Some chapters in late-night history are darker than others.
One episode of The Dick Cavett Show will never see the light of day, and for good reason. On June 8, 1971, prominent health expert J.I. Rodale guested on Cavett’s program, only to suddenly die of a heart attack in the middle of the taping. Rodale was 72 years old at the time of his death.
Today, Rodale is perhaps best remembered as one of the earliest (and strongest) advocates of organic agriculture. Just the day before his death, he was featured on the cover of The New York Times Magazine; the publication dubbed him “Guru of the Organic Food Cult.” Additionally, he was the founder of The Rodale Institute and Rodale, Inc., the latter of which was acquired by Hearst in 2017 and continues to publish popular titles like Men’s Health and Prevention today.
Rodale’s career also wasn’t without controversy. He was a staunch anti-vaxxer, spoke positively of racial segregation, and made false claims about polio prevention and cancer.
Writing for The New York Times in 2007, Cavett looked back on the infamous incident. “[Rodale] was a slight man, and looked like Leon Trotsky with the little goatee,” he wrote. “He was extremely funny for half an hour, talking about health foods, and as a friendly gesture, he offered me some of his special asparagus, boiled in urine. I think I said, ‘Anybody’s we know?’ while making a mental note to have him back.”
However, things soon took an incredibly dark turn. After Rodale’s segment, Cavett brought out his next guest, New York Post columnist Pete Hamill. As he and Hamill started to chat, Cavett recalled, “Mr. Rodale suddenly made a snoring sound.”
“Comics would sometimes [snore] for a laugh while another comic was talking, pretending boredom,” Cavett explained. “[Rodale’s] head tilted to the side as Pete, in close-up as it happened, whispered audibly, ‘This looks bad.’ The audience laughed at that. I didn’t, because I knew Rodale was dead. To this day, I don’t know how I knew.”
Panic began to set in. “I thought, ‘Good God, I’m in charge here. What do I do?’” Cavett wrote. He called out for a doctor in the audience, and two medical interns “scrambled onto the stage” as Rodale laid flat on the floor, resembling “the ghastly pale of a plumber’s candle.”
“Watching the awareness that this might just be real start to roll backward through the audience. Their reluctant awareness that this was not part of the show,” Cavett reminisced. “The bizarre feeling of denial that this must be part of the show. After all, we were in makeup and there were stage lights and a band and an audience that had been laughing and clapping only moments earlier.”
For obvious reasons, ABC shelved the episode. To this day, the footage has never been aired. Curiously, however, many people still adamantly insist that they remember seeing Rodale die on The Dick Cavett Show. Perhaps it’s the Mandela Effect at work?
The morning after Rodale’s unexpected death, a shaken Cavett found himself hesitant to return to the studio. He rang up his former boss and mentor, Johnny Carson, who offered him some sage advice.
“I asked Johnny how I could ever do another show,” Cavett wrote. “‘It’s like Kennedy’s death, isn’t it, Richard?’ [Carson] said. ‘You wondered how anybody could ever do another show. This won’t sound very profound, but you just go out and do it. And you’ll get a couple of surprises.’”
