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Inventor of show business machine dies

Report

Almost anyone who's given a speech, led a meeting or acted on stage will recognise that sick feeling you get when you can't remember what you were about to say next. 

More than half a century ago, a team of engineers at one of America's biggest film studios was asked to help solve the problem for Hollywood's stars of the moment. Hubert J Schlafly Junior was a key member of the group, which arranged for the actors' lines to be printed on a scroll¹ of paper - which was put on a moving motor inside a suitcase next to a camera. The actors could glance at the paper if they forgot what was coming up.

The device² was tested on the set of a US soap opera and adopted by the former US President Herbert Hoover - two years later. Updated electrical versions³ are still popular with politicians and actors around the world. In fact, the machine is used so widely that some have been criticised for relying on it. 

According to a close friend, Hubert Schlafly didn't use a teleprompter himself until three years ago, when he was rehearsing a speech for his induction⁴ into the Cable⁵ Television Hall of Fame.

Charles Dolan, who chairs one of America's leading cable companies, has described him as the industry's 'most innovative⁶ engineer'.

Maddy Savage, BBC News