Peter Tripp, who wowed radio audiences with his mid-1950s Top-40 countdown record shows on WHB in Kansas City, and later at New York City's WMGM, died January 31, 2000, from an apparent stroke at his home in West Hills, California. He was taken to North Ridge, California, Hospital. Tripp was 73 years old.
Tripp became one of the nation's best known Top-40 countdown radio personalities beginning in 1954 at Todd Storz' WHB in Kansas City, and at Lowes Theatres' WMGM in New York City from 1955 through 1960 with his "Your Hits Of The Week" program.
Billing himself at "The Curley-headed Kid In The Third Row", Tripp is best remembered for the WMGM promotion where he remained awake for 201 hours during a sleep deprivation stunt benefitting the March Of Dimes. Tripp's no-sleep marathon became a studied event. According to his son Peter Jr., "What started out as a stunt has become required reading in the behavioral sciences at colleges and universities from coast-to-coast."
Saying he "never took a dime from anyone" (in the record business), Tripp became entangled in the "payola" (record play for pay) scandals of the late 1950s and early 1960s. He was forced to leave WMGM and took assignments at KYA in San Fransisco, KGFJ in Los Angeles, and WOHO in Toledo, Ohio. A career change lead him to the physical fitness sales and marketing industry.
A Detroit native, Peter Tripp was born on June 11, 1926. Funeral arrangements are being completed through the James A. Reardon Mortuary in Oxnard, California.
Peter Tripp, a popular disc jockey in New York in the late 1950's, whose career peaked when he stayed awake for more than eight days as a stunt but later plunged when he was found guilty of accepting thousands of dollars in payola, died January 31 in a hospital in Northridge, Calif. He was 73. The cause of death was a stroke, said Richard W. Fatherley of Kansas City, Missouri, a friend.
Mr.Tripp's career was indelibly tarnished by the 1960 payola scandal, in which the better-known Alan Freed and several other disc jockeys and radio station employees were indicted on charges of accepting money from record companies in exchange for playing their records.
Mr.Tripp attracted just as much national attention, though, for his sleepless promotional gimmick a year earlier. He spent 201 hours and 10 minutes awake, much of it sitting in a glass booth in Times Square, spinning records and bantering into his microphone three hours a day.
When Mr.Tripp began to fall asleep, nurses shook him; doctors joked with him, played games with him and gave him tests to take. After a few days, he began to hallucinate, seeing cobwebs, mice, kittens: looking through drawers for money that wasn't there: insisting that a technician had dropped a hot electrode into his shoe. His slast 66 hours awake were spent under the influence of drugs administered by the doctors and scientists observing him. Asked at the end of his stunt what he wanted the most Mr.Tripp said, not surprisingly, that he wanted to sleep, which he then did for 13 hours and 13 minutes.
Peter Tripp was born on June 11,1926, in Port Chester, N.Y. and started his career in radio at WEXL in Royal Oak, Mich., in 1947. In 1953 he movied to KUDL in Kansas City,Mo., where he called himself the "Bald Kid in the Third Row," based on a remark one of his parents had made upon spotting him among the infants in the hospital after he was born.
He later moved to WHB, also in Kansas City, and started the Top 40 format for the station: he rebilled himself the "Curly-Headed Kid in the Third Row." And in 1955, he got a program on WMGM in New York called "Your Hits of the Week."
It was a golden time for rock 'n' roll disc jockeys, an era when figures like the Big Bopper often reached greater stardom than the musicians whose records they played. It was also a time of quirky, publicity-grabbing, like record-playing marathons and Mr.Tripp's staying awake stunt. In fact, just after he set what was called a world record for sleeplessness, several other disc jockeys immediately tried to beat him; one of them, Dave Hunter, in Jacksonville,Fla., reportedly did less than a week later, not sleeping for 225 hours.
But Mr.Tripp was indicted a few weeks after his stunt on a charge that he had accepted $36,050 in payola. He was found guilty fo commercial bribery, fined $500 and given a six-month suspended sentence.
Mr.Tripp left WMGM, all but penniless, his lawyer said, and bounced around the radio business as a journeyman disc jockey, taking spots at KYA in San Franvcisco, KGFJ in Los Angeles and WOHO in Toledo, Ohio.
In 1967 Mr.Tripp left radio for good, moved back to Los Angeles and took a national sales training job with Slim Gym and founded Dyna-Gym exercise products. He also freelanced as a motivational writer and speaker and worked as a stockbroker and in investment marketing. Later he retired to Palm Springs, Calif.
Mr.Tripp, who spent his last years in West Hills, Calif., was mrried and divorced four times. He is survived by two sons, Peter Jr., of West Hills and Jeffrey, of Levittown, N.Y..' two daughters, Terri Lanciault of Guilford, N.Y. and Candi Tripp of Holtsville, N.Y.; seven grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.