Alaska
When a TV star arrived up in 1970 Anchorage to record a commercial, the whole town showed up
Part of a continuing weekly series on Alaska history by local historian David Reamer. Have a question about Anchorage or Alaska history or an idea for a future article? Go to the form at the bottom of this story.
On Dec. 14, 1970, the portly, hirsute Sebastian Cabot, star of the long-running “Family Affair” sitcom, exited his plane and entered the Anchorage airport where a throng of waiting fans immediately engulfed him. The actor was in town to record a commercial for the Hotel Captain Cook, and his arrival had been trumpeted for days with large advertisements printed in the local newspapers.
Anchorage had been the largest city in Alaska since its 1940s military buildup and construction boom, but cultural relevance was something apart and slower to obtain. In 1970, Anchorage had only just begun to acquire some of the touchstones long since familiar to significant Outside cities. The first live satellite broadcast here was the Apollo 11 mission to the moon in 1969. The next such live broadcast was a Jan. 3, 1971 NFL playoff game between the San Francisco 49ers and Dallas Cowboys. The first McDonald’s here opened in the summer of 1970, but the first local multi-screen movie theater was still two years away. It would be more than a decade before Anchorage had an arena nice enough to entice major performing artists, those not content to play at a high school. So, a visiting TV star was like an unexpected holiday in 1970 Anchorage.
The London-born Cabot had acted for years before unexpectedly finding popular acclaim with a television comedy. There were minor movie roles and guest appearances on shows like “Bonanza,” “Beverly Hillbillies,” “My Three Sons,” “Red Skelton Hour,” and “The Twilight Zone.” Then he won the breakout role on “Family Affair,” which aired from 1966 to 1971. Longtime residents might recall it playing on KTVA Channel 11. He played Mr. French, an effete manservant for a committed bachelor. When the bachelor’s nephew and two nieces are sent to live with him, Mr. French became a combination butler and nanny. Heartwarming comedy ensued.
The Mr. French role was of a once common trope, the butler or nanny to an extended or found family. Later examples include Robert Guillaume as Benson on “Soap” and its spinoff “Benson,” Christopher Hewett as Mr. Belvedere on “Mr. Belvedere,” and Fran Drescher as the nanny on “The Nanny.” Indeed, television butlers were once so prominent on sitcoms that it raises the question: were butlers ever common in upper middle- and higher-class American families? Long ago, yes. In recent decades, including when these shows aired, not so much.
Younger media consumers are more likely to recognize Cabot from his voice. He was Sir Ector and the narrator in the 1963 animated Disney feature “The Sword in the Stone,” which was coincidentally playing at the Fourth Avenue Theatre when the 1964 Good Friday earthquake struck. Arthur was not pulling Excalibur from the stone when the quake hit, despite an enduring urban legend. Cabot was also Bagheera in the 1967 “Jungle Book.” And he was the narrator for several 1960s and 1970s “Winnie the Pooh” films.
Cabot was in Anchorage, his first visit to Alaska, to shoot a commercial for the Crow’s Nest restaurant at the Hotel Captain Cook. Management there chose Cabot for two main reasons. First, his urbane public persona mirrored the sort of mannered, high-end clientele they sought. In other words, they wanted the rub, the positive association with some as obviously cultured as Cabot. He had already recorded several radio commercials for the hotel. Second, he was willing to travel to Anchorage in December. Preferences and practicalities rule all our lives.
The Hotel Captain Cook was constructed in a downtown Anchorage devastated by the 1964 earthquake. The original building and the Crow’s Nest opened in 1965. The second and third towers were completed in 1972 and 1978.
Upon Cabot’s arrival, fans noted he seemed notably older in appearance and shorter than expected. The quality of television broadcasts then hid many a blemish and wrinkle. And production magic continues to make many actors seem taller than they are in reality. More importantly, he acted like a generous star, professional and kind to everyone he met.
He landed Monday evening with his wife Kay and their 13-year-old daughter Yvonne. On Tuesday, he appeared at the Jesse Lee Home and elsewhere around town. On Wednesday, he and family enjoyed a flight to Talkeetna where they lunched. Back in Anchorage that afternoon, he signed more than 1,000 autographs at a public event in the hotel’s Discovery Room. That evening, he charmed the local press at a cocktail party. The event featured hors d’oeuvres personally prepared by Cabot, who had worked as a chef before the acting career took off. He also shopped for some of the ingredients and was shocked at the fresh vegetable prices.
His Wednesday schedule focused on the commercial shoot, but he found time to try mushing. Unsurprisingly, he struggled and was dumped on his rear at the first turn. His daughter, however, ran her six-dog team around the course with little issue. Work and fun concluded, the family returned home that Thursday.
The commercial thankfully survives as a record of this time. A young, fashionable couple visiting the hotel for a meal at the Crow’s Nest enter and encounter Cabot several times. He is exiting an elevator when they arrive. At the entrance to the restaurant, he is the maître d’. As the increasingly bewildered couple is led to the table, they pass Cabot as the bartender and are then greeted by Cabot as the waiter. The commercial cuts to the kitchen to reveal Cabot as the chef.
Cabot, of course, narrates. “There are some of us who simply do not enjoy the barbarism of rolling up our shirtsleeves and digging into a meal as if it were an excavation site.” Instead, Cabot suggests, “Take your regal appreciations to the Crow’s Nest of the Captain Cook Hotel. Besides the lavish dinner and wine menu, the Crow’s Nest offers a kind of aestheticism that you simply don’t often find in the colonies.” Yes, the term “colonies” stands out for its inclusion in a scripted commercial intended for an American audience.
Mike Ellis Advertising and Public Relations produced the commercial. While four and a half hours were scheduled for Cabot’s scenes, the crew completed shooting in less than half that. The director, Darrell Comstock, said, “Cabot was high professional. Many times we did just one take of a scene. He knew what was wanted and did it.” The Daily News quoted an unnamed crewmember: “Very pleasant, professional, not stuffy, competent, a real guy.” The couple there for dinner in the advertisement were filmed separately, later.
Most local commercials, particularly from before the internet, are now lost media, perhaps more so in Alaska than elsewhere. Copies, if they exist, are forgotten in closets and basements, or incidentally captured on similarly forgotten VHS recordings. More likely, any copies were long since trashed, taped over, or taped over and trashed. Anchorage’s lost media treasures currently include commercials for No Frills furniture and Mafia Mike’s Pizza Parlor, the original version of the local Pizza Hut jingle (“337-2-3-2-3”), the legendary 1989 match between Mr. Perfect and Bret “The Hitman” Hart at the Sullivan Arena, or anything Cal Worthington got up to. If you are sitting on a stash of local broadcast recordings, please reach out.
Still, there are the occasional surprise discoveries. The Cabot commercial for the Crow’s Nest was found on a VHS tape recovered from a dumpster and sold on Facebook, making its way to Elizabeth Kell and Kevin Allen of the YouTube channel Taku for Two, which is devoted to recovering and archiving analog media on Alaska. Kell and Allen digitized and preserved this odd little moment of local cultural history. Thus, old memories are recovered and new experiences are made.
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Officials with the University of Alaska have tapped the commander of the U.S. Army 11th Airborne Division’s Arctic Aviation Command as the new permanent chancellor of the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Col. Russell “Russ” Vander Lugt was selected from four finalists after an eight-month search process. He will be the top executive of Alaska’s leading research institution, which describes itself as “America’s Arctic university.” He will replace interim chancellor, and former U.S. Ambassador to the Arctic, Mike Sfraga, who succeeded former chancellor Dan White who announced his retirement in May of last year.
Vander Lugt is a senior U.S. Army officer, an Arctic scholar and UAF alumni, with over two decades of executive leadership experience, according to a university announcement on May 27. He has served as commander of the 11th Airborne Division’s Arctic Aviation Command at Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks since Aug. 2024.
“I’m humbled to be selected to lead the University of Alaska Fairbanks during this pivotal time,” Vander Lugt said in a statement with the announcement.
“I look forward to leading through trust, transparency, and teamwork as we see Alaska and the Arctic transformed through education, research, and public service. I’m committed to building on the strong foundation Chancellors Sfraga and White have established, and working closely with university leadership and governance to support and advance UAF’s mission,” he said.
Vander Lugt will step into the permanent chancellor role on Sept. 8. Sfraga’s last day was Friday, and university officials have selected Larry Hinzman, director of the UA Arctic Leadership Initiative, to serve as interim chancellor through the summer.
Vander Lugt has had a long career with the U.S. Army in various roles in Alaska, where he is stationed in Fairbanks, and across the U.S. His resume lists deployments to Europe and the Middle East.
He served in executive leadership roles that include the Alaskan Command, a division of the U.S. Northern Command, the 601st Aviation Support Battalion, and the 1st Stryker Brigade Combat team. He also taught history and military leadership as an assistant professor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and was a professor of military science and department chair at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona.
He holds a master’s degree and doctoral degree in Arctic and Northern Studies, which he completed in 2022 at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Vander Lugt’s hire is the latest in major leadership changes in the University of Alaska system — former UA President Pat Pitney retired last month and former university attorney Matt Cooper was named as her successor. Cooper will begin as university president in early August, and Michelle Rizk, vice president of university relations and chief strategy, planning and budget officer, is serving as interim president. Cheryl Siemers was appointed permanent chancellor of the University of Alaska Anchorage in March, after serving as interim chancellor since the retirement of former chancellor Sean Parnell last year.
Vander Lugt’s base salary will be $309,000, according to the university’s announcement.
The University of Alaska Fairbanks serves roughly 7,500 students. It employs more than 800 faculty and nearly 2,000 staff across urban and rural campuses in Fairbanks, Kotzebue, Nome, Bethel and Dillingham.
Originally published by the Alaska Beacon, an independent, nonpartisan news organization that covers Alaska state government.
WHEREAS, on June 3, 1942, six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, World War II arrived in Alaska when Dutch Harbor on Amaknak Island was bombed by Japanese – the first aerial attack by an enemy on the continental United States; and
WHEREAS, the Japanese pilots expected little resistance; but because of an intercepted message three weeks earlier, the installation was on high alert, and Navy and Marine personnel were prepared with anti-aircraft defenses; and
WHEREAS, encountering unexpected resistance at Dutch Harbor, installation, Japanese forces shifted their focus to the Margaret Bay Naval Barracks, where the attack claimed the lives of 25 servicemen; and
WHEREAS, following the initial attack on Dutch Harbor, Japanese forces launched additional assaults on Dutch Harbor, Adak, Kiska, and Attu, resulting in the Aleut people being evacuated and held in internment camps in Southeast Alaska for three years, through which many did not survive; and
WHEREAS, the brave soldiers of the United States Armed Forces and allied Canadian Forces fought valiantly for more than a year to reclaim the remaining Aleutian Islands. The battle of Attu stands as one of the most costly American assaults in the Pacific, with hundreds of servicemen making the ultimate sacrifice to liberate Alaska; and
WHEREAS, on the 84th anniversary of the bombing of Dutch Harbor, we remember and honor all who were affected by the attack, paying tribute both to the military personnel who served and died to defend our Nation and to the Aleut people who died while imprisoned.
NOW THEREFORE, I, Mike Dunleavy, GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF ALASKA, do hereby proclaim June 3, 2026, as:
Dutch Harbor Remembrance Day
in Alaska and encourage all Alaskans to join with the people of Dutch Harbor, Unalaska, and the Aleutian Islands to honor all who were lost in Alaska during World War II, and I order the Alaska State Flag to be flown at half-staff in remembrance of those who perished.
Dated: June 3, 2026
A plane belonging to the Alaska National Guard appears to have been damaged during operations connected to Operation Epic Fury as part of American military efforts against Iran, according to online reports. Defense officials have so far declined to confirm whether Alaska National Guard personnel or equipment are taking part in the campaign.
Last week, defense industry news outlet The War Zone published photos of a KC-135 Stratotanker transiting through a British airbase. In the pictures, made by photographer Andrew McKelvey, the rear bottom of the fuselage and wing stabilizers are “peppered with temporary shrapnel damage repairs‚“ according to The War Zone’s article. The plane also appears to be missing its refueling boom, the proboscis extending from under the tail to pump off fuel to other aircraft.
In the photographs, the Stratotanker’s tail number is visible, identifying the refueling plane as belonging to the Alaska Air National Guard’s 168th Wing, based at Eielson Air Force Base outside of Fairbanks. The wing’s mission includes aerial refueling. That’s the tactic of large planes unloading vast quantities of fuel to aircraft, ranging from fighter jets to rescue helicopters, in midair.
Pictures from a different photographer published last week by another blog, The Aviationist, show the same plane. The tail includes the letters “AK” painted above a white polar bear.
In addition to the photographs, the reporting from The War Zone is based on publicly available flight data and social media posts scraped from a variety of sources.
According to information from Flight Radar 24, the Stratotanker left Eielson on March 5, just days after the U.S. and Israeli militaries began bombing Iranian targets on Feb. 28. Through March, according to public flight records, the plane was based at Ben Gurion Airport southeast of Tel Aviv, where, according to The War Zone, dozens of American refueling aircraft were staged as part of Operation Epic Fury.
There are no public flight records connected to the Stratotanker through April and most of May, until it appeared to fly through England on the way to the United States at the end of last month.
It is not clear how many Alaska Air National Guard planes, personnel or units are currently deployed in connection to the war effort against Iran.
A spokesperson for the Alaska National Guard referred all questions about Operation Epic Fury to the U.S. Central Command.
A spokesperson for CENTCOM, headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida, declined to answer questions on the record or provide any specific information about Alaska National Guard units deployed as part of ongoing military operations, citing the need to protect service members and operational security.
The Alaska National Guard has posted no informational releases or pictures connected to an overseas deployment during the last few months.
Much of Operation Epic Fury has been waged by military aircraft, and aerial refueling is critical to keeping planes supplied during long flights. A May 12 report from the Congressional Research Service composed of public damage reports to U.S. military aircraft noted that among the 42 records of damage or losses were seven KC-135 Stratotankers, though the findings were published before photos emerged of the Alaska-based plane. The report noted that the Defense Department “has not published a comprehensive assessment of combat losses” from Operation Epic Fury.
The tail number is associated with a Stratotanker manufactured in 1964, the year before Boeing ceased making them. All of the nearly 400 KC-135s currently in operation within the American military date back to that era of the Cold War.
The aircraft has the word “Tetlin” painted on the top of its tail. The name is an homage to the Interior Alaska village, one of several selected to honor longstanding bonds between military aviators and Alaska Native communities, according to photographs of a dedication ceremony posted by the Alaska National Guard last summer.
The 168th Wing currently has 12 Stratotankers attached to the unit. That number bumped up in April after a long campaign by Alaska Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan to allocate more tankers to the state’s portfolio given its vast geography and high number of advanced fighter jets.
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