I was looking at a thread at the Color TV forum whose title was "Elvis's RCA color TV at Graceland" and I thought it could be interesting if we started posting pictures of vintage TV sets that belonged to famous people. Here's my contribution ( I know, it's a horrible picture, but was the best I could get photographing a newspaper with a simple digital camera ): a 1951 TV radio-phono combo that belonged to Brazilian President Getulio Vargas ( two times President of Brazil: 1930/1945 and 1951/1954 ). I wish I knew the brand of the TV, a friend of mine said that it's an Olympic. The TV is with some other 900 itens that belonged to President Vargas in the Museum of the Republic in Rio de Janeiro. I emailed the museum weeks ago asking for information about this TV, but so far got no response. When I get the opportunity I will go to Rio de Janeiro and take better pictures of this TV. Unfortunately, it will not happen anytime soon, because I live at more than a 1000 kilometers from that city.

Anyone in the New York area could take pictures of President Roosevelt's TV sets at Hyde Park?

I repaired a 15" RCA New Vista Color portable for astronaut Buzz Aldrin. That was in the 80s. I also worked on a cheap RCA (Hitachi) VCR for President Reagan when he had his office in Century City after leaving the White House. It was fun meeting & talking with Buzz, but I never got to meet Pres. Reagan... Never in the office :(

As far as Elvis, I've seen programs showing inside the Graceland mansion, and I recall seeing a row of CTC-25-ish metal RCA sets mounted in the wall in a theatre room...

Charles

Roy Orbison and Waylon Jennings both had an Advent 1000A back in the day. Obviously led to premature death. (sorry, they were both good guys)

Roy Orbison and Waylon Jennings both had an Advent 1000A back in the day. Obviously led to premature death. (sorry, they were both good guys)

Both also recorded for RCA, as did John Denver, Harry Nilsson, Frank Zappa, Jerry Garcia and others who checked out prematurely. All but Jennings died around their 52nd or 53rd birthday (my next).

Roy Orbison and Waylon Jennings both had an Advent 1000A back in the day. Obviously led to premature death. (sorry, they were both good guys)

Both also died from their diets; Orbison had a triple bypass and Jennings had diabetes.

Boy, the new release of Firefox sure messed up my post..had to think fast to fill the extra two it created.

LBJ had a Motorola 23" Color TS908 chassis. Don't remember the model number.

Bruce

This one belonged to Marilyn Monroe.

Don't believe everything you read in an eBay listing.

Don't believe everything you read in an eBay listing.:scratch2: What? You mean Jack Benny didn't have a blond CT-100!:scratch2:

No, that TV really belonged to Marilyn Monroe...The photo didn't come from Ebay, I saved it from the CNN web site. It was from an CNN artcle about several Marilyn Monroe things that were auctioned.

That one belonged to the world's most famous soccer player of all time, Mister Pelé ... he bought it when he was 17, in 1958, just after he won his first World Cup in Sweden.

Can anyone identify this set? What is this, a GE?

But that color scheme ... those are the colors of the Brazilian flag ... looks like he ordered the TV to be painted in those colors, I don't believe that this model ever came out of the factory painted in green and yellow!

There it is:

What is going on??? I can't upload the picture! Something is wrong ... it just keeps saying "upload in progress" and doesn't get beyond this point!

Not a TV, but I have an old RCA VCR that was originally owned by actor George Clooney for more than 15 years. It is currently not working.

What is going on??? I can't upload the picture! Something is wrong ... it just keeps saying "upload in progress" and doesn't get beyond this point!

Check the size of the file, make sure it's below the limits.

je (got lots of famous people's A/V stuff, but not TVs)

I remember seeing those tvs in the wall at Graceland. I believe those were RCA CTC 31's, in metal cabinets.
Recently, I found a picture on an Elvis calendar which has one of the little 8" red metal cabinet RCA's in the background.

Moses Znaimer, the founder of City TV, has for a number of years maintained a museum that once sat in Toronto's City TV main office. I suppose for space reasons, he moved it down the street, and it is also somewhat restricted for access.

I do remember once seeing a room set up to display a white console TV that was claimed to have once belonged to Marilyn Munroe, and knowing what I do about Znaimer, I doubt that this was made up.

The museum's website appears to be hosted now by the Canadian Museum of Civilization, and can be accessed here:

http://www.civilization.ca/hist/tv/tv04eng.html

I had a quick look but didn't see MM's TV though :) The following is a quote from the site:

"The core of his collection is comprised of approximately 360 television receivers; 12,000 assorted television tubes, lamps, capacitors, etc.; 1475 schematics and manuals for televisions; 200 items of television memorabilia, including the original Felix the Cat broadcast model; a library of over 300 books on television; 1200 television magazines; and 300 still photographs."

This is a man that is serious about his TV!

I also worked on a cheap RCA (Hitachi) VCR for President Reagan when he had his office in Century City after leaving the White House. It was fun meeting & talking with Buzz, but I never got to meet Pres. Reagan... Never in the office.
I'm really anxious to know what was the model number of Reagan's RCA VCR, and was it the 6-belt or 1-belt chassis?

Here's Emmett Till next to a TV set in his family's home. His family must have been doing fine, as that TV would have been only a year or so old at the time, and somewhat expensive.
http://www.umbc.edu/blogs/foralltheworld/emmett%20till.jpg This was the kid who was killed by some racists in the south in the mid 50's.

Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s RCA XL-100. Seems legit.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/221225519035

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0hof3JS7q1rqzg94o1_500.jpg

I think we learned since this pic first appeared that Brando's set is a Pacific Mercury.

And the TV set Elvis shot:
http://images.travelpod.com/tripwow/photos/ta-0099-0590-c0cc/the-tv-elvis-shot-memphis-united-states+1152_12731881491-tpfil02aw-27180.jpg

Elvis should have known better, using one of those black metal remotes voids the warranty.

A zenith remote?

More like a .44 or.45 cal remote... obviously his remote must not have match the chassis number...

...and that remote only has an "off" button...

Back in the summer of '75, i had taken a new job in Pinetop AZ, a small town which hosts a lot of summer resort cabins. Went on a service call to a cabin where the TV was a Zenith 19" color table model, 4 tube hybrid. Repair was very routine, tube replacement and minor set-up.
Back at the shop the Boss (with a slinky grin) knowing i was an aviation buff, asked "do you know who that guy is?"
"No, just 'Mister Boynton'".
"He is Pappy Boyington."
"You mean THE Pappy Boyington?!"
"Yep. He uses the shortened spelling to avoid the limelight."

'Mr. Boynton' in person was just a regular, anassuming guy.
To this day don't know for sure if the Boss was pulling a fast one. But doubt that he was, since he was a devout Christian and adherent to the Good Book.

(Lots of tuner repairs from blown baluns up there too, from nearby lightning strikes.)

Not a TV, but I have a Zenith VR-9000W Betamax VCR which supposedly once belonged to fashion designer Bill Blass. I found it at an antiques shop, along with a stack of Beta tapes of his fashion shows (newest one was from 1988). It supposedly came from his summer cottage, which they cleaned out after he died. I told the store owners that I had a working Beta VCR, and they said I could have the Zenith if I could confirm what was on the tapes. I had to mess with the speed and tracking controls on my BI-only Sony industrial VCR to play the tapes, since they were recorded in BII, but I was soon greeted by fuzzy images of models wearing pastel clothing. I brought the tapes back to the store owners, told them what was on them, and they gave me the VCR. I think they were planning to sell the tapes on eBay, but I have no idea what happened to them, and the antiques store closed a few months later. The VCR needs work, but I still have it.
-Adam

I remember hearing at one time that Regan Had a KV-3000.

How about the TRK-12 that RCA gave Franklin Roosevelt? Beautiful set, still on the property in Hyde Park New York. Not sure what kind of reception it recieved but the house was on the river. I would like to know if some sort of RF amplifier was added.

When I was working at RCA in Indianapolis we sent a prototype 35" CTC-169 to the white house. Had to be cleared by the secret service. Don't remember which president that was. Must have been Bill Clinton.

This is interesting trivia ... but much of this is lost to history.
Would be great if as much trivia like this as possible could be preserved.

Carl

Not as famous as a President but my CT-100 was originally purchased and owned by Budd Lynch, who was the radio announcer for the Detroit Red Wings from 1949 through the 70's and then PA announcer in the 80's. He gave it to a family friend whom I purchased it from and who remembered watching it in the Lynch home when he was a child. It was always in a controlled climate environment which I am sure contributed to the fact that the CRT is still good.

When I worked in the TV shop in Barstow we sold a used 19" Zenith Color set to Pat Buttram (a.k.a. Mr Haney of green Acres).

When I worked in the TV shop in Barstow we sold a used 19" Zenith Color set to Pat Buttram (a.k.a. Mr Haney of green Acres).
Also the voice of Cactus Jake in Garfield and Friends. I saw him in Back to the Future Part 3 as well, he was one of the saloon regulars. His other works I'm not familiar with.

Reading this thread really makes me wonder about the history of, well, most all of the electronics stuff that I have and that which is floating around all over the country. I never really thought about just who was sitting in front of or around any of my radios or TVs, but really any of us could have something that a famous person once had and through the years the origin was just lost and forgotten about.

You gotta think that pretty much everybody has some form of home entertainment, and once it is broken or deemed "obsolete" by the marketing wizzards, it is then ejected to God knows where, but most likely not thrown in the garbage. So, through following decades I am sure that most stuff goes through several owners, but nobody really knows who originally purchased it. Pretty interesting to think about really.

...Oh, Brother..I SURE DO WISH my Boatanchors could "Talk", & tell ME where they'd been, what they'd heard..Who/what branch of the Service owned my PRISTINE 1955-contract Collins R-390A ? Or my "Whanged-on-the-Back-Panel" R-389 that ended its career early in its life, til I got ahold of it ? The 1935 RCA AR-60, it HAD to be "Somebody's Baby", 'cause its the "Deluxe" model w/2-tone case, & at $495 new, it was almost as expensive as a new Ford V-8..

I also wonder who owned and what my Aussie radios were listening to back when they were new.http://www.wa2ise.com/radios/healingL502e.jpg http://www.wa2ise.com/radios/Tasma1001baby.jpg

Or who had this radio in China before they made stuff for WalMart http://www.wa2ise.com/radios/panda601-1a.jpg This radio's shortwave bands were disabled, jumpers shorting the local oscillator coils.