Elizabeth L. Dribben

“It wasn’t a question of women’s rights,” said her cousin, Ellen Dribben Alexander, “it was a question of fairness.”

Moving to New York City in 1969, she worked as a freelancer for documentary units of the Associated Press and ABC News until 1972, then had an opportunity to join CBS News’ radio division.

Told that her voice was too deep for her to be on the air, she found a position as CBS News producer and worked closely for 21 years with the network’s stars—Mike Wallace, Dan Rather, Charles Osgood, Charles Kuralt, Dallas Townsend, Douglas Edwards, Ed Bradley and Diane Sawyer.

She was a senior producer and writer for CBS Radio News on many of the leading stories of those two decades, from Watergate to the fall of the Berlin Wall, and was a contributing producer for the “CBS Evening News” and “CBS News Sunday Morning.”

During the American evacuation of Vietnam in 1975, the tireless worker brought several sets of clothes to the studio so she did not have go home to change. Her newswriting won numerous awards. She also created CBS’ radio satellite unit.

She was the producer, interviewer and ghostwriter of the daily radio program “Mike Wallace at Large” and did the same for “Dan Rather Reporting” and “Newsbreak With Charles Osgood.”

Osgood said of her, “Liz could have been a great detective or psychiatrist. When she listens, people talk.”

Wallace noted, “Invariably, the listener comes away from a Liz Dribben interview enlightened, entertained and sometimes even moved.”

After leaving CBS in 1993, Ms. Dribben produced programs for the Concert Music Network and contributed cultural commentary to CNN Radio, ABC News, XM Satellite Radio and WNYC-FM. She hosted a talk show on what was then WEVD in New York City and taught radio reporting in the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. She also contributed articles to The Buffalo News.

A 1954 graduate of Lafayette High School, Elizabeth L. Dribben was the youngest in her class, the class humorist and a tireless participant in plays, variety shows and other activities.

In 1958, she earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Buffalo, where she majored in drama and speech while pursuing so many extracurricular interests that her mother, an attorney, pointedly reminded her, “You know you’re supposed to study at school.”

After graduation, she worked for UB’s university relations office and at radio station WBFO-FM. She started at WKBW-TV in 1959 as a publicist and production assistant.

The Buffalo Broadcast Pioneers inducted her into its Hall of Fame in 2001. She was inducted into the Lafayette High School Hall of Fame in 2008.

A memorial service will be scheduled.

—Dale Anderson

Liz Dribben was a pioneering journalist who had ties to New York City. After working at a TV station in her hometown of Buffalo, Dribben made the move to the Big Apple in 1969. Eventually, she was hired by CBS News for their radio division, where she would spend the next 21 years. Dribben was a senior producer and writer, working closely with some of the network’s biggest names—Ed Bradley, Charles Osgood, Dan Rather, and Mike Wallace among them.

Dribben left CBS in 1993 but kept a busy schedule with numerous jobs, including as a talk show host at WEVD-AM (now 1050 WEPN). She also taught radio reporting at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.

DRIBBEN - Elizabeth L. Passed away on January 20, 2011 after a long illness. Elizabeth was born in Buffalo, NY on August 20, 1937 and was the daughter of the late Louis Dribben and Clara Franklin. A graduate of Lafayette High School (Buffalo) and University of Buffalo, "Liz" enjoyed a four-decade career encompassing almost every aspect of broadcast news from writing to producing to on-air reporting, both locally on Buffalo's WKBW-TV and nationally for CBS News, in both radio and television. A pioneer among women in her field, Dribben continued to mentor younger reporters in her capacity as a member of the Adjunct Faculty of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. At CBS from 1972-93, Dribben was principal writer-producer for Mike Wallace and Dan Rather, and produced her own program, One on One, eventually racking up some 2000 in-depth interviews with newsmakers in politics and the arts, from jurist Robert Bork to actress Helen Hayes. Her passion for theatre was legendary. She created and managed the network's (and the world's) first satellite radio unit. Ms. Dribben was a 2001 inductee of the Buffalo Broadcasting Hall of Fame, and a 2008 inductee to the Lafayette High School Hall of Fame. While she leaves no immediate family, she is survived by cousins in Albany, New York City and Israel, with her "family of friends" intertwined world-wide throughout the broadcasting and performance arts world. Elizabeth's generosity extends beyond her life, with the donation of her body to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Contributions in her memory may be made to the University at Buffalo (Attn: Cindy Johannes - E. Dribben Archives, P.O. Box 730, Buffalo, NY) or the Buffalo Broadcasters (Buffalo Broadcasters Association, 5672 Main Street, Williamsville, NY 14221) to help with the archiving of over 2,000 items from Elizabeth's vast portfolio - from personal correspondence to reel to reel tape interviews. Memorial services in Buffalo and New York City will be planned over the next few months. Toot-a-loo, Elizabeth - and spin that prayer wheel for us!

On virtually every day, from November 1989 through December 1992, Liz interviewed a famous personality (or two, or three) for CBS. Here's a sample from more than eighty pages of names.

We lived in my grandfather’s apartment house on Lafayette and Barton, stretching a block almost to Herkimer. I was the only Jewish kid at School 19. I put up a sign once in front of the building, “Last Jews Before Canada,” which my grandfather promptly tore down. This was a man who would not suffer fools or tolerate intolerance. He treasured talent from carpenters to singers. If someone knew what he was doing and did it well, Max Franklin was an admirer.

He had come to Buffalo indirectly from Frankfurt Ain Mein where his family had presided over rabbinical cantorial studies and worship for many generations. Pan German Nationalism had set in in the latter part of the 19th century. So they went to Vilma, Lithuania, where the religious community was flourishing, just in time for the czar’s implicit edict that young Jewish men should die by being drafted in the army. My grandfather’s number was almost called. It was time to get out. He left in 1899; my grandmother and the new baby a year later. They settled in Henderson, Ky., where the Ku Klux Klan did not take kindly to a young rabbi cantor and his family, even if by then his line of work was clothing and not the cloth. Five other children came to life in Henderson, including my mother, Clara Franklin Dribben.

Just as America was about to get into World War I, the Franklins came to Buffalo. Always, my grandfather kept his music and his love of the pure voice, and to him the pure voice was best exemplified by distinguished international singers, mainly Enrico Caruso, John McCormack and an American, Paul Robeson. None of these voices was Jewish by birth or tradition, but to my grandfather they had the essence of Jewish singers: they each had a tear in the throat.

Fast forward to the early ’50s— a shopping journey. I got on my bike confident that I would find a new recording I had heard about, Sea Shanties, newly interpreted by Robeson. Well, no record store had anything by Robeson. Some clerks told me they never heard of him, other said he hadn’t ever recorded. I spoke up, telling them Robeson was a good singer, even a great one. He had stopped the show on Broadway in “Show Boat” — my grandfather and mother had told me, and I had even gone to the library to read about it.

And he gave the Mississippi some of its due in “Old Man River.” People were crying in the theater, said my grandfather, they were overcome with the glory of Robeson’s voice and the beauty of his art. He also was the first black actor to play Othello. I said: “What do you mean? I know who he is and I’m a kid. I’ve heard my grandfather’s recording and I’ve read about him, and you’re adults and you should know about him.”

The manager came over and looked at me incredulously, asking, “Don’t you know Paul Robeson is a Communist?”

“So? It has nothing to do with his talent. Anyway, he’s a Socialist, not a Communist. My grandfather knows because he doesn’t like anyone who wasn’t for Lincoln or Roosevelt.” The resulting hush was almost a land tremor. I was dismissed like a fly, whooshed aside. I was annoyed and hurt.

Years later, a sadder realization. Robeson had returned from the Soviet Union disillusioned with the Socialism he thought would save the day. He looked sad and sounded sad in news accounts, but the overwhelming sorrow was knowing that his gift would not be truly known by all of us. Not to hear him sing with that tear in the throat in live performances or new recordings. What a loss.

Liz Dribben, Veteran CBS Radio Producer, Dies