PLSN has learned of the death of longtime television Scenic Designer Victor Paganuzzi, who died on June 16, 2022 at age 90. He was the designer of the distinctive set of CBS Sunday Morning and so many other CBS programs. Here’s a video from CBS that was broadcast on July 31, 2011 upon Paganuzzi’s retirement after nearly 50 years at CBS. Paganuzzi explains to Charles Osgood how the inspiration for the original CBS Sunday Morning set came from a baseball diamond.
Further information from CBS:
Paganuzzi, who studied history and political science at Iona College, began his career with CBS in 1962, by helping design sets for The Jackie Gleason Show. He would go on to other entertainment properties, including the daytime drama Love Is a Many Splendored Thing, for which he earned two Emmy nominations. (He received two additional Emmy nods for The Joan Rivers Show and CBS Daytime 90.)
He transitioned to CBS News in 1974, where he spent a quarter-century creating the look of the network’s election coverage and special broadcasts, as well as its news programs, from CBS Evening News, to Face to Face with Connie Chung and The Early Show.
His most familiar contribution was to the design of CBS Sunday Morning, which debuted in 1979. Paganuzzi created the distinctive set, whose look has been carried forth to this day.
In 2011, upon his retirement, Paganuzzi explained that the Sunday Morning set was originally created for a sports broadcast that never made it to the air. Translating sports to his design, he’d hit upon baseball, and created positions for the anchor and correspondents that mimicked a baseball diamond.
After the sports show struck out, Sunday Morning founding producer Shad Northshield had the original design modified, with sports imagery out and Plexiglass panels containing the sun and text in.
Upon his retirement, a plaque was installed at the CBS Broadcast Center, honoring Paganuzzi for “demonstrating the epitome of class to his peers” for 49 years, calling him “a true gentleman designing scenery with passion, quality and imagination.”
