John Cameron Swayze (April 4, 1906 – August 15, 1995)

Swayze was a popular news commentator and game show panelist during
the 1950s. He first sought work as an actor,but acting roles in Broadway
theater during 1929 became scarce due to the stock market crash.

Swayze returned to the Midwest and began working for the Kansas City
Journal Post as a reporter. He soon graduated to radio in 1940 doing
news updates for the local CBS radio affiliate KMBC. He later moved
to Los Angeles and Hollywood where NBC hired him for its western
news division before moving him to its New York news operation
in 1947. 

In 1949 Swayze was chosen to host NBC’s first television newscast,
the fifteen-minute Camel News Caravan where he.read items from
the news wires and periodically interviewed newsmakers.  

The Mutual Broadcasting System aired "Twenty Questions" for the first time on radio
radio from the Longacre Theater in New York on radio. Listeners sent in subjects
for the panelists to guess in…in 20 questions. The programs initial sponsor was
Ronson Lighters. The popular quiz show moved to television three years later.