On this July 4th, here's a story about an American success story from the 1950s. It's a story about massive talent, lots of hard work, and navigating a system in which you're not allowed to be who you really are. It's a very American story.

"I was the first person on TV to look directly into the camera...the first TV matinee idol," pianist Liberace reportedly boasted.

It'd be hard to definitively prove who WAS the first, but one thing is certain: it was done before Liberace by Korla Pandit.

Korla Pandit was born John Roland Redd. He was a musical prodigy who grew up in Missouri, and played background music on live radio dramas in the '40s. In 1948, he was invited by LA station KTLA to help fill - indeed, to help create - the then-nascent field of daytime TV.

In the '40s, "daytime television" was, as a genre, the result of the fact that most if not all TV stations didn't even sign on until early afternoon. When they did, their audience was made of the post-war children and housewives who happened to be home during those hours.

And it was, of course, all done live and on the cheap. So, after John Redd provided background music for the puppet show TIME FOR BEANY, he would don a bejeweled turban, step in front of the camera and become the mysterious, silent host of KORLA PANDIT'S ADVENTURES IN MUSIC.

For 15 minutes every day, Korla Pandit would stare into the camera (and by extension, into the eyes of his female viewership), never speaking a word, often playing both a piano and Hammond organ at the same time.

Viewers were enthralled. Fan mail poured in.

No one seemed to notice that the suburban white housewives of L.A. were swooning over a light-skinned Black man.

Pandit delivered to viewers everything from classical to Christmas music, but is best remembered as a pioneer of the subgenre "Exotica," a dreamy sound associated with stereotypical Hollywood visions of faraway lands and vaguely foreign mystery.

In 1951, Pandit went national, signing a contract with Snader Telescriptions (a kind of precursor to the modern music video).

During a contract dispute in 1953, Snader replaced Pandit with Liberace, and while Liberace built an entertainment empire on his exposure and talent, Pandit's career never fully recovered.

Korla Pandit continued to record and perform for a niche audience, but was often reduced to playing supermarket openings and such. Today’s audiences most likely recall seeing him during the wrap party striptease scene in Tim Burton's ED WOOD.

Pandit died in 1998. Beryl DeBeeson, his wife of 54 years, passed in 2005. The truth about Pandit's race was not made public until 2001.

Stanford University Assistant Professor of History Allyson Hobbs: “Korla’s life story illustrates what African Americans knew at the time: ‘If I can be anything other than Black, my life could change dramatically.'

Hobbs adds, “(African Americans of this era knew) if they could just twist people’s perception of them even one degree — in this case, from Black to another minority —doors previously closed would open.”

A story about an American in America. Happy 4th.