Ed Harvey, 92, Philadelphia broadcast pioneer

Ed Harvey, 92, of Wayne, the dean of Philadelphia talk-show hosts, died of cancer Wednesday at the Malvern home of his daughter Susan Rhoades.

Mr. Harvey joined the staff of WCAU-TV and radio in 1951. He hosted the

Here's Harvey

morning show for WCAU-AM six days a week and also hosted the

Fun and Fortune

quiz show on WCAU-TV twice a week. He called the quiz show the worst TV program ever, his daughter said, and considered it his "fortune" when Ed McMahon, Johnny Carson's future

Tonight Show

sidekick, returned from military duty in Korea to relieve him.

In 1960, Mr. Harvey was the first area radio personality to implement technology that permitted dialogue between callers and the on-air host. Previously the host had to repeat what was said, because listeners could not hear callers. He and the station engineer developed a seven-second delay to block callers using inappropriate language.

For more than a dozen years Mr. Harvey interviewed dignitaries and celebrities for his daily

The Talk of Philadelphia

radio program, including Jimmy Hoffa, Malcolm X, Bob Hope, and U.S. presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard M. Nixon. In 1965, despite protests from the NAACP, he interviewed Robert Shelton, imperial grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

When a reporter asked him his opinion of current talk shows in 1997, Mr. Harvey said, "I created a monster." While there were exceptions, he said, most talk shows were "radio mud-wrestling. Look at the slimy subjects they take up."

Mr. Harvey also reported on current events and broke the news on the radio that President John F. Kennedy had died two minutes before CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite made the announcement on TV, his daughter said. The Newseum in Washington is preparing to exhibit the tape of the announcement, along with Mr. Harvey's microphone.

In 1960, he broadcast the Eagles' NFL championship season with Bill Campbell.

Mr. Harvey left WCAU in the early 1970s to become an advertising executive. Since 1978, he had been vice president of public relations for the Insurance Institute of America in Malvern.

He kept returning to the air, though, his daughter said. In 1968, he was general manager and had a radio show at a station in Phoenixville, and for many years he and his second wife, Marge Wieting Harvey, were volunteer hosts on a radio show sponsored by the Associated Services for the Blind and Visually Impaired. The program featured a "mystery guest" in the form of one of Mr. Harvey's archived interviews.

For the last several years, Mr. Harvey hosted an occasional one-hour radio program,

The Business of Marketing

, produced by a local business publication, Advertising/Communication Times. He was inducted into the Broadcast Pioneers Hall of Fame in 1998.

Mr. Harvey earned a bachelor's degree in journalism from Grinnell College in Iowa, his native state. During World War II, he served in the Navy as a captain of a submarine chaser and participated in the invasion of Sicily.

After his discharge, he and a Navy buddy, Robert Wilder, started a public relations office operating out of a phone booth on Rittenhouse Square. Later he quipped that his radio fans could fit into that phone booth. In fact, his daughter said, there were more than 200 Harvey's Hucksters who met regularly and organized trips.

Mr. Harvey enjoyed fishing with his grandson; word games with his granddaughters; and hosting an annual golf tournament, the "Cadaver Open," for retired colleagues.

He never lost his Midwest values, his daughter said, and was involved with numerous charities. He gave pens and pins embossed with the phrase "You're the Greatest" to people who did good deeds.

In addition to his daughter and his wife of almost 30 years, Mr. Harvey is survived by a son, James; a daughter, Barbara Safford; and three grandchildren. His former wife, Marion Bennett Harvey, preceded him in death.

A memorial service will be held Sept. 6. A time and location have not yet been confirmed.

Memorial donations to support aspiring journalists may be made to the Ed Harvey Memorial Fund, 1524 Morstein Rd., Malvern, Pa. 19355.