Hugh Downs
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-->Hugh Malcolm Downs, (born February 14, 1921) is a retired American television host, producer, and author.
Early life
Hugh Downs was born in Akron, Ohio and educated at Bluffton College, a Mennonite school in Bluffton, Ohio, and Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan during the period 1938 to 1941. He worked as a radio announcer and program director at WLOK in Lima, Ohio after his first year of college. In 1940 he moved on to WWJ in Detroit. Downs served briefly in the U.S. Army in 1943 and then joined the NBC radio network at WMAQ in Chicago as an announcer, where he lived until 1954. He married Ruth Shaheen in 1944. He also attended Columbia University in New York City during 1955–56.Television career
Downs made his first television news broadcast in September 1945 from the still experimental studio of WBKB-TV, a station then owned by the Balaban and Katz theater subsidiary of Paramount Pictures. He became a TV regular, announcing for Hawkins Falls in 1950, the first successful television soap opera, which was sponsored by Lever Brothers Surf detergent. He also announced the Burr Tillstrom children's show Kukla, Fran and Ollie from the NBC studios at Chicago's Merchandise Mart after the network picked up the program from WBKB. In March, 1954 Downs moved to New York to accept a position as announcer for Pat Weaver's The Home Show starring Arlene Francis. That program lasted until August, 1957. He was the announcer for Sid Caesar's Caesar's Hour for the 1956–57 season. Downs became a bona fide television "personality" as Jack Paar's announcer on The Tonight Show from July 1957 until Paar's departure in March, 1962, and then shared hosting until Johnny Carson took over in October 1962. In August 1958 he concurrently began an eleven-year run hosting the original version of the game show Concentration. He hosted NBC's Today Show for nine years from September 1962 to October 1971. He co-hosted the syndicated television program Not for Women Only with Barbara Walters in 1975 and 1976.Downs earned a postgraduate degree in gerontology from Hunter College while he was hosting Over Easy, a PBS television program about aging that aired from 1977 to 1983.
He was probably best known as the Emmy Award-winning co-anchor (again paired with Walters) of the ABC news TV show 20/20, a primetime news magazine program, from 1978 until his retirement in 1999. His closing tagline "We're in touch, so you be in touch", was written by Brock Brower.
In 1985, he was certified by the Guinness Book of World Records as holding the record for the greatest number of hours on network commercial television (15,188 hours), though he lost the record for most hours on all forms of television to Regis Philbin in 2004.
A published composer himself, Downs hosted the PBS showcase for classical music, Live from Lincoln Center from 1990 to 1996.
Film appearances
- Survival of Spaceship Earth (1972) interviewed along with Rene Dubos, Margaret Mead, and John D. Rockefeller, III in a documentary on the Earth's environmental crisis
- Nothing by Chance (1975) executive producer and narrator – a documentary about the biplanes that barnstormed across America during the 1920s
- Oh God! Book II (1980) newscaster
Public service
Downs was a special consultant to the United Nations for refugee problems from 1961-64 and served as Chairman of the Board of the United States Committee for UNICEF.Always interested in science and space, Downs wrote a column for Science Digest during the 1960s. He was Science Consultant to Westinghouse Laboratories and the Ford Foundation and an elected member of the National Academy of Science. He is a Board of Governors member of the National Space Society and was a longtime president and chairman of the predecessor National Space Institute. The asteroid 71000 Hughdowns is named after him.
The Hugh Downs School of Human Communication at Arizona State University is named in his honor.
Miscellaneous
- Downs made a 2001 cameo appearance on the television cartoon series Family Guy in the episode "The Kiss Seen Around the World." He has also provided his voice for a Family Guy commercial on adult swim in 2006.
- Downs and his wife have two children.
- He is an avid sailor and airplane pilot.
- He is colorblind.
- Downs appeared as a panelist on the television game show To Tell the Truth.
Books
- A Shoal of Stars: A True-Life Account of Everyman's Dream: Sailing Across the Pacific to Exotic Lands, 1967, Doubleday, (no ISBN)
- Rings Around Tomorrow, 1970, Doubleday, (no ISBN), an anthology of Down's science articles
- Potential: The Way to Emotional Maturity, 1973, Doubleday, ISBN 0385037422
- Thirty Dirty Lies About Old Age, 1979, Argus, ISBN 0895050331
- The Best Years: How to Plan for Fulfillment, Security, and Happiness in the Retirement Years, 1981, Delacorte Press hardcover, ISBN 0385280769
- *The Best Years Book, 1982, Dell Publishing paperback, ISBN 0440539013
- On Camera: My 10,000 Hours on Television, 1986, Putnam: ISBN 0399132031, Thorndike Press large print: ISBN 0896217884
- Fifty to Forever, 1994, Thomas Nelson Inc, ISBN 0840777868, a collection of essays
- Perspectives, 1995, Turner Publications, ISBN 157036219X, 50 selections from his ten-minute radio essays
- Greater Phoenix: The Desert in Bloom, 1999, Towery Publications, ISBN 1881096696
- Pure Gold: A Lifetime of Love and Marriage, 2001, Arizona State University Press, ISBN 0971716005
- My America: What My Country Means to Me, by 150 Americans from All Walks of Life, (editor), 2002, Scribner, ISBN 0743233697, large print: ISBN 0743240898
- Letter to a Great Grandson: A Message of Love, Advice, and Hopes for the Future, 2004, Scribner, ISBN 074324723X
External links
- [ABC News' bio.] of Hugh Downs from Internet archive
- [Biography] from the Museum of Broadcast Communications
- [Hugh Downs' listing] in the Internet Movie Database
- [Hugh Downs School of Communication] at Arizona State University
- [Interview transcript] of Downs in 2005 on his libertarian views.
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| Preceded by: Harold Hayes and Robert Hughes June 6, 1978 (premier episode only) | 20/20 Host himself June 13, 1978–1984, with Barbara Walters, 1984–1992 | Followed by: Barbara Walters 1992-2002 |
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