George Moynihan, programmer in early days of television; at 82

“He was a consummate gentleman in a world where that was all but vanishing,’’ said Garland Waller, a Newton resident who had worked as a special projects producer under Mr. Moynihan at Westinghouse, now owned by CBS. “He was really able to be this marvelous, extraordinary executive in the corporate world, and then be lovely to everyone.’’

Mr. Moynihan was born in Cambridge. His mother, Mary, was an immigrant from Ireland; his father, Vincent, was a South Boston native. Mr. Moynihan had three brothers and two sisters.

“He was mostly studious,’’ his brother James of Peabody said. When the other boys would be outside playing football, he added, George would be inside reading a book.

The diligence paid off, as Mr. Moynihan graduated from the former Cambridge Latin School in 1944 and received a scholarship to Harvard University. After his freshman year, however, he joined the Coast Guard, to serve the country during World War II.

Mr. Moynihan spent his first six months transporting US troops from Europe to the Pacific islands, as they prepared to invade Japan. Once the war against Japan ended, he spent the next six months bringing the troops home. With the help of the GI Bill, Mr. Moynihan returned to Harvard and graduated in the late 1940s.

Channel 4, then owned by Westinghouse, went on the air in 1948, and Mr. Moynihan landed a job as a film editor in the early 1950s.

“His career kind of paralleled the rise of television,’’ said Alan Schroeder, a professor of journalism at Northeastern University who had worked for Mr. Moynihan at WBZ. He said Mr. Moynihan helped invent television programming.

He worked on some of the first talk shows, such as “Swan Boat,’’ “Evening Magazine,’’ and “People Are Talking.’’ His reality show “Six American Families’’ won the Columbia Dupont Award, and the children’s program “Call It Macaroni’’ won the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award. Mr. Moynihan also supported public service campaigns that discussed topics such as Alzheimer’s disease and organ donation.

“He was there at a time when Westinghouse really believed that you could do well by doing good,’’ said Barry Nolan, Waller’s husband and host of “Evening Magazine.’’ “Boy, turn on the television, you don’t get the sense that’s the mandate any more.’’

Mr. Moynihan retired around 1990 after working at stations in Boston, New York, and San Francisco. He had served as executive producer for “The Mike Douglas Show’’ and “The Merv Griffin Show’’ and became vice president of programming before he left the company.

For many years, he was a member of the Indo-US Sub-Commission on Education and Culture and visited India several times to educate TV producers there about public service.

He owned and lived at the Sea Lion motel in Gloucester, which he sold in the 1990s before moving to New York, alternating between living there and at his summer home in Rockport.

“I just loved him. I just plain loved him. He was really great,’’ Waller said.

In addition to his brother James, Mr. Moynihan leaves his brother John of Norwood.

Services have been held.