Frank Biondo

In his three-hour interview, Frank Biondo talks about his childhood in Brooklyn, joining the Navy, and being a bond clerk on Wall Street before going to school for TV production and learning to be a camera operator. He discusses his early jobs in production at WTTV in Washington, D.C. and WBZ in Boston before getting hired by NBC in New York. He describes being a camera operator at the 1964 World's Fair, at the United Nation's General Assembly sessions, on the show Supermarket Sweep, on the soap opera The Nurses, on Barbra Streisand's TV special A Happening in Central Park, and on the ABC show That's Life. He talks about evolving technology in cameras over the years, and differences between operating a Chapman and a jib. He details his then-fifty years as a camera operator on Sesame Street, recalling memorable episodes and songs, working with the cast and Muppeteers, changes to the set and the way the show is shot, and his role as emcee of the Sesame Street wrap parties for the last forty-five years. He also discusses being a camera operator on two other Children's Television Workshop programs -- The Best of Families and The Electric Company -- and on the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. He tells stories of interactions with people he's worked with over the years, including John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Andy Warhol, Danny Devito and Rhea Perlman, Diana Ross, and Michael Jackson. He shares what he enjoys about being a camera operator, offers advice to aspiring camera operators, and concludes with remarks about how he'd like to be remembered. Adrienne Faillace conducted the interview on October 2, 2019 in Long Island, NY.