show for young people.
who don’t long for a Rogers-like fi gure that they’re good, then they’re going to The future star’s trajectory was
The
to redirect children’s fare to the val- be better people. Conversely, if we feel set. For the very first episode of
Children’s Corner,
ues of Mister Rogers’s beloved neigh- accused or unsure of ourselves, we’ll he introduced
borhood. He remains a unique fi gure project that onto others.” a sweet, timid puppet he dubbed
in the history of American media, Rogers came to his beliefs through Daniel Striped Tiger, who would be
celebrated for his contributions not his experience growing up in Latrobe, his on-air companion and alter ego
just to television but to education Pennsylvania, about 40 miles from for decades. Not far behind were
and civility as well. Since his death in Pittsburgh. His parents were loving, other characters, such as X the Owl
2003, Rogers has been the subject of but Rogers was bullied by classmates, and King Friday XIII. He also began
two biographies, an acclaimed doc- and his only real friends were his to understand the importance of cre-
umentary (Morgan Neville’s Won’t music, puppets, books, and his imagi- ating and presenting material in a
You Be My Neighbor?), and the 2019 nation. He certainly never forgot, and way that was developmentally appro-
Hollywood biopic A Beautiful Day perhaps never shed, those childhood priate for children. By the time Mister
in the Neighborhood, starring Tom feelings of being an outsider, and they Rogers’ Neighborhood debuted in 1968,
Hanks. At a time when the nation feels shaped his life as an adult. the host’s menagerie, philosophy, and
angry and divided, Rogers’s guiding Rogers’s eureka moment arrived pedagogy were established.
philosophy of loving tolerance and in 1951, while visiting Latrobe on a “I’ll never forget the sense of whole-
acceptance resonates and appeals break during his senior year of col- ness I felt when I fi nally realized what,
more than ever. lege. Walking into his parents’ home, in fact. I really was,” Rogers observed
Rogers discovered they had bought years later. “Not just a writer or a lan-
a television, one of the first ones in guage buff or a student of human
TOM HANKS PORTRAYS
Fred Rogers in A Beautiful town. The set both fascinated and development or a telecommunica-
Day in the Neighborhood, frightened him, as he grasped the tor, but I was someone who could use
about the friendship between
new medium’s potential for good and every talent that had ever been given
Rogers and journalist Tom
harm. Instead of pursuing a career in to me in the service of children and
Junod, who profi led Rogers
in Esquire magazine. music—he had been majoring in music their families.” ●
7
A MAN IN
PICTURES
Indelible images from a
life-changing career.