Carolyn Raskin, Producer of Frank Sinatra Specials and ‘Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In,’ Dies at 97

Carolyn Raskin, the pioneering Emmy-winning producer who worked on four highly rated Frank Sinatra TV specials and the first four seasons of Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, has died. She was 97.

She died Sept. 24 at her home in Sherman Oaks, her nephew Mark Raskin told The Hollywood Reporter. Her family chose not to announce her death until now.

Raskin also collaborated with Dinah Shore on NBC’s The Dinah Shore Chevy Show from 1959-63; on the singer’s 1969 NBC special, Like Hep; on her 1974-80 syndicated daytime talk show, Dinah!; and on her 1976 CBS summer replacement series, Dinah and Her New Best Friends.

In 1968, the Los Angeles Times named her a “Woman of the Year” for her accomplishments in television.

Raskin was born on Aug. 22, 1927, in Sioux City, Iowa. After attending the University of Iowa, she was a social worker but “found it terribly depressing to be exposed to such tremendous problems 10 hours a day,” she told the Times. “It used to kill me to sit around and advise people what to do with their lives — how could I know at 21?”

Raskin moved to Los Angeles in 1957 and was hired as a typist in the music department at CBS, one of the few jobs available to women in television at the time. She landed a gig in 1959 as a producer’s assistant on The Dinah Shore Chevy Show and from 1961-63 was an associate producer on the program.

After working on ABC’s short-lived Jerry Lewis Show in 1963, Raskin co-produced Frank Sinatra: A Man and His Music specials at NBC in 1965, 1966 and 1967. (The first one, which received an Emmy and a Peabody Award, celebrated the singer’s 50th birthday.) She guided another Sinatra special for CBS in 1969.

Raskin started out as an associate producer on NBC’s Laugh-In in 1967 and graduated to co-producer for the next three seasons through March 1971. She was nominated for four Emmys for her work on that show, winning in 1969 (sharing it with Paul Keyes, Dan Rowan and Dick Martin.)

She landed another Emmy nom for the Sinatra special in 1970 and received a Daytime Emmy for producing Dinah! in 1976.

Shore’s Like Hep special had touches of Laugh-In and was produced by the show’s creator, George Schlatter.

Raskin also produced Jim Nabors’ daytime syndicated show in 1978; a TV pilot that starred Laugh-In’s Arte Johnson; the 1982 syndicated show Laugh Trax; and specials hosted by Roger Miller, Wayne Newton, Diahann Carroll, Helen Reddy, Beverly Sills and Bob Hope.

Plus, she directed Ozzy Osbourne in concert in Salt Lake City in 1984 while he was supporting his Bark at the Moon album.

“You need three things in this business,” she once said. “One is creative genius, then comes drive and maturation. I fit in the third category. My job is relating.”

Raskin is survived by two other nephews, Barry and Greg, and her niece, Denise. She never married or had children.