This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

The Salt Lake Rotary Club was celebrating its 25th anniversary in 1936 at the Hotel Utah's Lafayette Ballroom when, suddenly, they were treated with a greeting from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt piped in by a broadcast from the White House.

The crowd, which included Utah Gov. Henry Blood, was stunned that the president would take time to greet them.

Alas, it was too good to be true. It was a hoax perpetrated by future Democratic Party leader and nationally respected labor attorney A. Wally Sandack, who did a perfect FDR impersonation from the Salt Lake City studio of KSL Radio, said son Rick.

Sandack, described by friend Dan Berman as the most influential person in Democratic politics in Utah in the 1950s and '60s, died Friday at age 97.

Nicknamed "Mr. Democrat," Sandack was a multitalented figure in the state for decades, broadcasting national baseball games, rising to the top of his field nationally as a labor attorney and becoming the go-to guy when choosing and recruiting state and national candidates for the Democratic Party.

"We were trying to find a candidate for governor in 1964 and had discussed several people, but we weren't sure about any of them," said Berman. "We had been unsuccessful for years. Then one day at lunch, Wally said, 'How about old no-neck.' And I knew we had it."

"No-neck" was Calvin Rampton, a talented and respected attorney who had run for several public and Democratic Party offices and lost them all. But Sandack's endorsement meant he would get the support of the liberal and labor factions of the party "and I knew it was over," Berman said.

After Sandack's impersonation of FDR, he was hired by KSL as an announcer. He broadcast the speed trials at the Bonneville Salt Flats and eventually landed a job as a regional radio announcer for the "Baseball Game of the Day," sponsored by J. Walter Thompson Co.

"I was the regional guy out of KSL and covered the Intermountain West," Sandack said in a 1993 interview with The Salt Lake Tribune. "The other regional guys were Red Barber on the east coast, Sam Hughes on the West Coast, and in the Midwest, a guy named Dutch Reagan, who later became president of the United States [as Ronald Reagan]."

Sandack loved to talk about how the play-by-play would come over Western Union, and it would be up to the announcer to add the drama. So many beeps would mean a ground out, short to first, Sandack said. But the announcer would say, "It's a hard grounder to the left. The shortstop goes to the hole. Great stop. Long throw to first. He got him."

Sandack added with a wry smile, "We made it all up."

Later, he became the premier labor attorney in Utah, representing workers in all fields, negotiating through the strikes at Kennecott Copper Co. and representing the air-flight controllers who were fired by President Reagan when they went on strike.

He was the Salt Lake County Democratic Party chairman in the 1950s and the state Democratic chairman in the 1960s. He was an early supporter of John F. Kennedy in 1956, and arranged for Kennedy's trip to Salt Lake City that year. The friendship ensured Sandack a place on the national Democratic Party stage after Kennedy won the party's nomination and then the presidency in 1960.

Berman remembers that when Sandack ran for state chairman, one delegate stood at the podium and said the party could not be led by someone who didn't believe in Jesus Christ (Sandack was Jewish, serving as president of the Congregation Kol Ami). Suddenly, a delegate named Charles Romney, brother of Republican Michigan Gov. George Romney and uncle of possible 2012 GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney — and an active Mormon — stormed down the aisle wanting to beat the speaker to a pulp for those comments about Sandack, who later was elected by acclamation.

"Wally Sandack was the godfather of serious politics, but also of good laughter," said former state Democratic Party Chairman Pat Shea, who said Sandack was his mentor. "He knew how to get people engaged."

Shea said that in the 1968 Democratic State Convention, three candidates were running for the U.S. Senate nomination and the vote-counting was painfully slow. It was hot and the delegates were getting impatient. So Sandack entertained them for about an hour with an impromptu stand-up comedy routine.

Current state Democratic Chairman Wayne Holland said when he became an official within the AFL-CIO, the first call he got was from Sandack, who asked him to organize some union electricians to do needed electrical work at the local homeless shelter.

"Whenever there was a good cause, one to help people, Wally was there," said Holland.

Sandack was born June 26, 1913, in Chicago to Jacob and Ethel Grossman Sandack. He graduated from the University of Utah Law School in 1936 and married Helen Frank in 1940. Friends say the two became one of the most dynamic couples in Utah through the 1950s and '60s. Helen died in October.

Sandack is survived by five children, nine grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. A memorial service will be held Wednesday at 11 a.m. at Evans and Early Mortuary in Salt Lake City.