ABC News Anchor Peter Jennings Dies
BY VERNE GAY
STAFF WRITER
August 8, 2005, 12:50 AM EDT
Peter Jennings, one of just three men who came to symbolize television news for a generation of viewers, died yesterday at the age of 67.
Jennings, who announced in April that he had lung cancer and stepped down as anchor of ABC’s “World News Tonight,” died at his Manhattan home, ABC News President David Westin said late last night.
“Peter has been our colleague, our friend, and our leader in so many ways. None of us will be the same without him,” Westin said.
At the time of his announcement, Jennings said he would return to the air on occasion, but never did, and instead maintained contact with viewers through a rare message read at the end of his broadcast. One of the most recent was in early July, when Jennings wrote in response to the terror attacks in London that “we are all Londoners.”
Details of Jennings’ bout with his illness were not available, although he had been in touch with friends and colleagues in recent weeks. Even so, there’s been a prevailing sense at ABC that his health had gone into a steady decline after initially responding well to his chemotherapy in the spring. When not undergoing treatment, Jennings was believed to have spent most of his time at his home on the East End.
For a generous span of his 22-year career in the “World News” anchor chair, Jennings was the most popular of the three major anchors, and in the early ’90s, the anchorman and his broadcast were the most dominant one-two combination since Walter Cronkite and “The Evening News” of the ’70s.
While that dominance may have eroded in recent years — a function of the shifting fortunes of ABC News as well as the shifting news diets of most Americans — Jennings remained for many a powerful emblem of the last quarter century.
Like his competitors, Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw, he became an itinerant figure, jumping around the globe and the country from the scene of one major story to the next.
On screen, he invariably exuded calm and authority which was enriched by a certain elegance and the driest sense of humor on occasion.
Born into a wealthy and particularly influential family in Toronto Jennings dropped out of high school and literally spent the rest of his life trying to overcome what he considered his severe educational handicap.
Indeed, Jennings struggled to emerge from the shadow of his news anchor father and at times was variously known as a playboy, ne’er-do-well and golden boy.
Then, the prototypical life-altering event: He was fired as anchor of “ABC Evening News” in 1968, ending an inglorious three-year stint. Jennings had been inserted in the job in the first place because he was a good-looking boy-anchor and ABC was desperately seeking young viewers.
Jennings himself derisively referred to his role at the network he had joined on Aug. 3, 1964, as “the Gidget anchor.”
He was dispatched to the Middle East, where he became one of network TV’s most productive and knowledgeable reporters.
After his long stint in the Middle East, he became the network’s chief correspondent and its London bureau chief. In the late ’70s, he would also return, uneasily, to the anchor chair as part of a three-part anchor team that included Frank Reynolds (based in Washington) and Max Robinson (in Chicago.) Jennings was based in London.
When Reynolds had to step aside due to illness, Roone Arledge decided on a single-anchor format for “World News,” and picked Jennings for the role. Perhaps Jennings’ supreme professional moment arrived the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. Like Brokaw and Rather, he took — and held — the air for most of the next three days. It was also at this time, he later admitted, when he took up smoking again.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.