Skitch Henderson was born Lyle Russell Cedric Henderson in Birmingham, England in 1918. He
moved to the United States when he was 14 and began playing piano in dance bands and went on
study music at UCLA and at the Julliard School. His teachers included Arnold Schoenberg and
Fritz Reiner. In the 1930s he became rehearsal accompanist for Judy Garland and Mickey
Rooney, and soon was playing piano for The Bob Hope Pepsodent Show on radio. During World
War II he was a fighter pilot in the Army Air Corps. After the war he became music arranger
and conductor for shows such as Songs by Sinatra (1946), I Deal in Crime (1946), Philco
Radio Time (1946), Ethel Merman Show (1949), Frank Sinatra's Light Up Time (1950), as well
as leading his own orchestra on the road. Bing Crosby called him Sketch Kid because of the
quick piano sketches Henderson would make for Bing's orchestrator. He moved to a staff
position at NBC and eventually succeeded Arturo Toscanini as music director for the network.
He became the first bandleader for the Tonight Show with Steve Allen (1954-56) and later
Johnny Carson (1962-66), there devising the "Stump the Band" routine, in which audience
members suggest obscure song titles for the band to then try to play. The bands he assembled
for the Tonight Show were noteworthy for the first-rate jazz players such as trumpeters
Terry Clarke and Doc Severinsen.
In 1963 he received a Grammy Award for an album of selections from Porgy and Bess, with the
RCA Orchestra, Leontyne Price and William Warfield. After leaving NBC, Henderson became a
fixture of the New York musical scene for years, founding and conducting the New York Pops.
He made appearances as guest conductor of orchestras in San Diego, Minneapolis, Salt Lake
City, Tulsa and Stamford, Conn., and pops orchestras in Virginia, Florida and Kentucky.
Abroad, he conducted the Royal Philharmonic and the London Symphony. In 1997 he was awarded
the Handel Medallion, New York City's highest honor for the arts. He died in 2005 at his
home in New Milford, Conn.