love & honor BY JOS H C H AP I N ’ 02
FROM STUDIO 14 TO NBC AND BACK No matter how busy he became as executive vice president at NBC Entertainment, Rick Ludwin ’70 found time to return to Miami every fall. Top right: Rick Ludwin ’70 was one of the NBC executives who oversaw the controversial transition from Johnny Carson to Jay Leno as The Tonight Show host in the 1990s.
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miamian magazine
One minute, Rick Ludwin ’70 and David Beller ’70 were
enjoying a quiet Sunday evening on campus. Fifteen minutes later, they were in WMUB’s studio, hastily conducting an interview with noted psychologist and psychedelic drug advocate Timothy Leary. That was just part of what made the Miami experience so special for Ludwin and Beller. The university gave them opportunities unavailable elsewhere. Like the opportunity to work on their own TV variety show, Studio 14. Or the opportunity to form a friendship that lasted long after both left Oxford. When Beller thinks of those times together, he smiles. Even with a yellow legal pad full of memories he’s jotted down, Beller needs no prompting — the stories and genuine happiness that come with remembering his friend flow freely. The incident with Leary is one. Ludwin was the host of Studio 14 and Beller the director, working alongside dozens of other students to make the show a success. Each week, they’d do an interview, a musical number, and a comedy sketch. On the night of the Leary interview, the crew quickly gathered — along with an audience — for the interview. “Fifteen minutes before we were taping it, we had no idea,” Beller said. “Rick did a terrific job, because everything Rick did, he did very well.” His career is a testament to that. Ludwin, who died in November 2019, began at NBC in 1980, eventually becoming executive vice president for late night and prime time series at NBC Entertainment. He is credited with getting Seinfeld on NBC and making it a staple, and he oversaw several of the network’s most popular late-night properties, including The Tonight Show and Saturday Night Live. When Ludwin passed, several
television personalities paid tribute to him, including TV hosts and comedians Conan O’Brien and Jimmy Fallon. Beller and a group of friends gathered at Ludwin’s childhood home in Cleveland to memorialize their friend — a home Ludwin still owned despite moving to the West Coast — and everyone shared the same thing about Ludwin: He was never one to talk about himself. Conversations with him felt like being on his talk show. He had the uncanny ability to steer the conversation back to his “guest.” “I think Rick’s entire life was preparing him to be a television host,” Beller said. He spent that life preparing others, too. Ludwin returned each year to Oxford to meet with students and was instrumental in establishing Miami’s Inside Hollywood program, a popular workshop in Los Angeles that gives Miami students who are passionate about media an intimate look at Hollywood careers. In March 2019, the TV studio in Williams Hall was renamed Rick Ludwin Studio. Upon his death, he left $10 million to the university in support of the Richard A. Ludwin Media and Culture Scholarship. “He was very committed to the students here, very loyal to the university, and always willing to meet with students,” said Bruce Drushel, chair of the Department of Media, Journalism and Film. “There were a few times he was talking with them for so long, he was getting hoarse.” Hundreds of students have benefited from his kindness. He also was generous with his contacts. Drushel noted that Miami had extraordinary success with students getting involved in the page program at NBC. While Ludwin never