Hugh Downs

Hugh Downs
Born	(1921-02-14) February 14, 1921 Akron, Ohio, USA

Hugh Malcolm Downs (born February 14, 1921) is a retired American broadcaster, television host, producer, and author. He served as anchor of 20/20, host of The Today Show, announcer for the Tonight Show with Jack Paar, host of the Concentration game show, host of the PBS talk show Over Easy and co-host of the syndicated talk show Not for Women Only. He is not related to the well-known CBS broadcaster of the 1940s, Bill Downs.

Early life

Hugh Downs was born in Akron, Ohio and educated at Lima Shawnee High School in Lima, Ohio; 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 a coworker, 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 (now WBBM-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 appeared as a panelist on the television game show To Tell the Truth.

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 the show's second episode in 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.

Downs made a cameo appearance on Family Guy in the episode "The Kiss Seen Around the World" when he was captured by a crazed assailant. After escaping the madman's grasp, Downs returned moments later with "Remember me, dirtbag?!" and engaged in a fist-fight and then flew off into the sky.

Downs can currently be seen in infomercials for healthsecrets.com and another one for a personal coach. He did an infomercial for Where There's a Will There's an A in 2003. His infomercial work since then has aroused some controversy, with many arguing the products are scams. As of the summer of 2008, Downs can also be seen in regional public service announcements in Arizona, where he currently lives, for that state's motor vehicles division, as well as in many Public TV short form programs as the Host of educational interstitials.

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 & Political Views

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.

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 auditorium of Shawnee High School in Lima, Ohio and the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication at Arizona State University are named in his honor.

Downs has expressed public praise for many libertarian viewpoints. He opposes the U.S. "war on drugs". He did several pieces about the war on drugs and hemp.

Books

• Yours Truly... 1960, Holt, Rinehart and Winston (no ISBN); autobiography
• 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 0-385-03742-2
• Thirty Dirty Lies About Old Age, 1979, Argus, ISBN 0-89505-033-1
• The Best Years: How to Plan for Fulfillment, Security, and Happiness in the Retirement Years, 1981, Delacorte Press hardcover, ISBN 0-385-28076-9
  • The Best Years Book, 1982, Dell Publishing paperback, ISBN 0-440-53901-3
• On Camera: My 10,000 Hours on Television, 1986, Putnam: ISBN 0-399-13203-1, Thorndike Press large print: ISBN 0-89621-788-4
• Fifty to Forever, 1994, Thomas Nelson Inc, ISBN 0-8407-7786-8, a collection of essays
• Perspectives, 1995, Turner Publications, ISBN 1-57036-219-X, 50 selections from his ten-minute radio essays
• Greater Phoenix: The Desert in Bloom, 1999, Towery Publications, ISBN 1-881096-69-6
• Pure Gold: A Lifetime of Love and Marriage, 2001, Arizona State University Press, ISBN 0-9717160-0-5
• My America: What My Country Means to Me, by 150 Americans from All Walks of Life, (editor), 2002, Scribner, ISBN 0-7432-3369-7, large print: ISBN 0-7432-4089-8
• Letter to a Great Grandson: A Message of Love, Advice, and Hopes for the Future, 2004, Scribner, ISBN 0-7432-4723-X

External links

• ABC News' bio. of Hugh Downs from Internet archive
• Biography from the Museum of Broadcast Communications
• Hugh Downs at IMDb
• Hugh Downs School of Communication at Arizona State University
• Interview transcript of Downs in 2005 on his libertarian views

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