Ed Sullivan was an unlikely TV personality. Sullivan was a journalist by trade—a man of the written, not the spoken, word. His body was stiff, almost mechanical, and his enunciation unusual. What Sullivan may have lacked in charismatic and photogenic qualities, he made up for those deficits with taste, and as this terrific documentary illuminates, courage.
While Sullivan’s ability as a tastemaker on his long-running (23 years) CBS Sunday Night variety show broadcast has been covered at some length, director Sacha Jenkins goes far deeper than any other coverage by focusing on Sullivan’s willingness to showcase performers of color. By narrowing the focus of his film to this one profound aspect of Sullivan’s TV tenure, Jenkins illuminates Sullivan as a low-key but incredibly significant civil rights activist.
At a time when Black artists struggled to gain traction on radio and television airwaves, Sullivan, from 1948 to 1971, platformed their talents freely. It is a testament to Sullivan’s power that he was able to beat back the challenges of his network and sponsors so successfully. As the film points out, The Ed Sullivan Show was appointment TV for America, and that included black America.
Sunday Best makes sure we understand the seeds of Sullivan’s open mind: they came from his parents. As Sullivan states in the film, his parents weren’t activists; they were merely “sensible” in their view that people should be treated equally. As a second-generation Irish-American, Sullivan knew the prejudice that people of Irish descent encountered after immigrating to the United States. Sullivan took the lessons he learned from his own experience and, uniquely, applied his struggle to others, namely Black people. It’s an attribute that some might call “empathy.” One that was in short supply during the Jim Crow and Civil Rights era.
Jenkins adeptly charts Sullivan’s formative years and his foray into journalism as a sportswriter and editor. Sullivan used his position to argue for the inclusion of Black athletes in sports at all levels. The quotes taken from his exceedingly well-written articles revealed a man who was talented with the quill and firm in his belief that there should be no barrier to entry, beyond one’s talent, on the field of play.
As Sullivan’s media might grew, he found himself in the unlikely position of TV host. Over the record-long length of his variety show, Sullivan booked every single guest himself. He was enamored by talent, no matter where it came from or what complexion it came out of. In Sunday Best, we see simple acts that we may take for granted now that were on the border of revolutionary then—booking the activist singer/actor Harry Belafonte, shaking hands with Black artists, and toasting them effusively, as well as accepting a kiss on the cheek from Diana Ross.
A number of the legends that are interviewed in Sunday Best (including Belafonte, Smokey Robinson, and Oprah Winfrey) attest to the power and importance of Black representation on Ed Sullivan’s stage. Winfrey speaks to the power of seeing someone who looks like you in a sea of nearly all-white programming. Belafonte tells a story about his booking and Sullivan’s concern that the golden-throated singer and activist might be anti-American. After a brief but pointed conversation, Sullivan reversed course and had Belafonte on The Ed Sullivan Show, and effusively praised Belafonte post-performance.
The film argues that Sullivan didn’t make these choices out of any sort of radical activism, but merely from inherent decency and a love of entertainers. If you were talented enough, you belonged on his stage, pigment be damned. It’s a perspective both simple and, at the time, revolutionary. To Sullivan, his stage was as the world should be.
Imagine the white host of an American variety show stating that Harlem is always ahead of the curve in the world of entertainment during such a time of racial strife. Well, you don’t have to imagine it, because Jenkins shows you Sullivan doing just that.
Jenkins shared with friend and sportswriter Howard Bryant in June of 2023 that Sunday Best “..is straightforward in many ways,” and that “People just don’t know about him (Sullivan), so there are some surprises.” While Sunday Best may not be a radical film, it effectively showcases the value of privilege when combined with inherent decency. It is a value that was in far too short supply then, and is in far too short supply now. In that sense, maybe the film is more radical than it appears. The date may have changed, but the struggle to view one another fairly and with understanding remains.
As the film closes, a postscript dedication to the film’s director appears on screen. Sacha Jenkins died this year at the far-too-young age of fifty-three. Sunday Best is his last film. Like Sullivan, Jenkins was also a taste-maker through print and screen. On the surface, one might think that these two men had little in common, but one would be wrong. They both had a gift for media, curation, and for shining a light on talent in multiple realms. Sullivan and Jenkins turned appreciation into more than advocacy. They turned it into art.
What a pity that there are so few like them today.
Sunday Best: The Untold Story of The Ed Sullivan Show is airing on Netflix now.
