Robbins began a career in broadcasting at Baltimore radio station WITH. He began working on WHN in New York City in 1942 and later had the
1280 Club program on
WOV, also in New York City. Robbins later had the
Robbins Nest program on
WINS,
WABC and
WNEW in New York, and he hosted television programs there). He was briefly the host of
The Talent Shop and
Cavalcade of Bands for the
DuMont TV network. He also worked on
Coke Time with Eddie Fisher on NBC Beginning in 1960, Robbins was host of
Assignment Hollywood, a five-minute program on the ABC radio network. Nearly 400 affiliated stations carried the show, as did stations in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. Robbins traveled to interview movie stars and singers on location. The trade publication
Billboard reported in 1966 that radio stations considered the program "extremely useful, either as a separate show or integrated into a deejay's program". Robbins starred or played himself in more than two dozen television shows or movies from the 1940s through the 1980s. He was also a feature interviewer for
CNN's
Showbiz Tonight and wrote profiles of celebrities for many magazines. He was immortalized by two jazz compositions, one by
Billy Strayhorn called "Snibor", his name spelled backwards. It was recorded by the
Duke Ellington Orchestra in 1947 and again in 1967. The other composition was "Robbins Nest" by Sir
Charles Thompson and recorded by many artists'. It became a jazz standard. Robbins died of
lymphoma on June 23, 1992, at the Lenox Hill Hospital in
Manhattan. He was 72 years old. ==References==