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Les Crane (December 3, 1933 – July 13, 2008), born Lesley Stein, was a radio announcer and...

Les Crane (December 3, 1933 – July 13, 2008), born Lesley Stein, was a radio announcer and television talk show host, a pioneer in interactive broadcasting who also scored an unexpected spoken word hit with his 1971 recording of the poem Desiderata, winning a "Best Spoken Word" Grammy for his efforts. Born in Long Beach, New York (or the Bronx or San Francisco, according to conflicting sources), Crane graduated from Tulane University, where he was an English major. (Freedman, 1964). He spent four years in the United States Air Force, as a jet pilot and helicopter flight instructor. He began his radio career in 1958 at KONO in San Antonio and later worked at WPEN in Philadelphia. In 1961, he became a popular and controversial host for the radio powerhouse KGO (AM) in San Francisco. With KGO's strong evening signal reaching as far north as Seattle, Washington, he attracted a regional audience far outside the San Francisco area. A pioneer in the development of the radio talk show, Crane delighted and irritated callers and listeners with his forthright style and unwillingness to suffer fools quietly, often hanging up on callers in contravention of the polite ethos of the times. A