Turner Classic Movies’ host, film buff

NEW YORK — Robert Osborne, the face of Turner Classic Movies and a walking encyclopedia of classic Hollywood, has died. He was 84.

Jennifer Dorian, general manager of Turner Classic Movies, announced Osborne’s death. A publicist for the channel said Osborne passed away Monday in New York.

“His calming presence, gentleman ly style, encyclopedic knowledge of film history, fervent support for film preservation and highly personal interviewing style all combined to make him a truly worldclass host,” Dorian said.

A cause of death was not announced, though Osborne’s waning health had forced him to miss the past two TCM Classic Film Festivals, which he hosted annually in Los Angeles.

Osborne was there from the inception of Ted Turner’s commercial- free classic movie channel. To open its first broadcast on April 14, 1994, Osborne introduced

Gone With the Wind. In the decades after, he remained Turner Classic’s primary — and often sole — host.

Osborne presented films with bits of history and trivia. He also conducted interviews with stars during the channel’s guest- programmer evenings. His introductions — always beginning with “Hi, I’m Robert Osborne” — were the warm appetizers to countless feasts of Hollywood classics.

Born in Colfax, Wash., Osborne studied journalism at the University of Washington and spent two years in the Air Force in Seattle. He then moved to Los Angeles to make it as an actor, and was signed by Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz’s Desilu Studios. Ball, who remained a mentor to him up until her death in 1989, encouraged Osborne to pursue writing — “especially after she saw me act,” Osborne recalled. He had a stint as a columnist for the Hollywood Reporter.

With Osborne as its ambassador, the cultishly adored Turner Classic developed into a wider- reaching mainstay of movie love, including not only the film festival but also an annual cruise.

“I get stopped on the street all the time,” Osborne once told The New York

Times. “People say: ‘ You got me through cancer last year. You got me past unemployment. You take me away from my troubles.’ Exactly what movies did in the ’ 30s and ’ 40s.”