Veteran newsman, early TV regular Downs dead at 99
Hugh Downs, whose congeniality and authoritative manner allowed him to move between the world of game shows and U.S. network news, has died at the age of 99, the Arizona school named after him said on Thursday.
Downs hosted the game show
Concentration and the ABC News show 20/20 during a radio and television career of more than 60 years. “It is with a heavy heart that we announce the passing of Hugh Downs. We heard from his family that Hugh passed away peacefully yesterday at his home in Scottsdale surrounded by his family at the age of 99,” the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication at Arizona State University said in a posting on its social media pages.
Downs’ television work ranged from Today, NBC’s morning news show, to
Tonight, working with Jack Paar. In 1985 the Guinness Book of World Records said he had been on commercial television a record 15,188 hours — a mark that stood until Regis Philbin surpassed it in 2004.
“I thought TV was a gimmick like 3-D movies and it would just go away,” Downs, who had a friendly, low-key manner on the air, said in an interview with the Archive of American Television. “I had no idea that the tail would eventually wag the dog and treat me much kinder than radio did.”
Downs’ broadcasting career began at 18 when he auditioned for a radio announcer job on a whim in his hometown of Lima, Ohio. After serving in the Army in World War Two, he joined the NBC radio network in Chicago and that led to TV announcing jobs. Bigger television assignments lay ahead in New York in the late 1950s — announcer on Sid Caesar’s Caesar’s Hour and announcer-sidekick to host Paar on
The Tonight Show from 1957 until 1962. Downs won Emmys for his work on
Today in 1970, for hosting the PBS series on aging, Over Easy, in 1981 and Live From
Lincoln Center in 1991.