Ted Cordes Dies: Longtime Head Of NBC’s Broadcast Standards Was 87

Theordore F. Cordes, who spent over 30 years at NBC including as its head of broadcast standards, has died at the age of 87.

Ted Cordes worked on some of NBC’s key shows including The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, The Tomorrow Show, L.A. Law, Law & Order and the Saturday morning animated Star Trek series.

He died on Sunday July 6 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in LA from complications due to Alzheimer’s disease, according to his husband, William J. Derby.

Joining the company as a page in Burbank before rising to become VP, Broadcast Standards, West Coast, he once said that his career began by answering fan mail for Bonanza in 1963 and ended in 2014 when he handled broadcast standards for Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

After serving in the U.S. Army from 1961-63, stationed in Korea, upon his return, he joined NBC as a page, before briefly leaving in 1966 to join advertising agency Dancer-Fitzgerald-Sample and then returning to NBC in 1972 and began working in broadcast standards. He retired from NBC in January 2014.

Cordes often said that his favorite show he worked on was The Tomorrow Show, hosted by Tom Snyder. He traveled with the show including to Vietnam in 1974, a year after the Paris Peace Accords but while fighting was still going on as well as to a prison in Tennessee that same year when Snyder interviewed Martin Luther King’s assassin, James Earl Ray, in his cell, which was too small to accommodate the usual contingent of production crew.

Joel Tator, the show’s first executive producer and director, said, “There was only room for Tom, Ray, two cameramen, a guard, a stage manager and Ted.”

“Ted was with us when Tomorrow began. He was always cordial, fair and patient even though he had to deal with shows at nudist colonies, various prisons and an arduous trip through the Far East. He was always supportive of our out-of-the-box projects. I will miss his smile and his professionalism,” he added.

He also worked on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. In an interview with the LA Times in 2014, he recalled interacting with the host about his Carnac bit.

“The way the gag worked, Ed McMahon would give the answer and Johnny would divine the question. The answer to this question was, ‘Bitch, horny and ass.’ And Johnny replied, ‘What three words can they say on Saturday Night Live that we cannot say on The Tonight Show.’ I said, “Wait a minute, he’s right, you can’t say those words on The Tonight Show.”

Cordes spoke to producer Fred de Cordova but he insisted that he speak with Carson.

“So we went up to Johnny Carson’s office, and I started giving him the company line as to why he couldn’t do it, the affiliates and the sales and all that. And I could see that he just wasn’t buying it, his eyes were almost glazing over. So I interrupted myself and said, ‘Besides, it really isn’t funny. It’s funny to me and it’s funny to you cause we’re in the business, but it’s not going to be funny to some guy in Arkansas.’

“He didn’t even take a beat; he turned to Fred de Cordova and said, ‘He’s right, take it out.’,” he added.

Among those who worked for Cordes was Lynn Dowling, whose father, Jerry Stanley was his boss as VP, Broadcast Standards between 1974 and 1981.

“Ted’s mentorship while I was at NBC was clearly genuine and valuable, but his kindness and support extended to everyone in our department. When our work relationship deepened into a warm personal friendship that included our respective spouses, I was fortunate to be able to share with him many wonderful experiences over the next several decades. Looking back over our time in broadcast standards, I have a particularly touching memory of Ted at a time of downsizing the department, when it was his responsibility to lay someone off. Before calling the person into his office, he closed the door and broke down in tears in front of me. Ted and I were close for half my life. I will always love him,” Dowling said.

Cordes is survived by his husband William J. Derby, his sister, Dorothy Harmala, and his nephews, Scott Harmala and William Harmala.