Ray Carlton, 72, had heart for TV, electronics

If you wanted to understand Ray Carlton, you’d have to see his living room.

That’s where, inside a simple bungalow off the main drag of Virginia-Highland, he kept his showpiece: a high-definition TV so large it spanned an entire wall.

Enlarge this image

In front of it, on top of a plain wood coffee table, the small high-definition TV that he actually watched. It was so pricey to replace the bulbs in the king-sized TV that Mr. Carlton, an Emmy Award winning producer for what was then Georgia Public Television saved it for special occasions.

“His passion was electronics and television, and the fact that he had to have the very best and the newest toy, but he was also frugal enough and pragmatic enough to use it sparingly — I think is very Ray,” said Marcia Killingsworth, who worked with him for more than a decade at Georgia Public Television, now Georgia Public Broadcasting.

Killingsworth believed Mr. Carlton was one of the first Atlantans to own a high-definition TV. He died Dec. 1 of pancreatic cancer. He was 72.

A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Tuesday at American Roadhouse in Virginia-Highland, where friends and colleagues will screen TV clips from Mr. Carlton’s career. He will be buried in Lake Jackson, Texas, in Restwood Memorial Park, which is handling the arrangements.

Media inspired him early on. In high school, he captured drama and choir productions on audiotape, which he later digitized for his class at reunions. In his 30s, he built a color TV.

While his work was meticulous, his persona was warm and fun-loving, if perhaps a little quirky.

Mr. Carlton hosted the company Christmas party, which was “always rowdy and always fun,” Ms. Killingsworth said.

The door prize — a can of boiled peanuts she was lucky enough to win at her first company party — was returned each year, with each winner’s name scrawled on the bottom of the can.

His cat, named “Kitchen Cat,” seemed as good a host as he was — circulating and greeting guests, he was “the friendliest cat in America,” she said.

Mr. Carlton won two Emmys in 1977 for “Langston,” a series about the poet Langston Hughes, when the network was known as Georgia Educational Television. He won a third Emmy in 1984 for a public affairs and features show called “Georgia Digest.”

“I think Ray was one of the few people I’ve known that would not compromise his standards,” said George Wearn, a friend and colleague. He said countless people benefited from his “sometimes exasperating demands for integrity.”

So it didn’t surprise Mr. Wearn when Mr. Carlton installed “theater-type drapes” for better viewing in his living room.

“That was the kind of person he was. He would do everything down to the minutest detail,” Mr. Wearn said. At the same time, he added, Mr. Carlton “took incredible joy out of almost everything he did.”

American Roadhouse was Mr. Carlton’s favorite haunt and meeting place for the “Geezers and Codgers,” a term he coined for the lunches he organized for the retired Georgia Public Broadcasting gang.

It’s also where he’d meet his cousin, Paul Casbergue, 45, nearly every other weekend the last few years. Mr. Carlton would always show up in a black jacket, plaid shirt and black jeans. He’d order two eggs over easy, bacon and a side of fruit.

Mr. Casbergue found his cousin a private man. He never knew, for example, how he befriended the now-late New York actress Kitty Carlisle. But they’d enjoy talking about their lives and family; Mr. Carlton was an avid genealogical researcher.

“I found him to be just an incredibly caring and attentive person and friend,” Mr. Casbergue said.

“Except when it came to the media equipment,” he said, Mr. Carlton “was very simple.”