The most glittering, expensive, and exhausting videotaping session in television history took place Friday February 19, 1982 at New York’s Radio City Music Hall. The event, for which ticket-buyers paid up to $1,000 a seat (tax-deductible as a contribution to the Actors’ Fund) was billed as “The Night of 100 Stars” but, actually, around 230 stars took part. And most of the audience of 5,800 had no idea in advance that they were paying to see a TV taping, complete with long waits for set and costume changes, tape rewinding, and the like. Executive producer Alexander Cohen estimated that the 5,800 Radio City Music Hall seats sold out at prices ranging from $25 to $1,000. The show itself cost about $4 million to produce and was expected to yield around $2 million for the new addition to the Actors Fund retirement home in Englewood, N. J. ABC is reputed to have paid more than $5 million for the television rights.
Rated G | Length 182 minutes
Jane Alexander | Peter Allen | Steve Allen | June Allyson | Don Ameche | Loni Anderson | Susan Anton | Lucie Arnaz | Bea Arthur | Ed Asner | Christopher Atkins | Lauren Bacall | Catherine Bach | Pearl Bailey | Kaye Ballard | Martin Balsam | Priscilla Barnes | Warren Beatty | Harry Belafonte | Tony Bennett | Milton Berle | Theodore Bikel | Tom Bosley | Barry Bostwick | Danielle Brisebois | Jack Buetel | George Burns | Ellen Burstyn | James Caan | James Cagney | Diahann Carroll | Lynda Carter | Nell Carter | Patrick Cassidy | Richard Chamberlain | Carol Channing | Cher | Dick Clark | James Coco | Joan Collins | Peter Cook | Bud Cort | Howard Cosell | Cathy Lee Crosby | Christopher Cross | Arlene Dahl | Sammy Davis Jr. | Bette Davis | Pam Dawber | Robert De Niro | Frances Dee | Danny DeVito | Colleen Dewhurst | Joyce DeWitt | Plácido Domingo | Alfred Drake | Sandy Duncan | Nancy Dussault | Linda Evans | Douglas Fairbanks Jr. | Morgan Fairchild | Lola Falana | Peter Falk | Alice Faye | José Ferrer | Peggy Fleming | Jane Fonda | John Forsythe | Phyllis Frelich | Eva Gabor | Anthony Geary | Andy Gibb | Melissa Gilbert | Lillian Gish | Ruth Gordon | Farley Granger | Linda Gray | Rocky Graziano | Joel Grey | Charles Grodin | Harry Guardino | Robert Guillaume | Larry Hagman | Margaret Hamilton | Valerie Harper | Julie Harris | Goldie Hawn | Helen Hayes | Florence Henderson | Doug Henning | Judd Hirsch | Dustin Hoffman | Celeste Holm | Lena Horne | Ken Howard | Barnard Hughes | George S. Irving | Kate Jackson | Judith Jamison | Anne Jeffreys | Ann Jillian | Van Johnson | James Earl Jones | Diane Keaton | Howard Keel | Gene Kelly | Grace Kelly | Deborah Kerr | Richard Kiley | Robert Klein | Jack Klugman | Ted Knight | Ed Koch | Laura La Plante | Burt Lancaster | Frank Langella | Linda Lavin | Michael Learned | Michele Lee | Janet Leigh | Jack Lemmon | David Letterman | Hal Linden | John V. Lindsay | Gina Lollobrigida | Priscilla Lopez | Dorothy Loudon | Myrna Loy | Gavin MacLeod | Penny Marshall | Mary Martin | James Mason | Marcello Mastroianni | Joel McCrea | Michael McDonald | Maureen McGovern | Ethel Merman | Dina Merrill | Ann Miller | Liza Minnelli | Anna Moffo | Jaime Monroy | Dudley Moore | Mary Tyler Moore | Roger Moore | Paul Newman | Leonard Nimoy | Jerry Orbach | Frank Oz | Al Pacino | Hildy Parks | Gregory Peck | Anthony Perkins | Christopher Plummer | Jane Powell | Stefanie Powers | Robert Preston | Victoria Principal | Anthony Quinn | Charlotte Rae | Tony Randall | Robert Reed | Christopher Reeve | Lionel Richie | Jason Robards | Pernell Roberts | Cliff Robertson | Ginger Rogers | Mickey Rooney | John Rubinstein | Jane Russell | Isabel Sanford | John Schneider | Ricky Schroder | George Segal | William Shatner | Brooke Shields | Sylvia Sidney | Alexis Smith | Allison Smith | Maureen Stapleton | Robert Sterling | James Stewart | Beatrice Straight | Lee Strasberg | Donald Sutherland | Lynn Swann | Elizabeth Taylor | Daniel J. Travanti | Cicely Tyson | Liv Ullmann | Peter Ustinov | Ben Vereen | Jack Warden | Orson Welles | Robin Williams | Treat Williams | Henry Winkler | Gabriel Velez