Bill Beutel; NY Sun obituary
Hyfler/Rosner
BY STEPHEN MILLER - Staff Reporter of the Sun
March 20, 2006
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/29438
Bill Beutel, who died Saturday at 75, spent the better part
of 40 years in New York television news as half the anchor
team leading the brash "Eyewitness News," on ABC, Channel 7.
He was among the most recognizable of New York broadcast
newsmen, and for much of his career helped generate high
local ratings. Together with co-anchor Roger Grimsby, Beutel
helped launch an era in which news anchors indulged in
spirited banter during the broadcast. With the acerbic
Grimsby, such crosstalk could be amusing and informative;
all too often in other contexts, it degenerates into "happy
talk."
Key to the success of "Eyewitness News" was the show's
lively stable of reporters, who came to resemble an
amusingly obstreperous, multiracial family, with Beutel and
Grimsby keeping order. There was features reporter Melba
Tolliver, and Geraldo Rivera, a young crusader who in 1972
exposed appalling conditions at the Willowbrook State School
on Staten Island. Sports were reported by Frank Gifford and
the skeptical Jim Bouton, both New York professional team
veterans. Tex Antoine handled the weather, until he spouted
off in appallingly bad taste after a story about the rape of
a five-year-old girl, leading to his ouster in 1974; somehow
the episode made the newscast edgier and more of a must
watch - anything could happen.
The partnership with Grimsby ran from 1970 through 1986, at
which time Grimsby was tossed overboard by ABC management,
possibly in a move to cut costs. Both garnered top salaries
since kicking off "Eyewitness News" at the then-phenomenal
rate of $100,000 a year. Beutel continued as anchor until
2001, sometimes partnered with younger co-anchors to liven
things up, but the old energy never quite returned.
Although an experienced reporter who had served as ABC's
bureau chief in London in the 1960s, Beutel more and more
came to be literally an anchor, almost chained to his desk.
"When was the last time Bill covered anything in New York?"
wrote Newsday TV critic Marvin Kitman in 1992. "There are
young people watching TV news today who think Bill Beutel
has no legs."
This was not quite fair - although it was not within the
youngsters' living memory that Beutel had reported as an
imbedded reporter in Vietnam. He returned for an update in
1995. In 2001, soon after he retired as anchor but stayed on
board as a contributor, he filed a report from war-torn
Sierra Leone, where he was seen sparring verbally with a
glowering rebel leader who demanded that Beutel rephrase his
questions more politely.
"Noted," Beutel replied, on-camera.
Beutel - the name was pronounced "Boydel" but an early news
director didn't like the sound of it - grew up in Cleveland,
the son of a dentist. He said that listening to Edward
Murrow's live radio reports from London during the Blitz
made him choose broadcast journalism, and later, when he was
posted to London, he made a pilgrimage to the spot where
Murrow broadcast.
After a year of law school and a stint on Cleveland radio,
Beutel came to New York as a CBS radio newsman. In 1962, at
just 32, he was hired as anchor of the 6 p.m. ABC broadcast
"The Big News," the first time an hour-long news program had
been tried in New York. The show featured steady newsmen Jim
Burnes and Ron Cochrane, and an acerbic sports commentator
named Howard Cosell. A year later, despite some good
reviews, the show split in two, with Beutel helming the New
York segment, while Cochrane became national anchor.
In 1968, Beutel went to London as the ABC bureau chief; he
covered the Paris Peace Talks during Vietnam and the
Nigerian civil war during his stint overseas. In 1970, he
was called back to New York to split anchoring duties with
Roger Grimsby, whose skeptical on-air humor needed a
straight man to keep the package credible. The pair got
along well, and ratings soared. They became iconic enough
that, at one point in 1973, each was attacked outside the
ABC studios on 66th Street by the same deranged young woman
who claimed they had slandered her. She claimed Beutel had
called her a hippopotamus on air. She kicked him in the
groin. A couple of months later, she came after Grimsby with
an ice pick, and was charged with attempted murder.
In 1975, Beutel left "Eyewitness News" to help found "A.M.
America," the predecessor to ABC's "Good Morning America."
Morning happy talk appeared not to suit him, and he soon
returned to Grimsby's sardonic side.
After his retirement as anchor, Beutel continued to work on
special reports for ABC, and after the terrorist attacks on
September 11, 2001, he reported on New York's recovery. He
took off his trench coat for the last time in 2003,sold his
Bridgeport mansion for millions, and retired to North
Carolina, where he golfed and traveled occasionally.
William Charles Beutel
Born December 12, 1930, in Cleveland, Ohio; died March 17 at
his home in Pinehurst, N.C., of the effects of a
degenerative neurological disease; survived by his fourth
wife, Adair (nee Atwell), four children, Peter Beutel, Robin
Gamble, Colby Beutel-Burns, and Heather Fortinbery, eight
grandchildren, and a sister, Mary Lou Henley.
Brad Ferguson
<rel...@rcn.com> wrote:
> Key to the success of "Eyewitness News" was the show's
> lively stable of reporters, who came to resemble an
> amusingly obstreperous, multiracial family, with Beutel and
> Grimsby keeping order. There was features reporter Melba
> Tolliver, and Geraldo Rivera, a young crusader who in 1972
> exposed appalling conditions at the Willowbrook State School
> on Staten Island.
While Rivera quickly made it his story, the Willowbrook scandal (which
helped unseat the colorless Gov. Malcolm Wilson) was uncovered and
pursued by the Staten Island Advance.
> Sports were reported by Frank Gifford and
> the skeptical Jim Bouton, both New York professional team
> veterans.
Keith Olbermann says Bouton was one of his inspirations.
The gimmick about Eyewitness News was that the street reporter would
come back to the studio and live-wrap the spot he or she had shot on
the street -- hence the "eyewitness" bit. That kind of thing was
unprecedented back then. Now you have so-called reporters reading
stories from the web and saying that they're monitoring things from the
"satellite center." What horseshit.
> Tex Antoine handled the weather, until he spouted
> off in appallingly bad taste after a story about the rape of
> a five-year-old girl, leading to his ouster in 1974; somehow
> the episode made the newscast edgier and more of a must
> watch - anything could happen.
They'd done the story about the rape, and tossed to Antoine and the
weather. Antoine was in the habit of drinking his lunch, so as a segue
he said something to the effect of, "As Confucius say, when rape is
inevitable, lie back and enjoy it." Antoine then wound up at Channel 5
for a while, until he drunkenly hijacked the newscast one night and did
IIRC seven endless minutes about the metric system and what it meant to
him.
> The partnership with Grimsby ran from 1970 through 1986, at
> which time Grimsby was tossed overboard by ABC management,
> possibly in a move to cut costs.
It was more like Grimsby was deeply troubled, and they'd had enough.
Larry Kane, who succeeded Grimsby at 11 p.m., wrote in his
autobiography that he'd occasionally find Grimsby passed out among the
garbage bags set out by one or the other of Grimsby's Columbus Avenue
haunts. Grimsby wound up as a commentator on Channel 4 for awhile.
> Although an experienced reporter who had served as ABC's
> bureau chief in London in the 1960s, Beutel more and more
> came to be literally an anchor, almost chained to his desk.
> "When was the last time Bill covered anything in New York?"
> wrote Newsday TV critic Marvin Kitman in 1992. "There are
> young people watching TV news today who think Bill Beutel
> has no legs."
I haven't heard (or even thought of) the name "Marvin Kitman" in
fifteen years. Wow. Goes to show you. I remember that the people
inside the CBS building thought he was a jackass.
> After a year of law school and a stint on Cleveland radio,
> Beutel came to New York as a CBS radio newsman. In 1962, at
> just 32, he was hired as anchor of the 6 p.m. ABC broadcast
> "The Big News," the first time an hour-long news program had
> been tried in New York. The show featured steady newsmen Jim
> Burnes and Ron Cochrane, and an acerbic sports commentator
> named Howard Cosell. A year later, despite some good
> reviews, the show split in two, with Beutel helming the New
> York segment, while Cochrane became national anchor.
Cochran, not Cochrane. Big jowly fella with a mustache. He'd worked
for CBS as a New York reporter and anchor, back when CBS produced the
local news for WCBS, and you had major leaguers such as Bob Trout and
Doug Edwards doing the local news.
IIRC "The Big News" premiered the night JFK made his speech about the
Cuban missile crisis.
> In 1975, Beutel left "Eyewitness News" to help found "A.M.
> America," the predecessor to ABC's "Good Morning America."
> Morning happy talk appeared not to suit him, and he soon
> returned to Grimsby's sardonic side.
That show was doomed from the start. They paired poor Beutel with
someone named Stephanie Edwards, a redhead who was living with her
boyfriend -- a fact that made all the pre-show publicity, apparently to
show that "A.M. America" had an edge. The network had taken the 7-9
spot away from its affiliates to program this show, which necessarily
cancelled a raft of profitable local programming. In New York, the
hugely popular "A.M. New York" just disappeared one morning, despite
its huge numbers. In other places, kids lost their morning cartoons.
What I've seen in the more than thirty years since then hasn't improved
on Farmer Alfalfa.
King Daevid MacKenzie
<rel...@rcn.com> 'n sez:
>> Key to the success of "Eyewitness News" was the show's
>> lively stable of reporters, who came to resemble an
>> amusingly obstreperous, multiracial family, with Beutel and
>> Grimsby keeping order. There was features reporter Melba
>> Tolliver, and Geraldo Rivera, a young crusader who in 1972
>> exposed appalling conditions at the Willowbrook State School
>> on Staten Island.
>
> While Rivera quickly made it his story, the Willowbrook scandal (which
> helped unseat the colorless Gov. Malcolm Wilson) was uncovered and
> pursued by the Staten Island Advance.
...coincidentally, Carolyn Hester (discussed over the weekend on a
thread concerning the death of her husband, David Blume) cut a
self-titled album for RCA on which she performed a song inspired by the
Willowbrook mess, "My Little Sister Donna." In the liner notes, Hester
praised Rivera for his reportage on the scandal...
>> Sports were reported by Frank Gifford and
>> the skeptical Jim Bouton, both New York professional team
>> veterans.
>
> Keith Olbermann says Bouton was one of his inspirations.
...along with Tom Snyder, a WABC anchor of somewhat later vintage...
> The gimmick about Eyewitness News was that the street reporter would
> come back to the studio and live-wrap the spot he or she had shot on
> the street -- hence the "eyewitness" bit. That kind of thing was
> unprecedented back then. Now you have so-called reporters reading
> stories from the web and saying that they're monitoring things from the
> "satellite center." What horseshit.
...and, of course, stations around the country picked up the franchise
name "Eyewitness News" without bothering to alter the style of the
newscast itself, leading to the common insult "Eyewitless News"...
...an infamous small-market knock on one of those smaller franchisings
indirectly led a later WABC-TV star to New York when competitor Stanley
Siegel did a comic report about Don Sidney one Green Bay night. In his
WLUK-TV item, Siegel aped A.J. Weberman and went through the garbage of
WFRV-TV "Eyewitness News" anchor Sidney, picking up one of several
liquor bottles and passing one of his characteristically snide comments
suggesting Don had a drinking problem. Sidney denied any such problem
and WFRV raised enough hell about the piece that it got Siegel canned
from WLUK. About five years later, station manager Bill Fyffe left WLUK
(then an ABC affiliate) to take a similar post at WABC-TV and called
Siegel up to New York to work for him again, in turn leading to the
on-air incident with another noted drinker, Truman Capote...I know I
told that story in this group a couple of years back, in a post tagged
by Brad in fact, and I hope no one minds my reprising the bit...
>> Tex Antoine handled the weather, until he spouted
>> off in appallingly bad taste after a story about the rape of
>> a five-year-old girl, leading to his ouster in 1974; somehow
>> the episode made the newscast edgier and more of a must
>> watch - anything could happen.
>
> They'd done the story about the rape, and tossed to Antoine and the
> weather. Antoine was in the habit of drinking his lunch, so as a segue
> he said something to the effect of, "As Confucius say, when rape is
> inevitable, lie back and enjoy it." Antoine then wound up at Channel 5
> for a while, until he drunkenly hijacked the newscast one night and did
> IIRC seven endless minutes about the metric system and what it meant to
> him.
...seems to me that Antoine did a national commercial for some
denture-related product (Poligrip? Polident? Orafix?) a couple of years
before uttering that hideous gag. It also seems to me that whole story
was replayed in another market with another weatherman getting the sack
after an on-air verbal screw-up a few years after Tex...
>> The partnership with Grimsby ran from 1970 through 1986, at
>> which time Grimsby was tossed overboard by ABC management,
>> possibly in a move to cut costs.
>
> It was more like Grimsby was deeply troubled, and they'd had enough.
> Larry Kane, who succeeded Grimsby at 11 p.m., wrote in his
> autobiography that he'd occasionally find Grimsby passed out among the
> garbage bags set out by one or the other of Grimsby's Columbus Avenue
> haunts. Grimsby wound up as a commentator on Channel 4 for awhile.
...Grimsby started out at WEAU-TV in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. When I lived
in Eau Claire a couple of decades back, I worked for a video producer
who once worked at WEAU with Grimsby; this guy told me about the time
Grimsby was hosting a Channel 13 late night movie sponsored by
Leinenkugel, the local brewery of note. One of the live commercials
involved Grimsby pouring a bottle of Leinenkugel into a clear glass mug,
which he did well enough -- except for the fact that he'd mistakenly
grabbed the empty that the stage crew had filled halfway with water and
they (and he) had been using to douse their cigarettes during the shift.
Oh, how the producer wished WEAU had videotape running that night...
>> Although an experienced reporter who had served as ABC's
>> bureau chief in London in the 1960s, Beutel more and more
>> came to be literally an anchor, almost chained to his desk.
>> "When was the last time Bill covered anything in New York?"
>> wrote Newsday TV critic Marvin Kitman in 1992. "There are
>> young people watching TV news today who think Bill Beutel
>> has no legs."
>
> I haven't heard (or even thought of) the name "Marvin Kitman" in
> fifteen years. Wow. Goes to show you. I remember that the people
> inside the CBS building thought he was a jackass.
...my main memory of Kitman was of his being one of the semi-regulars
(along with Nancy Friday and Rona The Snake) that Roger Ailes brought
aboard Tom Snyder's NBC "Tomorrow" show to eventually sink it and give
David Letterman a time slot he could work with...
>> After a year of law school and a stint on Cleveland radio,
>> Beutel came to New York as a CBS radio newsman. In 1962, at
>> just 32, he was hired as anchor of the 6 p.m. ABC broadcast
>> "The Big News," the first time an hour-long news program had
>> been tried in New York. The show featured steady newsmen Jim
>> Burnes and Ron Cochrane, and an acerbic sports commentator
>> named Howard Cosell. A year later, despite some good
>> reviews, the show split in two, with Beutel helming the New
>> York segment, while Cochrane became national anchor.
>
> Cochran, not Cochrane. Big jowly fella with a mustache.
...Cochran anchored ABC's breaking coverage of the JFK assassination...
> [Cochran]'d worked
> for CBS as a New York reporter and anchor, back when CBS produced the
> local news for WCBS, and you had major leaguers such as Bob Trout and
> Doug Edwards doing the local news.
... http://www.tv-ark.org.uk/international/us_cbs_wcbs.html has clips of
Trout's last local newscast for WCBS-TV...
> IIRC "The Big News" premiered the night JFK made his speech about the
> Cuban missile crisis.
...here's where my own main memory of Beutel comes in -- he discussed
that first night of "The Big News" on the installment of ABC's "Our
World" dealing with the Cuban Missile Crisis. I occasionally dig up old
videos of that series to rescreen. Which, in turn, leads me to a nagging
question -- what ever happened to Ray Gandolf? A Googling of his name
only brings up references (often made by me) to his work on "Our World"
or various CBS news and sportscasts before that...
>> In 1975, Beutel left "Eyewitness News" to help found "A.M.
>> America," the predecessor to ABC's "Good Morning America."
>> Morning happy talk appeared not to suit him, and he soon
>> returned to Grimsby's sardonic side.
>
> That show was doomed from the start.
...before the start -- remember, ABC's first choice to host was Bob
Kennedy, the WLS-TV Chicago morning show emcee who died of cancer a few
weeks before "A.M. America" was supposed to roll out, delaying said
rollout for a few months...
> They paired poor Beutel with
> someone named Stephanie Edwards, a redhead who was living with her
> boyfriend -- a fact that made all the pre-show publicity, apparently to
> show that "A.M. America" had an edge.
...Stephanie Edwards is Ralph's daughter, leading her to have been a big
thing in local Los Angeles TV in the early '70s (and an occasional guest
on "The Tonight Show," "Match Game 7x" and Merv Griffin's show). She is
listed by the IMDb as having married actor and composer Murray MacLeod
in 1975; I assume he was the cohabitator you (and the show's promotion)
reference. She was the co-host of KTLA's coverage of the Rose Parade for
years before this past New Years, when KTLA took her out of the booth
and had her do street-level duty (in this year's rain, no less) while
giving her old chair to Michaela Pereira, co-anchor of the "KTLA Morning
News." They should have sent super-arrogant co-host Bob Eubanks into the
rain instead (he actually told Edwards on-air "There is no end to your
limitations") and kept Pereira away from the booth. Does it say anything
that Pereira is a big drop in quality from her "Morning News"
predecessor, Giselle Fernandez-Farrand?...
> The network had taken the 7-9
> spot away from its affiliates to program this show, which necessarily
> cancelled a raft of profitable local programming. In New York, the
> hugely popular "A.M. New York" just disappeared one morning, despite
> its huge numbers. In other places, kids lost their morning cartoons.
> What I've seen in the more than thirty years since then hasn't improved
> on Farmer Alfalfa.
...in Green Bay, it was "Rocky & Bullwinkle" reruns that got displaced,
and those were better, too...
--
King Daevid MacKenzie, WLSU-FM 88.9 La Crosse, Wisconsin, USA
heard occasionally at http://www.radio4all.net
http://myspace/kingdaevid
"You can live in your dreams, but only if you are worthy of them."
HARLAN ELLISON
Andy Goldwasser
Farmer Al Falfa ...
R H Draney
>
>Indisputably, TV just hasn't been the same since they pink-slipped
>Farmer Al Falfa ...
The last person on TV who managed never to say anything I disagreed with was
Korla Pandit....r
--
NewsGuy.Com 30Gb $9.95 Carry Forward and On Demand Bandwidth
Brad Ferguson
<dado...@spamcop.net> wrote:
> Andy Goldwasser filted:
> >
> >Indisputably, TV just hasn't been the same since they pink-slipped
> >Farmer Al Falfa ...
>
> The last person on TV who managed never to say anything I disagreed with was
> Korla Pandit....r
They really ought to make a movie about that guy.
King Daevid MacKenzie
>> The last person on TV who managed never to say anything I disagreed with was
>> Korla Pandit....r
>
> They really ought to make a movie about that guy.
...with Tim Burton directing? Look what he did for the memory of Ed Wood...