Written by
Bob Stumpel

December 2
2011


Let The Sun Shine In (With The National Urban Coalition, 1970)


'70 TV TSWith National Urban Coalition

I totally missed that this clip has been on Youtube for more than a year now: a 1-minute version of the PSA Aquarius/Let The Sun Shine In, with a National Urban Coalition of 99 other artists and celebrities. There were also 30-second (“Let the Sun Shine In” sung twice) and 2-minute versions (sung 10 times). It looks and sounds awful, but here it is:

Filmed in color in New York on a day in December 1969, first aired during The Ed Sullivan Show of 9 March 1970.
The group included a.o. Ralph Bunche, Henry Fonda, Merv Griffin, Steve Lawrence & Eydie Gorme, Ali MacGraw, Leonard Nimoy, Leontyne Price, Ed Sullivan, Eli Wallach & Anne Jackson, Roy Wilkins, Flip Wilson, Mildred Dunnock, David Susskind, Bayard Rustin, Jim Bachus, Carlos Conde, Dina Merrill, John D. Rockefeller III, Debbie Offner, Cassandra Morgan, Arthur Goldberg, Richard Hatcher, Ossie Davis, Gwen Verdon, John W. Gardner, Pat Lambert, Jack Dempsey, Charles Lynch, Whitney Young, Ray Martel, Johnny Carson, Lillian Wong, Singer Williams, Dan Blocker, Chet Huntley, Myrna Loy, Cleveland Amory, Greg Morris, Greg Morris, Steve Lawrence, Ryan O’Neal, Leonard Nimoy, Dinah Shore, Gordon Parks, Carl Reiner, Martin Landau, Nipsy Russell.
Director Leonard Hirschfield used “a team of seven cinematographers” in the production. There’s a 2 minute tape in the collection of the Paley Center (their database mentions Joshua Logan as the director), and another copy in the Historic Films archive (ID COM-19). For more context read these earlier posts: 1, 2.


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