Thaindian News

Washington, Apr 27 (ANI): Hubert Schlafly, a key member of the team that invented the teleprompter, which feeds scripts to actors, politicians and newsreaders, has died at the age of 91.

He died last week in Connecticut after a brief illness. A funeral was held at St. Mary Parish in Greenwich, the BBC reports.

Schlafly’s prototype teleprompter, which debuted on the set of a US soap opera, was placed beside a film camera and used a motorized scroll of paper inside a suitcase to assist the show’s actors.

The device was soon adopted by politicians and was used at the Republican Party’s national convention by former US President Herbert Hoover in 1952. Every US president has employed it since that time.

Schlafy helped to start TelePrompTer Corporation and eventually became the company’s president.

He held 16 total patents, also won an Emmy Award in 1992 for his work in creating the first cable system to permit subscribers to order special programmes.

Schlafly himself delivered a speech using a teleprompter for the first time at the age of 88.

“Hub Schlafly was the cable industry’s most innovative engineer and, at the same time, one of its ablest executives,” said Charles Dolan, the chairman of Cablevision.

“Whether you were his friend or competitor, he was always congenial and supportive and probably had more friends than anyone,” Dolan added. (ANI)