AA's "Fat Flier" Got Whole Row
Ashley Dupre On Tiger Woods' Babes: "At Least I Kept My Mouth Shut"
Same-Sex Marriage Blame Game Aims at Paterson, Addabbo
Rihanna's Random Airport Search
Wife Tries To Abort And Poison Husband's Lovechild
New York lost yet another of our great newscasters yesterday when Bill Beutel, host of WABC's nightly newscast for more than 30 years, passed away in his Pinehurst, N.C., house. He was 75.
A winner of several Emmy awards and a Peabody, Beutel worked his magic in radio and television, even hosting "AM America" the show which became "Good Morning America." After a stint as ABC's London bureau chief he took over the local anchor desk for ABC in 1970. He stepped down in 2001.
Gothamist always used to watch his newscasts when we still watched local newscasts and Beutel always seemed like a stand-up guy. Our condolences go out to his family.
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
bill was a class act all the way. he makes most of today's anchors look like total clowns. makes you think katie couric should spend a little more time working on her gravitas, and a little less time thinking about how to shorten her skirts.
He didn't "step down" in 2001. He was pushed down despite the fact that ABC had said they wouldn't discard him.
It was all about age and I remember how sad it was to read Beutel's confident assertions that he would have his anchor job as long as he wanted it. Even after all those years reporting the news, he was still sweet and gullible enough to believe his corporate masters.
Or maybe it was just wishful thinking and after all those years with Roger Grimsby, he was simply hoping his news was good news.
Hope his last few years were good ones.
Good Luck, and be well.
How sad. He was certainly the elder statesman of Eyewitness News, maybe even all of NYC broadcast news. The funny thing is that when he first started on Eyewitness News, I thought he was the young turk come to upstage Roger Grimsby. Little did I know he was actually younger than Grimsby. Sure makes me feel old with all the "young turks" of network news past passing away or stepping down. Brokaw, Rather, Jennings and now Beutel. Not to mention Ed Bradley retiring.
Having grown up in the NY area, Bill Beutel has always been my standard for newscasters. He made crappy 5pm and 6pm news sound good.
This is one of those Gothamist posts that everyone seems to agree on. Bill Beutel was everything that the previous posters have already said. I grew up watching him on the news and believed that all news anchors should be like that; gracious, serious, eloquent and apolitical.
Godbless, Bill.
Oops. Older than Grimsby. I meant Beutel was older than Grimsby.
I'd expected this to get many more comments, but I guess there are too many people who didn't grow up with him doing local news and the classic Cool Hand Luke "Tar Sequence" music (albiet edited) for the theme (although I did like WNBC's cool open with the synth Edd Kalehoff music and the big giant 4 coming out of the Statue of Libertys' torch after it got hit by lightning).
I think of the competing stations, WNBC had the best obit of him as it was done by David Ushry who worked with Beutel for about ten years. Intrrestingly nobody mentioned the rumours that he had Alzheimer's. My guess is they were inaccurate, as they had him living in Florida and are most likely as accurate as the ones that WNBC is going to ditch Chuck and Sue for low ratings.
The passing of Bill Beutel is something that we all expected and just never really hoped would come. He will be missed. Good Luck, and be well. Goodnight.
Everyone watched Bill and Roger. The mold was broken with him and so many others who have past recently. God bless.
Oops. Older than Grimsby. I meant Beutel was older than Grimsby.
[7] Posted by: Brightliner | March 20, 2006 12:32 AM
__________________________________________
Especially after Grimsby died and Bill kept on aging.
re:bill beutel,how did he die?what was cause of death?none of these questions seem to have been answered,why?
anyone have any info?
Re: how Bill Beutel died. I'm not so sure the Alzheimer's rumors are inaccurate. We keep hearing "progressive neurological condition," and Wikipedia already has him on their "famous people with Alzheimers" list. What a shame that this dreaded disease still has such a stigma. Maybe if it didn't it would be easier to get funding for it...and possibly even to cure it. In any event, Bill Beutel is a great loss.
Although I cannot confirm that Mr. Beutel indeed had Alzheimer's disease, he demonstrated early signs while at WABC-TV. I worked in network sales for the ABC network and have known many local anchors across the nation. I knew Mr. Beutel personally and saw his decline towards the end of his tenure at ch. 7. All I can say is that he was a true gentleman in every sense of the word. Mr. Beutel was a distinguished man of class and integrity. Although, I stumbled across this message board almost a year after his passing, I wanted to share about him. He is sorely missed.