Alison Steele

Early life

Steele was born Ceil Loman on January 26, 1937 in Brooklyn, New York City. She had two sisters, Joyce and Emalie Daniel. In one interview, she had wished for a career in show business at three years of age. At fourteen, she landed a job running errands for a local television station, and opted not to study at university as she was "too impatient". She married, at nineteen, to orchestra leader and radio and television host Ted Steele who was twenty years her senior. The marriage ended in divorce. The couple had a daughter, Heather, born in South Dakota.

Early career

In the 1950s, Steele had worked on her career to become an production assistant and associate producer for various New York City television and radio stations. Among them was Ted Steele's television show, The Ted Steele Show, on WWOR-TV, where she hosted interviews and performed fitness routines that encouraged viewers to take part in. Ted was still married to his second wife Doris at the time.

1966–1979: WNEW

On July 4, 1966, Steele landed her first radio job when she became a part of the new line-up of disc jockeys for the newly launched rock station, WNEW. The station wished to only hire female air staff at first as part of its middle of the road format it marketed "sexpot radio", with Steele chosen as one of the final four selected out of the 800 women that applied. Steele worked the 2–7pm slot, Sunday through Friday. When WNEW abandoned the format after the eighteen-month trial to the increasingly popular progressive rock format, Steele was the only host that was asked to stay at the station.

On January 1, 1968, WNEW placed Steele in the overnight "graveyard shift" which granted her more creative freedom, leading her to develop her on-air personality and rapport with her listeners. "I thought there must be a lot of people ... that need something to relate to in the middle of the night, and if I could create some kind of camaraderie, a relationship between myself and the rest of the night people, then it would be more than just music". She thought of a new air name, based on the gender ("bird" being slang for a girl) and her night owl hours of work, and chose The Nightbird.

Steele would begin her night show by reciting poetry over music, before introducing her show in her distinctive soft and sultry voice, aided by her preference of smoking small cigars. She often hosted with her dog, a French poodle named Genya. Her introduction was: "The flutter of wings, the shadow across the moon, the sounds of the night, as the Nightbird spreads her wings and soars, above the earth, into another level of comprehension, where we exist only to feel. Come, fly with me, Alison Steele, the Nightbird, at WNEW-FM, until dawn." She then made a transition to recordings of some of the more exceptional and experimental music being recorded at the time, as well as featuring the best of the familiar favorites of her audience. As well as music, Steele also recited texts and poetry over music. She ended her show with The Beatles' instrumental song "Flying" by The Beatles, over which she would say her goodbye message: "Hello night bird. How was your day? Did you visit the gods in the valleys far away? What did you bring me, in your visit from the sea?"

By 1971, Steele had acquired approximately 78,000 nightly listeners, the majority being men between 18 and 34. She was a supporter and promoter of the English rock bands Yes, Genesis, and The Moody Blues. By 1974, she had over 100,000 listeners at any given average quarter hour of her show, and hosted a syndicated rock radio show too 600 stations nationwide, a radio show for women, and a cable television talk show. According to Jimi Hendrix's manager Michael Jeffery, the song "Night Bird Flying", recorded by Hendrix and released posthumously on the album The Cry of Love (1971), was inspired by Steele's show. Steele also became known as The Grande Dame of New York Night.

Away from radio, Steele also did charity work and was a member of the board of the New York City chapter of the Epilepsy Foundation, worked for the Muscular Dystrophy Foundation, and was on the credit committee of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.

At one point, Steele served as the station's music director. In 1976, Steele became the first woman to receive a Billboard Award for FM Personality of the Year, and the magazine also named an award in her honour, The Alison Steele Award for Lifetime Achievement, which was awarded to Casey Kasem in 1997.

1979–1984: Television and writing work

After her departure from WNEW, Steele focused her career around television and writing. From 1982 to 1984, she was the announcer for the daytime soap opera Search for Tomorrow, and was the producer, writer, and correspondent for Limelight on CNN.

1984–1995: Return to WNEW and WXRK

In 1984, Steele returned to radio on WNEW–AM which lasted until 1986. For a number of years, Steele was also the disc jockey for the pop/rock in-flight audio entertainment channel on board Trans World Airlines.

Steele's final radio job was working overnights at WXRK from 1989 to 1995. She also did some work for VH1, as well as running the cat boutique Just Cats with her sister in Manhattan. Steele did much voice-over work for radio and television commercials, and she provided the narration for one of Howard Stern's popular radio bits, "Larry Fine at Woodstock", featuring impressionist Billy West.

In June 1995, Steele was forced to leave WXRK due to illness from stomach cancer. She died on September 27, 1995 in New York City, aged 58.