Old vacuums charmed organist Stan Kann

Stan Kann, an organist with an affinity for antique vacuum cleaners whose unlikely hobby made him a frequent guest on "The Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson and other talk shows, died Monday at St. Louis University Hospital in St. Louis of complications from open-heart surgery. He was 83.

While Mr. Kann was known in his native St. Louis for playing the Wurlitzer pipe organ at the city's Fabulous Fox Theatre, he began acquiring a national television audience on June 8, 1966, when he first appeared with Carson on "The Tonight Show." He showed up with a few prized items from his collection of carpet sweepers that numbered 150.

Years later, Mr. Kann recalled disaster striking in that first appearance: Parts fell off his vacuum cleaners at inopportune moments while he was demonstrating them. Carson made the most of the moments. The results were hilarious.

"The stagehands put the wrong handles on several of the machines," Mr. Kann told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch a few years ago. "I planned on showing the vacuums as a kind of historical demonstration. I had no idea what it would turn into."

His first appearance led to 76 more appearances on the Carson show, 89 appearances on "The Mike Douglas Show" and on shows hosted by Merv Griffin and stripper Gypsy Rose Lee. He even left St. Louis and moved to Los Angeles, where he lived from 1975 to 1998, to accommodate the workload.

Mr. Kann became so popular that he expanded his repertoire by demonstrating other common household gadgets, many of which didn't work, which was fine with the bemused Carson.

Mr. Kann was born in St. Louis on Dec. 9, 1924, and began playing the organ at age 4. By 8, he was transfixed by vacuum cleaners, mainly because his cash-strapped parents didn't have one. He had an ear for the sound of the machines and while walking down the street learned to identify the Singers, the Hoovers, the Eurekas and the Electroluxes. If he heard a new one, he had no qualms about knocking on the door and asking if he could take a look.

In high school, he briefly worked as a vacuum-cleaner salesman and learned to fix them.

His other love was the classical organ, a subject he majored in at Washington University in St. Louis. He became a legend to theater-organ aficionados after playing the Wurlitzer pipe organ for 22 years at the Fox Theatre. He also played at baseball great Stan Musial's restaurant in St. Louis.

In 2004, Mr. Kann, who never married, told the Post-Dispatch that he had about 150 vacuum cleaners in his basement and kept humidifiers going to keep them dry. The oldest, he said, was a Hoover from 1910. Most, if not all, were in good working order, as he used a different one each week to clean the carpets in his home.

"They don't always work right," Mr. Kann said. "Sometimes, I don't work right, either."