Although recency bias may bring Joe Biden immediately to mind, the most famed one-term President of the United States would arguably be James Earl Carter Jr., or, as he’s most commonly known, Jimmy Carter. The former president, whose time in the Oval Office, from 1977 to 1981, was a mixed bag of notable achievements and tenure-defining shortcomings. That time is largely superseded by his post-presidency, which ABC News hailed as the most consequential in U.S. history, with the decorated philanthropist continuing his humanitarian efforts into his final days, passing away at the age of 100 on December 29th, 2024. But before Habitat for Humanity, before being sworn in as the 39th President, Carter was an unknown commodity who came to the attention of Americans through the game show What’s My Line?.
What’s My Line? first aired on CBS in 1950, a creation of powerhouse game show producers Mark Goodson and Bill Todman. The premise of the show is deceptively simple, with a celebrity panel tasked with trying to guess the occupation of a guest, using only Yes/No questions. The highlight of each episode was the arrival of a celebrity “mystery guest,” which required the panel to wear a blindfold to avoid instant recognition.
‘What’s My Line?’ Is One of the First Stops in Jimmy Carter’s Unconventional Road to National Recognition
Enter Carter, who in 1973 was Governor of Georgia. He was a longshot for the presidency in 1976, so his team was working on getting him national exposure through unexplored avenues, which, according to executive producer Gil Fates, included approaching the casting director about Carter appearing on the show (another stunt had Carter “high kicking in a chorus line with the Rockettes”). The director agreed, on one condition: Carter would appear on the show as a “Mr. X,” with the panel left unmasked. The assumption was that Carter was enough of an unknown that, even unmasked, the panel would have no idea who the dickens he was. As crazy as it sounds, the panel had no clue who Carter was. Viewers at home at least had the benefit of Carter’s name and occupation superimposed on the screen.
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Host Larry Blyden welcomed Carter as he took his seat beside him, facing the panel, and disclosed to the panel that “all I can tell you about X is that he provides a service.” Arlene Francis started the questioning, asking, “Is it a service that has to do with women?” Carter replied, “Yes, it certainly is.” Comedian Soupy Sales commented that Carter looked like Don Cherry before asking if his occupation was in the world of fashion (sorry, fellow Canucks – that would be Don Cherry the singer, not the Canadian hockey legend). Seven rounds of questions had the panel narrowing down Carter’s occupation to a government position. The closest they would get is with Gene Shalit’s final question, “Are you a state official? Are you a governor?” Carter smiled widely, saying “Yes,” but Shalit couldn’t bring it home by guessing the state.
Jimmy Carter Stumps the ‘What’s My Line?’s Panelists
With the game over, Blyden gave Carter time to talk about his accomplishments. In addition to espousing on his political feats to date, Carter also made a point of talking about promoting Georgia as a good place for filming motion pictures, citing the state’s good weather and the fact that “we never had a film yet that came in over the budget or over the schedule.” Deliverance and The Longest Yard were the two biggest productions to have filmed in the state at the time, with Smokey and the Bandit soon to follow suit (if you’re wondering, Burt Reynolds is not from Georgia – the connection is purely coincidental).
That allusion to Georgia’s burgeoning film industry was not completely random, with Carter known to be a big cinephile. During his four years in office, Carter watched more than 400 movies, from the zaniness of the genre-changing parody movie Airplane! to the deadly serious Ingmar Bergman movie, Autumn Sonata (Collider just so happens to have a list of the 10 best movies Carter saw in those days). He also formed connections with musicians like Gregg Allman, Willie Nelson, and Bob Dylan, which in itself is explored in a movie, 2020’s documentary Jimmy Carter: Rock and Roll President.