NEW ORLEANS — Jan Carr, an energetic and enthusiastic presence on New Orleans television and radio for 60 years alongside her husband Bob, died Friday at Christwood Retirement Community in Covington. She was 91.
Beginning in 1960, the Carrs – who were married for 71 years – opened local TV and radio broadcasts with an incessantly cheery greeting: “This is Bob!” “And this is Jan!” They did so until August, when they were still producing and hosting a regular program at their retirement home, where they interviewed residents, staff and other guests.
As a married couple and the parents of four children whom they frequently discussed on air, the Carrs were called “the first family of New Orleans television.” They became household names throughout the 1960s and 70s for their appearances on WDSU-TV, first on a morning show called “Second Cup,” then on the station’s enormously popular “Midday” show.
Their segments focused on family, parenting, fashion and lifestyle topics. WDSU promoted them as “the personable young married couple” and a “happy marriage of entertainment and good common sense” who “inform, sound off and occasionally bicker. In short, Jan and Bob bring to New Orleans television sets a marriage that is warm and opinionated and entertaining and happy.”
The Carrs followed the same formula, working together in various media – television, radio and print – for 60 years. A trailblazing female broadcaster, Jan Carr was a model of the importance of staying active well past retirement age. Friends half her age marveled at her energy and enthusiasm, even into her 80s. She was quick to explain the secret.
“I love working with my husband, that’s the big thing,” she told New Orleans Magazine.
Carr was born Janet Lee Fitzsimmons on Dec. 12, 1930 in Pittsburgh. Her mother died when Carr was four. She was sent to Ohio to be raised by her grandparents. An early interest in performing was nurtured by dancing and elocution lessons. Carr later earned a degree in speech and communications from Chatham College, now Chatham University, in Pittsburgh.
She met Bob Carr in 1950 on the campus of Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie Mellon University), where both were pursuing degrees in theater.
The couple married a year later and graduated in 1952. They moved to New York to pursue careers in show business. Bob worked as a model and actor and Jan worked in the CBS casting office and trained as a dancer with the Rockettes at the famed Radio City Music Hall.
A family friend of Jan’s grandparents who owned a new TV station in Wheeling, West Virginia offered the young couple a job. As television pioneers, they literally built a talk show, named "Calling All Carrs," from scratch, helping assemble the cameras and construct the set. It co-starred a dog named Jillopy.
From Wheeling, they moved to Huntington, West Virginia and produced and hosted shows called “At Home with the Carrs” and “Current with the Carrs.”
In 1960, the couple moved to New Orleans for a job with WWL-AM, whose radio studios at the time were in the Roosevelt Hotel. A husband and wife broadcast team was such a novelty at the time that management had to ask the Jesuits of Loyola University, which owned WWL, for permission to hire them.
Once on the air, they hosted a midday show offering “tunes and topical tips for housewives,” which is how the station promoted the Carrs’ family-friendly fare.
They also did commercials for advertisers such as Luzianne coffee. While producing an early spot, advertising executive Peter Mayer suggested the couple introduce themselves individually: “This is Bob!” “And this is Jan! For Luzianne!” After the commercials ended, the catchphrase endured.
In 1961, while attending a French Quarter party hosted by friend and fellow WWL personality Margie O’Dair, the Carrs met Al Shea. The future Channel 6 star, who was then working mostly behind the scenes as a producer, encouraged the couple to audition for a new WDSU morning program, “Second Cup.” It was broadcast live each morning from the roof of the Royal Orleans Hotel, which had just opened next door to WDSU’s studios on Royal Street.
“We went up to see (station executives) Louis Read and Jerry Romig, did an audition and a few commercials for them and they fell in love with us and hired us on the spot,” Jan Carr said in a 2003 WYES-TV interview.
In 1963, the Carrs moved to WDSU’s “Midday” show, the daily program whose cast included a list of local TV legends: host and producer Terry Flettrich and co-stars Wayne Mack, Al Shea and Nash Roberts, plus newsroom contributors Alec Gifford, Ed Planer and Iris Kelso.
“’Midday’ was a magazine show, patterned after the ‘Today’ show, with news and weather and then topics geared to the New Orleans area,” Jan Carr said.
As on their other programs, she and Bob would contribute family and lifestyle segments to “Midday,” and talk about raising children and the ups and downs of family life, which resonated with viewers.
Bob Carr credited his wife with successfully balancing the demands of raising four children while building a career in broadcasting, then a male-dominated field.
“Jan and Terry (Flettrich) were working women with families who were able to have a career. That was unusual in the ‘60s,” he said.
Even more unusual was where the Carrs reared those kids for several years: in a house on Bourbon Street. Bob Carr wrote about the experiences in his 2010 memoir "Raising Our Kids on Bourbon: A French Quarter Love Affair.” The family also lived for a time in the Garden District, where they restored a historic home.
After WDSU was sold in 1972, the Carrs left the station. Jan Carr opened her own convention planning company and worked in the hospitality industry. Later, she was a fundraiser for the Louisiana Mental Health Association and a spokesperson for clients such as East Jefferson General Hospital.
But broadcasting was her true joy, and before long she was hosting radio and TV shows again. As she and Bob aged along with their listeners, station managers and advertisers realized they were the perfect hosts to reach an older audience.
In 1989, she returned to television on WLAE with a talk show, “The Jan Carr Show” and a show for seniors called “Silver Network.” She also produced programs and handled fundraising for REACH, a local religious cable channel.
She also did radio shows for WBYU “Bayou” 1450 AM. In 1999, she convinced Bob to join her as co-host, though he was happily retired after a second career at the World Trade Center.
"I wanted to work with Bob again," Jan said in a 1999 Times-Picayune article. "That might sound like a strange thing to say about my husband. But I always was happiest when we were working together.”
Their WBYU show, and later a Saturday morning show on WGSO-AM, featured their banter and celebrity interviews along with pop music from the 1950s and 60s, crooners, and songs from the big band era. They also edited Prime Magazine, a monthly publication tailored to seniors.
When not on air, Jan Carr frequently appeared in local theater and was involved with dozens of non-profit groups such as Patio Planters, Spring Fiesta, Vieux Carre Property Owners, Residents and Associates, the Garden District Association, Preservation Resource Center and Christ Church Cathedral. She and her husband also traveled the world, visiting nearly every continent.
The Carrs were inducted into the New Orleans Broadcasting Hall of Fame in 1994 and honored with a lifetime achievement award from the Press Club of New Orleans in 2003.
“I love working in broadcasting. It keeps me alert, it keeps me going, it allows me to meet people I'd probably never meet otherwise," Jan Carr said in 1999.
In addition to her husband, survivors include four children: Timothy Carr of St. Charles, Missouri; Tammy Richardson of Rome, Georgia; Tom Carr of Atlanta; and Tiffany Rieveschl of New Orleans; seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
A funeral service will be held Sept. 30 at 11 a.m. at Christ Church Cathedral, 2919 St. Charles Ave., New Orleans. Visitation will begin at 10 a.m.
