Surfside 6: TV show, houseboat, an inventor and a Fort Lauderdale link

Surfside 6 at Dania Beach
State Archives of Florida

 

 

By Jane Feehan

The 1960 TV show Surfside 6 started off with a bang. It seemed like a solid concept: three private eyes, two female characters and a glamorous setting aboard a houseboat in Miami Beach. It was docked at Indian Creek across from the high-profile and beautiful Fontainebleau Hotel.

In the hour-long weekly series, the trio used a plane and a jet-powered boat in their escapades. Detectives were played by Troy Donohue, a feature film heart throb at the time (Sandy Winfield II), Lee Patterson (Dave Thome) and Van Williams (Ken Madison). The cast also included Diane McBain (Daphne Dutton) and Margarita Sierra (Cha Cha O’Brien) as their crime-solving sidekicks.

Despite the glamour and prior assessment as an overnight success, the Warner Brothers production, sponsored by General Motors, ended April 1962. Critics cited poor writing among the reasons the showed bombed. The show, however, did spawn another success story, that of the builder of the Surfside 6 houseboat.

That story, the tale of Larry Vita—is far more interesting than the TV show. Vita was a Long Island builder who decided to take a vacation aboard the $80,000 houseboat he built in the late 1950s. Powered by three Mercedes engines, the houseboat he named Driftwood carried Vita down the Intracoastal to the dock across from the Fontainebleau late in 1959 or early in 1960. 

The 60 x 28 ft. boat was eye catching. It was also comfortable. It sported a 1,000-sq-ft sundeck, held three bedrooms, two baths, a full kitchen, rugs and a special sewage disposal. It also featured air-conditioning, heating, a brick fireplace, rotating TV antenna, telephone, and hi-fi throughout each room.  

Warner Brothers exec William T. Orr, vacationing at the hotel, spotted Vita’s impressive boat and asked about using it for the new show. A deal was made and a replica was constructed for in-studio shots. The show aired in October 1960.

Viewer queries about the houseboat were hard to ignore. Vita, 42, decided there could be a market for houseboats. He was right.

He partnered with Fort Lauderdale resident Ralph Weidler, 49 (Levittown, Long Island builder), to launch Surfside 6 Floating Homes, Inc. with $500,000. They built a factory at 2000 SW 20^th Street in Fort Lauderdale. Weeks after the show aired, they had 30 orders. 

Advertisements enticed customers with a “new way of life” on a floating home that came with or without an engine, low-maintenance fiberglass hulls, and complete furnishings. Most were not sold with engines because a tugboat could haul one “for about $10 an hour” to the many dock sites available. 

Financing was offered by Broward National Bank with 25 percent down and payments over five years. Houseboats sold from $9,500 up to $50k plus. Surfside 6 Floating Homes, Inc. was the biggest, most famous houseboat company in the world, Vita claimed. Boxing champ Floyd Patterson bought one.

The TV show Surfside 6 ended but Floating Homes, Inc. had a much longer life. The company sold 400-500 for the next few years in the U.S. and the Caribbean. The original Surfside 6 remained at the Miami Beach location and Vita continued to live on his famous floating home. It appeared in the movie Goldfinger before Hurricane Cleo paid it a visit in 1964, causing extensive damage.   

The damaged Surfside 6 was hauled to Marina Bay in southwest Fort Lauderdale. It was bought and sold several times, serving as a restaurant in Dania Beach and perhaps, for a time, in Key West. In 1997, Vita said he thought it was in Jacksonville, FL; he had lost track decades ago.

The Larry Vita story continued after he left Floating Homes, Inc. in 1973 when concerns about waterway environment, obstruction of views and lack of dockage space affected sales.

Vita had other plans. He built 20 floating stations for the U.S. Coast Guard and 200 floating rooms for Marina Bay Resort. He was the first to use shipping containers for jail construction (about 1989).  

Vita also provided contract construction for the U.S government in Kuwait and other geo-political hot zones in the early 90s. It was this that reportedly negatively affected his finances and may have ended his run. 

In 2004 he was 88, living alone with his dog on the New River in a boat. He was still at it, thinking about ways to innovate. Vita was prescient. He submitted a design for an energy-producing wind turbine to Florida Power and Light in the '90s or early 2000s. Amazing. Larry Vita died in 2008, survived by two children Larry and Lorrie and other family. Quite a life.

Copyright © 2023. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan

Sources: 

Miami Herald, July 3, 1960

Miami News, Aug. 10, 1960

Miami News, Sept. 11, 1960

Miami News, Oct. 27, 1960

Miami Herald, Dec. 18, 1960

Miami News, Sept. 1, 1964

Miami News, March 2, 1966

South Florida Sun-Sentinel Aug. 24, 1989

Chicago Tribune, Sept. 21, 1997

Miami Herald, Aug. 1, 2004

 

Tags: Miami Beach history, Surfside 6, Houseboats, Larry Vita, Floating Homes, Inc., 1960s TV shows, Fort Lauderdale history

Miami launches first Florida TV station and a few long television careers

                    Below; Early WTVJ News crew:
                    *Leslie, Thurston, Tucker
                    State of Florida Archives

By Jane Feehan

Florida’s first and the nation’s 16th television station, WTVJ, began broadcasting with a 25-minute news show March 21, 1949. At the time there were roughly 2,000 TV sets in South Florida.

Key Wester Mitchell Wolfson*, communications pioneer and president of Wometco Enterprises, brought his idea to reality at a studio established at the Capitol Theater on Miami Avenue in Miami. He tapped Ralph Renick*, fresh out of the University of Miami, as the station’s first news director. 

Renick, who had no one to direct in the first days, remained the news ratings leader in the South Florida market for 35 years. He closed his news broadcasts with “Good night and may the good news be yours,” until he left WTVJ for an unsuccessful bid for governor in 1985.

Bob Weaver*, an early friend of Renick's, joined the staff in 1949 as an intern from the University of Miami and was tasked with a variety of duties. He delivered the station's first weather segment and established himself as “Weaver the Weatherman.” Weaver worked at WTVJ for 54 years until retirement in 2003. Pennsylvanian (but born in Indiana) Chuck Zink* came to WTVJ in 1956 where he became known throughout South Florida as "Skipper Chuck" for the children’s show he headlined for 23 years. He left the station in 1980.

In its TV pioneer days, WTVJ's signal was normally received within a radius of 75 miles. At times during certain atmospheric conditions, television sets as far away as Pennsylvania and New Jersey received WTVJ broadcasts.

Television leaped onto center stage of South Florida living rooms within three years. By 1951 Orange Bowl organizers blamed WTVJ for the decline in football game attendance. Today the station, formerly an CBS affiliate, is known as NBC 6 Miami.

Ralph Renick far left - Florida State Archives

Video:
Check out Florida Memory's Fifteen Years with 4-WTVJ
http://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/245398

*Leslie appears to be Renick in top photo. Identification by State of Florida Archives may be a mistake. 

* Wolfson died in 1983 at 82.
* Renick died in 1991 at 62.
* Bob Weaver died in 2006 at 77.
* Chuck Zink died in 2006 at 81.

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Sources:
Palm Beach Post, Jan. 29, 1983
Miami News, Sept 1, 1978
Miami News, Dec.22, 1951
Miami News, June 11, 1949
WTVJ at:

http://www.nbcmiami.com/on-air/about-us/WTVJ-Station-History.html

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Tags: South Florida history, South Florida TV history, first television station in Miami, Miami history, WTVJ, film researcher

South Florida's Skipper Chuck: more than Popeye Playhouse

By  Jane Feehan

It was tough getting a kid in the audience for Popeye Playhouse, the popular children’s show hosted by “Skipper Chuck” Zink on WTVJ (CH 4).  At times there was a three-month wait to get a coveted seat. Children had to be five years old to get on the set; it was not uncommon for mothers to lie about the little one's ages.

After five years in radio and television in Pennsylvania (when he was second choice host to a show Merv Griffin landed), Zink came to WTVJ in 1957. He hosted Popeye Playhouse, a concept he developed around a syndicated cartoon package, weekdays at 5 p.m. In 1961 he expanded programming for children with a Saturday show at 8 a.m. It replaced the weekly Western movies he hosted.

By 1961, the two shows were all that was left of live television at WTVJ. Zink, proud of that distinction, was known as a stern taskmaster on set who let cameramen and production assistants have it when they flubbed a prop cue.

By that time, Zink, who did not have children of his own, had a trove of stories about kids on the playhouse. He recounted one tale in 1961 about a boy who called out “Chuck” during a commercial. When Zink asked what he wanted the kid said “hurry up so we can get out of here.” When a savings institution sponsored Popeye Playhouse, Zink coaxed 9,000 South Florida kids into saving about $750,000 in total. Also noteworthy, the show had the first integrated audience of children in South Florida. 

Popeye Playhouse ran until 1979 but by that time, Zink's resume included a number of titles and projects that elevated his popularity among all age levels. He hosted the Orange Bowl Parade a few times as well as the Miss Universe and Miss USA pageants. In 1968 he played a bit part in the Miami-made movie Mission Mars. He served as national vice president of the Muscular Dystrophy Association and hosted the local productions aired during the Jerry Lewis telethons for the cause. Zink also hosted and produced a Ringling Brothers show and participated in about 50 documentaries.  

After his WTVJ days, Zink moved to Palm Beach County where he hosted a number of radio shows for seniors. Indiana-born Zink, a former U.S. Marine and Bronze Star Medal recipient who served in World War II, died in Boca Raton in 2006 at age 80 (or 81). He was survived by wife, Clarice Zink who died in 2011. Copyright © 2013. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Sources:

Miami News, Oct. 29, 1961

Miami News, Nov. 27, 1980

Miami Herald, Jan. 6, 2006

Tags: Kids TV shows in Miami during the 1960s, Chuck Zink, WTVJ history, Skipper Chuck, broadcast history, historical researcher