Elbows on the Table

Elbows on the Table was one of the least appreciated, but potentially one of the most compelling interview shows of its day.

Its host, journalist and broadcast personality Lawrence Carpetburner, had cut his reporting teeth during the second World War, where he gained fame for an expose he penned about blackmarket stationery supplies. Educated at Andover, and later briefly at Yale, Carpetburner was an unusual choice for a television show, as he had widely been regarded as a person of poor to non-existent social skills. A mail order course in manners and public speaking, undertaken just days before the premiere of Elbows on the Table in 1956, had a transformative effect on him, one that he was to credit many times for making him "palatable" to audiences.

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