Tom Dunn, 77. NY (WOR), other cities... tv newsman (fwd)
danny burstein
Former WPTV anchor loses battle with cancer
By DIANA MAZZELLA
diana.m...@scripps.com
July 7, 2006 STUART - Tom Dunn, a former television news
anchor in New York and weekend anchor for 10 years at WPTV
in West Palm Beach, died Sunday after a three-year bout
with esophageal cancer.
He was 77.
Born in Warwick, N.Y., Dunn started his broadcasting
career in radio at 15 as a child actor for WAAT Radio in
Newark, N.J. He started as a television reporter in
Florida with WCTV in Tallahassee in 1959 after serving
a two-year stint in the U.S. Army and then opening a
sound and communications business.
After serving as a press secretary for one year to
U.S. Rep. Ed Gurney, R-Winter Park, he went back to
television for good until retiring for the first time.
He moved to Florida in 1987 and became a weekend
anchor at WPTV in 1988. The job, originally an eight-week
deal to allow the station time to find a permanent
anchor, lasted a decade.
"He loved it while he was working there," said his
wife, Anna Dunn, whom he married in 1974. "So many
people knew him."
Anna Dunn said Richard Nixon asked Tom to be his
press secretary before Nixon was president,
but he turned it down because he was told he
might not be able to get back into television news
if he took the job.
After he finally retired from WPTV, the couple
moved to Stuart because "it was so pretty
and quiet," Anna Dunn said.
While Dunn loved broadcasting, he didn't always feel
that way about the news toward the end of his career
when Anna Dunn said it turned into a ratings game.
"He didn't like watching the news," she said.
But she said he continued to read local newspapers
and watch Tom Brokaw and his successor, Brian Williams.
Anna Dunn said her husband was also a pilot, owned
a sailboat, rode horses, played golf and tennis and
loved to ski.
His daughter, Kathi Greco from Westlake, Ohio, said
her father, well-known among friends for his cooking,
had a rib recipe that was a particular favorite among
his grandchildren.
"I can tell you, all his grandkids are going to miss
his ribs terribly," Greco said.
Dunn's ashes will be distributed at sea in a private
ceremony this month, Anna Dunn said.
Dunn's longest television job was for WOR-TV in New
Jersey and New York and he lived in nearby Greenwich,
Conn., for some of that time.
According to the local newspaper, Greenwich Time,
Dunn was married for 25 years to Abbie Dunn, who is
now deceased, and had three children with her
before their divorce. He also has one stepson.
The Greenwich Time reported in 1984 how Dunn viewed his job.
"When people ask me what broadcasting is like," said
Dunn, "I always say, 'It beats work.'"
http://www1.tcpalm.com/tcp/local_news/article/0,2545,TCP_16736_4826702,00.html
and
Tom Dunn, who got his start on radio over the old WAAT
in Newark and went on to become a TV anchor at Ch. 2,
Ch. 7 and Ch. 9, died July 2 of cancer in Stuart, Fla.
He was 77.
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/story/435138p-366631c.html
_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dan...@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]
Brad Ferguson
burstein <dan...@panix.com> wrote:
> July 7, 2006 STUART - Tom Dunn, a former television news
> anchor in New York and weekend anchor for 10 years at WPTV
> in West Palm Beach, died Sunday after a three-year bout
> with esophageal cancer.
>
> He was 77.
The obit doesn't mention that Tom Dunn had a fatal run-in with his
Channel 2 bosses when he got into trouble over a real-estate business
he was involved in. Dunn wound up getting fired. He was later
exonerated, and that was Channel 9's gain, of course; Tom Dunn was a
classy professional, and they were lucky to have him.
Hyfler/Rosner
"danny burstein" <dan...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:Pine.NEB.4.63.06...@panix5.panix.com...
>( main url includes a photo )
>
> Former WPTV anchor loses battle with cancer
>
Well, that brings me back. I would have bet that he played
a newsman in dozens of films, but it was only a couple. He
was great.