Godfrey and La Rosa

Publicity still with Bing Crosby and Perry Como in 1950 for Crosby's radio show.

Arthur Godfrey, the ukulele-playing radio and television personality whose folksy manner won him millions of admirers in the 1940's and 50's, died yesterday at the age of 79.

Mr. Godfrey, who had been mostly retired since the late 1950's, died in Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York after a stay of 13 days. The cause of death was emphysema and pneumonia.

So popular was Mr. Godfrey in his heyday that, in 1959, when he underwent one of the first successful operations for the removal of a cancerous lung, it was front-page news across the nation. Although the operation was a success, for the rest of his life he had trouble breathing.

At the height of his popularity on the CBS television network, Mr. Godfrey had a ''family'' of entertainers that included Rosemary Clooney, Carmel Quinn and Julius La Rosa. One of the more memorable of the Godfrey shows was the one on which, on the air, he dismissed Mr. La Rosa, supposedly for ''lack of humility.'' 'The Ole Redhead'

''The ole redhead,'' as Mr. Godfrey liked to call himself, was known for his disdain of prepared commercial messages and used to ad-lib for his sponsors' products.

His was an era in which radio-TV announcers were expected to deliver commercials as though they had been written by Shakespeare, but Mr. Godfrey delighted in tossing aside prepared scripts and telling his audience: ''Aw, who wrote this stuff? Everybody knows Lipton's is the best tea you can buy. So why get fancy about it? Getcha some Lipton's, hot the pot with plain hot water for a few minutes, then put fresh hot water on the tea and let it just sit there.''

Interrupting another commercial for a shampoo that was supposed to contain milk and eggs, Mr. Godfrey irreverently told his listeners: ''If your hair is clean you can always use the stuff to make an omelet.''

He may have put permanent winces on the faces of his advertising copywriters, but Mr. Godfrey's sponsors were unable to ignore his vast popularity. At one point, in the mid-1950's, he had an estimated audience of 40 million and had more than 80 sponsors for his daily morning show. He received 60,000 letters a week, and gifts ranging from a rattlelsnake to a Cadillac. 'Huck Finn of Radio'

Some compared his homey approach and sometimes sly off-color wit to the Will Rogers style, and the late Fred Allen dubbed Mr. Godfrey ''the Huck Finn of radio.'' There was something all-American about his wide grin, his infectious chuckle and his unruly shock of red hair.

Mr. Godfrey was born Aug. 31, 1903, in New York, but was brought up in Hasbrouck Heights, N.J. His father was Arthur Hanbury Godfrey, a newspaper and magazine writer, and his mother was the former Kathryn Morton.

Family reverses forced Mr. Godfrey to drop out of high school in his first year, at age 15, and he eventually joined the Navy and became a radioman. In 1924, after a four-year hitch, he worked as a short-order cook, salesman, and taxi driver, and finally enlisted in the Coast Guard.

While in the Coast Guard, Mr. Godfrey appeared as an amateur banjo and ukulele player on a Baltimore radio station, and on his discaharge in 1930 he was hired by station WFBR as a radio announcer. Chose Informal Approach

His career seemed fairly successful at first, but not sensational until after he suffered severe injuries in an automobile accident. While in the hospital, ''I listened to a lot of radio, hour after hour,'' he said, ''and I decided to take the informal approach in my own work.''

After his release from the hospital, Mr. Godfrey went to work for NBC in Washington and in 1941 he came to New York. In 1945, CBS radio gave him his big break with a half-hour morning show.

He captured nationwide attention in April, 1945, when he was chosen to give the commentary on the funeral procession for President Franklin D. Roosevelt. At several points Mr. Godfrey's voice choked with grief, and when he described the approach of Mr. Roosevelt's vice president and successor, Harry S. Truman, he burst into tears and blurted out, ''God bless President Truman.''

Mr. Godfrey's first television show was ''Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts,'' introduced in December 1948. The aim of the show was to discover new talent, with an applause meter that measured audience reaction to each contestant.

Only a month after that show was launched, Mr. Godfrey was given another series, ''Arthur Godfrey and His Friends,'' which in 1956 became ''The Arthur Godfrey Show.'' He also continued a daily radio show, and in 1959 he was reported by Variety, the show business weekly, to have been responsible for $150 million in commercial billings for CBS. Accumulated a Fortune

Mr. Godfrey accumulated a fortune that made it possible for him to run a handsome estate in the Virginia horse country, own a huge duplex apartment in Manhattan and fly his own airplanes. He qualified in 1950 for a pilot's license, and the following year completed training to fly jets.

Coincidentally, he constantly plugged the glories of air travel on his shows, and on one occasion Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker credited Mr. Godfrey with having done more for the aviation industry than anyone since Charles A. Lindbergh.

In 1953, a trade publication, Broadcasting-Telecasting, complained of ''the deification of Arthur Godfrey'' and said, ''it is only a matter of time before the second syllable of Godfrey will be forgotten.''

Mr. Godfrey had become, in fact, a much-feared personality, with star-making powers. For example, he had heard Mr. La Rosa sing at a Navy enlisted men's club in Pensacola, Fla., and after the young singer's discharge, he installed Mr. La Rosa on his tremendously popular television and radio shows. Then, 23 months to the day after his debut, Mr. La Rosa finished singing a song and Mr. Godfrey, dead serious for a change, announced on the air, ''That was his swan song.'' Cool Response to Outrage

Mr. La Rosa, who later said his dismissal actually helped his career, had offended his mentor because he had gotten himself an agent and formed a recording company with Mr. Godfrey's musical director, Archie Bleyer. Mr. Godfrey's cool response to outraged audience reaction was to dismiss Mr. Bleyer too.

Mr. Godfrey, who made a tearful farewell to his radio audience when he discovered he had cancer in 1959, said he didn't want to remain in the public eye while he wasted away. After his recovery, however, he attempted a comeback.

But the changing tastes of television audiences prevented his ever recovering the popularity he once had, and by the early 1960's he was making only occasional television appearances, although for some years he was heard on radio.

''I love this business,'' he once said. ''If you want to last, you have to grow. That little screen is merciless and if you aren't constantly more interesting and intriguing, they - the public - will drop you, ruthlessly.''

Mr. Godfrey was married in l938 to the former Mary Bourke and they had three children, Richard, Michael and Patricia.