Hugh Downs

Hugh Malcolm Downs (February 14, 1921 – July 1, 2020) was an American broadcaster, television host, news anchor, TV producer, author, game show host, and music composer. A regular television presence from the 1940s through the 1990s, he had several successful roles on morning television, prime time television, and late night television. Downs served as announcer/sidekick for Tonight Starring Jack Paar from 1957 to 1962, co-host of the NBC News program Today from 1962 to 1971, host of the Concentration game show from 1958 to 1969, and anchor of the ABC News magazine 20/20 from 1978 to 1999.

Downs started in live television in 1945 in Chicago, where he became a regular on several nationally broadcast programs over the next decade. He moved to New York City in 1954, when he was invited to do a program there. Among other shows during his career, he also hosted the PBS talk show Over Easy, and was the sometime co-host of the syndicated talk show Not for Women Only.

Early life

Downs was born in 1921 in Akron, Ohio, to Edith (née Hicks) and Milton Howard Downs, who worked in business. He was 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 1938–41. He went to the Western Pennsylvania School for the Deaf for 6 years

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 in the United States Army during World War II in 1943 and then joined the NBC radio network at WMAQ as an announcer in Chicago, Illinois, where he lived until 1954. While at WMAQ Downs also acted, including as the "co-pilot" in the "Uncle Ned's Squadron" program in 1951. He married a coworker, Ruth Shaheen, in 1944, three days after his 23rd birthday. 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) in Chicago, a station then owned by the Balaban and Katz theater subsidiary of Paramount Pictures. Downs later recalled that when he went for his first job, he had never seen a television before, and he was unsure whether television would last. Downs became a television 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 City 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, and one of NBC Radio's Monitor "Communicators" from 1955–1959. Downs became a bona fide television "personality" as Jack Paar's announcer on The Tonight Show from mid-1957, when he replaced Franklin Pangborn, until Paar's departure in March 1962, and then continued to announce for The Tonight Show until the summer of 1962, when Ed Herlihy took the announcing reins. Herlihy held that post until October 1, 1962, when Johnny Carson took over the show, and brought Ed McMahon as his announcer.

On August 25, 1958, Downs concurrently began a more than ten-year run hosting the original version of the game show Concentration. Also, he hosted NBC's Today Show for nine years from September 1962 to October 1971, plus co-hosting the syndicated television program Not for Women Only with Barbara Walters in 1975–76. Downs also appeared as a panelist on the television game show To Tell the Truth and played himself in an episode of NBC's sitcom Car 54, Where Are You?

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 in later years 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.

Downs was inducted into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame at the San Diego Air & Space Museum in 1984. In that same year, 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, Downs hosted the PBS showcase for classical music, Live from Lincoln Center from 1990–96. Downs made a cameo appearance on Family Guy in addition to other TV shows.

Downs was seen in infomercials for Bottom Line Publications, including their World's Greatest Treasury of Health Secrets, as well as another one for a personal coach. He did an infomercial for Where There's a Will There's an A in 2003. His subsequent infomercial work aroused some controversy, with many arguing the products were scams.

Downs appeared in regional public service announcements in Arizona, for that state's Motor Vehicles Division; for Hospice of the Valley, a Phoenix-area non-profit organization specializing in hospice care, as well as in many public, short-form programs in which he serves as host of educational interstitials.

On October 13, 2007, Downs was one of the first inductees into the American TV Game Show Hall of Fame in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Downs was inducted as a Laureate of The Lincoln Academy of Illinois and awarded the Order of Lincoln (the State's highest honor) by the Governor of Illinois in 1967 in the area of communications.

Personal life

Ruth Shaheen Downs, Hugh's wife, died on March 28, 2017, at age 95. They had two children, Deirdre and H.R.

Downs died on July 1, 2020, at his home in Scottsdale, Arizona. He was 99; according to his family, it was not due to COVID-19.

Film appearances

• A Global Affair (1964) starring Bob Hope – Hugh Downs as Himself
• 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
• Someone Like You (2001) as Himself

Public service and political views

Downs was a special consultant to the United Nations for refugee problems from 1961 to 1964, 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 served as chair of the Board of Governors of the National Space Society until 2019 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 in Tempe, Arizona, are named in his honor.

As part of the Centennial of the State of Arizona celebration in February 2012, Downs narrated Aaron Copland's "Lincoln Portrait" on stage with the Phoenix Symphony.

Downs publicly expressed support for libertarian viewpoints. He opposed the U.S. "war on drugs". He did several pieces about the war on drugs and hemp. On his last 20/20 he was asked if he had any personal opinions he would like to express and responded that marijuana should be legalized.

Books and Short Fiction

• Yours Truly... Holt, Rinehart and Winston. 1960. (autobiography)
• A Shoal of Stars: A True-Life Account of Everyman's Dream: Sailing Across the Pacific to Exotic Lands. Doubleday. 1967.
• Rings Around Tomorrow. Doubleday. 1970. an anthology of Downs's science articles
• Potential: The Way to Emotional Maturity. Doubleday. 1973. ISBN 978-0-3850-3742-6.
• Thirty Dirty Lies About Old Age. Argus. 1979. ISBN 0-89505-033-1.
• The Best Years: How to Plan for Fulfillment, Security, and Happiness in the Retirement Years. Delacorte Press hardcover. 1981. ISBN 0-385-28076-9.
• The Best Years Book. Dell Publishing paperback. 1982. ISBN 978-0-8950-5033-5.
• On Camera: My 10,000 Hours on Television. Putnam. 1986. ISBN 978-0-3991-3203-2.
• Fifty to Forever. Thomas Nelson Inc. 1994. ISBN 978-0-8407-7786-7. a collection of essays
• Perspectives. Turner Publications. 1995. ISBN 978-1-5703-6283-5. 50 selections from his ten-minute radio essays
• Greater Phoenix: The Desert in Bloom. Towery Publications. 1999. ISBN 978-1-8810-9669-6.
• Pure Gold: A Lifetime of Love and Marriage. Arizona State University Press. 2001. ISBN 978-0-9717-1600-1.
• Hugh Downs, ed. (2002). My America: What My Country Means to Me, by 150 Americans from All Walks of Life. Scribner. ISBN 978-0-7432-3474-0.
• Letter to a Great Grandson: A Message of Love, Advice, and Hopes for the Future. Scribner. 2004. ISBN 978-0-7432-6291-0.

Short Story

"The Longest Story Ever Told", Omni, March, 1980