One of the first faces to appear on WQED and an early creative partner to the late Fred Rogers, Josie Carey liked to say she got by on four good notes and a smile.

Darrell Sapp, Post-Gazette
Josie Carey talked about the early days of television with the Post-Gazette for its 50th anniversary retrospective of WQED published in March.
Click photo for larger image.

As host of WQED's "The Children's Corner," Ms. Carey delighted millions of Pittsburgh's children in the earliest years of the television age.

Ms. Carey, whose offstage name was Josephine Franz, died yesterday at Allegheny General Hospital of complications that developed after a fall in her home last month. She was 73.

"She had this incredible energy," said WQED producer Rick Sebak, who had his first television internship on a Carey TV show in Columbia, S.C., in 1973. "I think it would be too easy to put her in the category of standard TV hostesses of that era. She was beyond that. It was just the energy and the curiosity and the sense of fun that comes across on those old TV shows."

WQED plans to air an episode of "The Children's Corner" in memory of Ms. Carey at 11 p.m. today. Another episode will air at 11 p.m. tomorrow. After "The Children's Corner," Ms. Carey went on to host "Josie's Storyland" and "Funsville" on KDKA-TV, 473 half-hours of "Wheee!" for a South Carolina TV station in the early 1970s and "Josie's Attic," a mid-1990s Saturday morning kids show on WQEX.

But it was "The Children's Corner" that remained Ms. Carey's fondest memory.

"That has to be at the top of the list," Ms. Carey said in an interview earlier this year. "We were young and we really didn't know what we were doing. We tried everything and much of it worked. I was sad on the weekend because I wasn't going in to work. I would have paid them for that job, that's how much I liked it."

"The Children's Corner" aired on WQED from 1954 to 1961 and in 1955 won the Sylvania Television Award for best local children's show in the United States. The series also aired nationally on NBC for 39 weeks.

Post-Gazette photo
Josie Carey, with Daniel Striped Tiger, on the set at WQED in 1955.
Click photo for larger image.

Ms. Carey, a Pittsburgh native who grew up in Butler, was born Josephine Vicari, but WQED's first general manager, Dorothy Daniel, changed her name. Ms. Carey actually began working at WQED in October 1953, six months before the station began broadcasting.

"I did everything that had to be done, as we all did," Ms. Carey recalled. She remembered going door-to-door soliciting $2 from each family. In exchange, donors received a program guide for the nascent station.

"We were sure we were doing something important," Ms. Carey said of the start-up station. "We enjoyed every minute of it. I was secretary to the station manager, Fred was going to be program developer. Between us we had about 87 programs we were trying to get Mrs. Daniel to consider, but the only one she wanted us to do was 'The Children's Corner.' "

Guests on "Children's Corner" included Johnny Carson, before he became host of NBC's "The Tonight Show," actress Shirley Jones, pianist Van Cliburn and "Peanuts" cartoonist Charles Schulz.

Ricki Wertz, who later hosted the children's show "Ricki & Copper" on WTAE, started out performing with Ms. Carey at the Pittsburgh Playhouse.

"She loved the camera and the camera loved her," Wertz said yesterday. "She was very creative. In those days, no one had done it before, so you came up with your own ideas, and Josie was very capable of doing that. She created everything that she did, and that is a very special talent because you were never copying someone else."

Ms. Carey wrote lyrics for 68 songs in the course of seven years of "The Children's Corner"; Rogers operated the puppets and wrote the music. Their first collaboration was the show's theme song, "Why Hi, Don't I Know You?"

"It was a fantastic partnership," Ms. Carey said of writing lyrics for Rogers to put to music. "That's where we discovered that what he lacked, I had and what I lacked, he had.

"We had a good time and we really enjoyed that hour," Ms. Carey said. "I think the children knew that."

Joanne Rogers, widow of Fred Rogers, recalled Ms. Carey's enthusiasm.

"She was lively and bubbly and I think she was just what television needed at that point," Rogers said. "[Fred] had great respect for her talent and for her spirit. She was wonderful in being able to make the puppets real. I don't know anyone who was better at that than she was."

At age 16, Joel Dulberg was WQED's youngest cameraman when the station went on the air. Later in life he spent 32 years as rerecording sound mixer for CBS's "60 Minutes," but he said working on "The Children's Corner" was the highlight of his professional life.

"She was an absolute natural. There was never a day of nervousness on her part," Dulberg said, recalling Ms. Carey's laugh. "She would just crack up at the simplest things, which made the show so light and entertaining."

After a falling out with WQED management in the 1970s -- she felt her early contributions to the station had been forgotten -- Ms. Carey enjoyed a pleasant relationship with those in charge recently. She was the focus of a recent profile on WQED's "On Q" celebrating the station's 50th anniversary.

Ms. Carey was also active in community theater. In March she acted in and directed the stage comedy "Over the River and Through the Woods" at the Seton Center in Brookline.

Ms. Carey lived in Kennedy with her second husband, Joe Franz. A widow for seven years after the death of her first husband, Henry Massucci, Ms. Carey met Franz in the choir at St. Malachy Catholic Church. They were married for 18 years.

"I always say she was one of the women who was the most influential in my life," WQED's Sebak said. "She always had the idea you should be curious about everything and she wanted to be surprised on television. I don't do pre-interviews because I want to capture the first time someone tells you something because it is different and I know I learned that from Josie."

Ms. Carey said she wanted to be remembered as someone who made a contribution.

"I'd like to think I added something to the lives of many children over the years," Ms. Carey said. "I didn't get rich and I didn't get really famous, but I think my being around during those years and some of the ideas and our values were appreciated."

In addition to her husband, Ms. Carey is survived by a daughter, Kathy Petitt, of Fremont, Calif.; a brother, Frank Vicari, of Dormont; and one grandchild.

Visitation will be from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. tomorrow and Monday in McDermott Funeral Home in Kennedy. A Mass will be celebrated at 9 a.m. Tuesday in St. Malachy Church in Kennedy.

First Published: May 29, 2004, 4:00 a.m.