Hugh Downs

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American broadcaster (1921–2020)

title: "Hugh Downs" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1921-births", "2020-deaths", "20th-century-american-composers", "20th-century-american-journalists", "20th-century-american-male-journalists", "20th-century-american-male-writers", "20th-century-american-non-fiction-writers", "21st-century-american-composers", "21st-century-american-male-writers", "21st-century-american-non-fiction-writers", "united-states-army-personnel-of-world-war-ii", "american-game-show-hosts", "american-libertarians", "american-male-composers", "american-male-non-fiction-writers", "american-television-news-anchors", "american-television-reporters-and-correspondents", "bluffton-university-alumni", "columbia-university-alumni", "daytime-emmy-award-for-outstanding-talk-show-host-winners", "hunter-college-alumni", "military-personnel-from-akron,-ohio", "nbc-news-people", "people-from-lima,-ohio", "people-from-paradise-valley,-arizona", "radio-personalities-from-detroit", "space-advocates", "united-states-army-soldiers", "wayne-state-university-alumni", "writers-from-akron,-ohio", "20th-century-american-male-musicians", "21st-century-american-male-musicians"] description: "American broadcaster (1921–2020)" topic_path: "history" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Downs" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary American broadcaster (1921–2020) ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox person"]

FieldValue
nameHugh Downs
imageHugh Downs 1972.JPG
captionDowns in 1972
birth_nameHugh Malcolm Downs
birth_date
birth_placeAkron, Ohio, U.S.
death_date
death_placeScottsdale, Arizona, U.S.
educationBluffton University
Wayne State University
Columbia University (BA)
Hunter College (GrDip)
occupation
years_active1939–2007
spouse
children2
::

|name = Hugh Downs |image = Hugh Downs 1972.JPG |caption = Downs in 1972 |birth_name = Hugh Malcolm Downs |birth_date = |birth_place = Akron, Ohio, U.S. |death_date = |death_place = Scottsdale, Arizona, U.S. |education = Bluffton University Wayne State University Columbia University (BA) Hunter College (GrDip) |occupation = |years_active = 1939–2007 |spouse = |children = 2

Hugh Malcolm Downs (February 14, 1921July 1, 2020) was an American television presenter, radio personality, author, and music composer. A regular television presence from the mid 1940s until the late 1990s, he had several successful roles on morning, prime-time, and late-night television. For several years, he held the certified Guinness World Record for the most hours on commercial network television before being surpassed by Regis Philbin, who died 24 days after he did.

Downs served as announcer and sidekick for Tonight Starring Jack Paar from 1957 to 1962, co-host of the NBC News program Today from 1962 to 1971, host of the Concentration game show from 1958 to 1969, and anchor of the ABC News magazine 20/20 from 1978 to 1999.

Downs started his career in radio in 1939 and began in live television in 1945 in Chicago, where he became a regular on several nationally broadcast programs over the next decade. He moved to New York City in 1954, when he was invited to do a program there. Among other shows during his career, he hosted the PBS talk show Over Easy and was the occasional co-host of the syndicated talk show Not for Women Only.

Early life and education

Downs was born on February 14, 1921, in Akron, Ohio, to Edith (née Hicks) and Milton Howard Downs, who worked in business. He was educated at Lima Shawnee High School in Lima, Ohio; Bluffton College, a Mennonite school in Bluffton, Ohio; and Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, during the period 1938–41.

Radio announcer and programmer

Downs worked as a radio announcer and program director in 1939 at WLOK in Lima, Ohio, after his first year of college. In 1940, he moved on to WWJ in Detroit. Downs served in the United States Army during World War II in 1943 and then joined the NBC radio network at WMAQ as an announcer in Chicago, where he lived until 1954. He can be heard announcing the ground breaking 1948–1950 radio show Destination Freedom (written by Richard Durham) which told stories of historical and current Black people. While at WMAQ, Downs also acted, including as the "co-pilot", along with famed Chicago children's program personality Ned Locke, on the Uncle Ned's Squadron program in 1951. Programs of "Uncle Ned's Squadron" can be found in the archives of Museum Of Broadcast Communications in Chicago, and, at no charge, from radio historian Chuck Schaden's "Speaking Of Radio – Those Were The Days Encore" website. Downs then attended Columbia University in New York City from 1955 to 1956.

Television career

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Hugh_Downs_and_daughter_Deirdre_1960.JPG" caption="Downs and daughter, Deirdre (1960)"] ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2b/Jack_Paar_Hugh_Downs_Jose_Melis_Jack_Paar_Tonight_Show_1960.JPG" caption="[[Jack Paar]], Downs, [[Jose Melis]] on ''[[The Tonight Show]]''; Downs was host Paar's announcer."] ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/Hugh_downs_darren_Mcgavin_riverboat_1960.JPG" caption="Riverboat]]''"] ::

Downs made his first television news broadcast in September 1945 from the still-experimental studio of WBKB-TV (now WBBM-TV) in Chicago, a station then owned by the Balaban and Katz theater subsidiary of Paramount Pictures. Downs later recalled that when he went for his first job, he had never seen a television before, and he was unsure whether television would last. Downs became a television regular in 1950, announcing for Hawkins Falls, the first successful television soap opera, which was sponsored by Lever Brothers' Surf detergent. He also announced the Burr Tillstrom children's show Kukla, Fran and Ollie from the NBC studios at Chicago's Merchandise Mart after the network picked up the program from WBKB.

In March 1954, Downs moved to New York City to accept a position as announcer for Pat Weaver's The Home Show starring Arlene Francis. That program lasted until August 1957. He was the announcer for Sid Caesar's Caesar's Hour for the 1956–57 season and one of NBC Radio's Monitor "Communicators" from 1955 to 1959. Downs became a bona fide television "personality" as Jack Paar's announcer on The Tonight Show from mid 1957, when he replaced Franklin Pangborn, until Paar's departure in March 1962, and then continued to announce for The Tonight Show until the summer of 1962, when Ed Herlihy took the announcing reins. Herlihy held that post until October 1, 1962, when Johnny Carson took over the show, and brought Ed McMahon on as his announcer.

On August 25, 1958, Downs began a more-than-ten-year run concurrently hosting the original version of the game show Concentration.

Downs earned a postgraduate degree in gerontology from Hunter College while he was hosting Over Easy, a PBS television program about aging that aired from 1977 to 1983. He was probably best known in later years as the Emmy Award-winning co-anchor—again paired with Walters—of the ABC news TV show 20/20, a prime-time news magazine program, from the show's second episode in 1978 until his retirement in 1999.

Downs was inducted into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame at the San Diego Air & Space Museum in 1984. In that same year, he was certified by the Guinness Book of World Records (now Guinness World Records) as holding the record for the greatest number of hours on network commercial television (15,188 hours), though he lost the record for most hours on all forms of television to Regis Philbin in 2004.

A published composer, Downs hosted the PBS showcase for classical music Live from Lincoln Center from 1990 to 1996. Downs made a cameo appearance on Family Guy in addition to other television shows.

Downs was seen in infomercials for Bottom Line Publications, including its World's Greatest Treasury of Health Secrets, as well as one for a personal coach. He appeared in an infomercial for Where There's a Will There's an A in 2003. His subsequent infomercial work aroused some controversy, with many arguing that the products were scams.

Downs appeared in regional public-service announcements in Arizona for the state's Motor Vehicles Division and for Hospice of the Valley, a Phoenix-area non-profit organization specializing in hospice care. He also produced some public short-form programs in which he served as host of educational interstitials.

On October 13, 2007, Downs became one of the first inductees into the American TV Game Show Hall of Fame in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Downs was inducted as a Lincoln Laureate in the Lincoln Academy of Illinois and was awarded the Order of Lincoln (the state's highest honor) by the governor of Illinois in 1967.

Public service and political views

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/Concentration_Hugh_Downs_1961.JPG" caption="Downs in 1961"] ::

Downs was a special consultant to the United Nations for refugee problems from 1961 to 1964, and served as chairman of the board of the United States Committee for UNICEF.

Downs wrote a column for Science Digest during the 1960s. He was a science consultant for Westinghouse Laboratories and the Ford Foundation and an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences. He served as chair of the Board of Governors of the National Space Society until 2019 and was a longtime president and chairman of the society's predecessor, the National Space Institute. The asteroid 71000 Hughdowns is named after him.

The auditorium of Shawnee High School in Lima, Ohio, and the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, are named in his honor.

As part of Arizona's centennial celebration in February 2012, Downs narrated Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait on stage with the Phoenix Symphony.

Downs publicly expressed support for libertarian viewpoints. He opposed the U.S. war on drugs and appeared in several pieces about the war on drugs and hemp. On his last 20/20, he was asked if he had any personal opinions that he would like to express, and he responded that marijuana should be legalized.

Personal life

Downs married Ruth Shaheen on February 17, 1944. They had two children, Deirdre and H.R. Ruth died on March 28, 2017, at age 95.

Downs held a private pilot certificate, and was rated for multi-engine airplanes, single-engine seaplanes, hot air balloons, and glider aerotow.

Death

On July 1, 2020, at the age of 99, Downs died from heart failure at his home in Scottsdale, Arizona. He is interred at the Christ Church of the Ascension Memory Garden in Paradise Valley, Arizona.

Film appearances

Books and short fiction

  • (autobiography)
  • "The Longest Story Ever Told", Omni, March 1980

References

References

  1. "Hugh Downs, Perennial Small-Screen Fixture, Is Dead at 99".
  2. "A Matchless Library Television Archive: 1946–1982".
  3. "A Matchless Library Television Archive: 1946–1982".
  4. (2003). "This is Today: A Window On Our Times". Andrews McMeel Publishing.
  5. (July 22, 2015). "Concentration".
  6. Ryan, Steve. (1991). "Classic Concentration: The Game, the Show, the Puzzles". Sterling Publishing Company.
  7. Lisa de Moraes. (May 6, 1999). "Host Hugh Downs To Leave '20/20'". The Washington Post.
  8. (1992). "The Encyclopedia of Television, Cable, and Video". Springer US.
  9. (2010). "Television Talk: A History of the TV Talk Show". University of Texas Press.
  10. "Hugh Downs Biography".
  11. (2010). "2010–2011 Fact Book". Wayne State University.
  12. (February 2, 1990). "Fifth Estater; Hugh Downs: TV's marathon man".
  13. (2008). "Cat Whiskers and Talking Furniture: Memoir of Radio and Television Broadcasting". McFarland.
  14. (February 2022). "Hugh Downs Biography". Old Time Radio Researchers.
  15. Bob Nelson. (1997). "Hugh Downs Hosts Appreciation for Popular Physicist Motz".
  16. Holston, Noel. (March 19, 1986). "Hugh Downs Logs In Most Hours on Screen". Orlando Sentinel.
  17. "Hugh Downs, omnipresent television broadcaster, dies at 99".
  18. "Monitor's Communicators". MonitorBeacon.net.
  19. (2005). "Encyclopedia of Television". Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers.
  20. "Car 54, Where are You? Season 1, Episode 11, Catch Me on the Paar Show".
  21. Sprekelmeyer, Linda, editor. ''These We Honor: The International Aerospace Hall of Fame''. Donning Co. Publishers, 2006. {{ISBN. 978-1578643974.
  22. Holston, Noel. (March 19, 1986). "Hugh Downs Logs In Most Hours On Screen". The Orlando Sentinel.
  23. (September 15, 2011). "Most hours on US television".
  24. "Family Guy, Season 3, Episode 8, The Kiss Seen Around the World".
  25. Quill, MD, Timothy J.. (February 2, 2007). "The World's Greatest Treasury of Health Secrets". Infomercial Watch.
  26. "Other works".
  27. Staff Writer. (October 11, 2007). "Game shows get hall of fame". Los Angeles Times.
  28. "Laureates by Year – The Lincoln Academy of Illinois".
  29. (2014). "Encyclopedia of Television". Routledge.
  30. (March 1, 1998). "Judy Collins, Hugh Downs win awards from UNICEF". Deseret News.
  31. Downs, Hugh. (November 1, 1994). "Growing to a Position of Strength". National Space Society.
  32. Schmadel, Lutz D.. (2012). "Dictionary of Minor Planet Names". Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.
  33. (February 14, 1969). "Shawnee Plans Accolade for Retiring Hugh Downs". The Lima News.
  34. "About". Arizona State University.
  35. (January 20, 2016). "Alive and kicking! These iconic stars are pushing 100". AOL.
  36. (1992). "Drug Legalization: For and Against". Open Court.
  37. "Marijuana: Telling Teenagers the Truth about Smoking Pot".
  38. (March 29, 2017). "Ruth Downs Obituary".
  39. "FAA Airman Registry".
  40. (July 2, 2020). "American broadcaster Hugh Downs dies at age 99". ABC 15.
  41. (July 2, 2020). "Longtime broadcaster Hugh Downs dies at age 99 in Scottsdale home". KPNX.
  42. "A Global Affair (1964)".
  43. "Survival of Spaceship Earth (1972)".
  44. "Survival of Spaceship Earth. [Motion picture].". Library of Congress.
  45. "Nothing by Chance (1975)". American Film Institute.
  46. Maslin, Janet. (October 3, 1980). "Burns is Back in 'Oh God! Book II'". The New York Times.
  47. Ebert, Roger. (2003). "Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2004". Andrews McMeel Publishing.
  48. Downs, Hugh. (1960). "Yours Truly". Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
  49. Downs, Hugh. (1967). "A Shoal of Stars". Doubleday.
  50. (March 1, 1970). "Books – in the news". [[The Arizona Republic]].

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