More on Hugh Downs
Just a little piece from today's SJ Mer
by: pompa1 (46/M/Bay Area) 06/15/01 09:44 am EDT
Msg: 107781 of 107841
www0.mercurycenter.com
Published Friday, June 15, 2001, in the San Jose Mercury News
There's no slowing down Hugh Downs
BY NANCY IMPERIALE WELLONS
Knight Ridder
Hugh Downs is forging new broadcasting frontiers.
``TV had become a little too centrist for me and a little too tabloid-flavored, and the Internet was just beckoning,'' said Downs, who left his co-anchor job on ABC's ``20/20'' two years ago to produce Internet-only broadcasts. His latest specials premiered this week.
It figures that the 80-year-old broadcaster would be pushing boundaries. He's had some experience in that area: He helped introduce the country to a brand-new technology called television, appearing in one of the first experimental broadcasts in Illinois in 1945.
``There were less than 400 sets in all of greater Chicago, and most were in bars. So I was broadcasting to a bunch of drunks,'' Downs said by the phone from the New York offices of Ampex Corp., the Internet company producing his shows.
``Conversations With Hugh Downs: Values in America'' began airing this week on iNEXTTV (www.inexttv.com). The show is a series of discussions on sex, ethics, politics and violence with 15 people, including Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, rocker Joan Jett, rabbi Ismar Schorsch and ex-New York Mayor Ed Koch. Several interviews became available in streaming video on Monday.
It's not the first Internet venture for Downs. Since leaving ``20/20'' in 1999 after 21 years, he has been producing online commentaries.
``My Take With Hugh Downs'' (also on iNEXTTV) has him opining on everything from tobacco addiction to ``Temptation Island.''
Some of you may be thinking ``Hugh, buddy, you're eight decades old. Relax!'' But you don't even know the half of it.
Mr. Won't-Slow-Downs lectures at Arizona State University (at the Hugh Downs School of Communications, of course) and is proud of a musical piece he composed for cellist Yo-Yo Ma.
``I would like to go to Juilliard and brush up on composition,'' Downs added. ``I'm also going to monitor some courses at Arizona State and, if I get the chance, I may peck away at my doctorate.''
Downs' 62 years in broadcasting have reaped multiple Emmys, honorariums and national broadcasting awards.
Before he was at ABC, he was at NBC's ``Today'' show for nine years, hosted the TV game show ``Concentration'' for 11 years, and spent three years on the couch next to Jack Paar on ``The Tonight Show.''
TV also introduced Downs to his wife, Ruth, who worked in a TV production department. They have been married 57 years and have two children.
Best O'Luck,
Tom |
