CEA Memorial Tribute Hails CES Founder Wayman as Visionary, War Hero

Few in the CE industry who knew CES founder Jack Wayman knew that he "was adopted by loving parents," said Pete McCloskey, former president of the Electronic Industries Alliance, one of several industry luminaries and family members to pay homage to Wayman at a memorial tribute and luncheon Monday in New York organized by CEA. "He never knew his birth parents," McCloskey said of Wayman, who died Aug. 30 at the age of 92 at his home in Boulder, Colorado, after a long illness (see 1409030064). "Not knowing where he came from, I believe, made him prejudice-free," said McCloskey. "He accepted people as they were and judged them on what they accomplished." Wayman's introduction to show business came when he was a younger man and dressed up as a Seminole to wrestle alligators, McCloskey quipped. McCloskey also hailed Wayman as a war hero who earned a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts as a veteran at Normandy Beach and in the Battle of the Bulge. McCloskey recalled how Wayman and then-MPAA President Jack Valenti were "on opposite sides of the Betamax case." Valenti "had a locker a row or two away from me at my golf club, and he kept asking me, ‘Who is Jack Wayman?’" McCloskey said. "Well, he soon found out." McCloskey also recalled Valenti "famously" told Congress that "the VCR is to the American film producer what the Boston Strangler is to the woman home alone." But Wayman in those same congressional hearings countered that the VCR would be Hollywood’s "salvation," McCloskey said. "I was particularly pleased to tell Valenti in 1987 that far from strangling the industry, video incomes to the studios exceeded box office incomes."