Charles Osgood
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Charles Osgood, the brilliant radio and television commentator who hosted CBS Sunday Morning for more than two decades, died Tuesday. He was 91.
Osgood, who also appeared on radio for more than 50 years on CBS' “The Osgood File,” died of dementia at his home in New Jersey, the station announced.
The reserved Bronx native took over CBS' Sunday program from Charles Kuralt in 1994 and retired as the longest-serving anchor in September 2016. After handing over the reins to Jane Pauley, he continued to broadcast The Osgood File and contributed stories to CBS News.
In December 2017, Osgood and Westwood One announced an extension to keep The Osgood File running, but just 15 days later he changed course.
“Although I was really looking forward to continuing… unfortunately my health and doctors won't allow it now. “So I will be retiring from The Osgood File and radio at the end of the year, with great appreciation for our shared success,” he said. “I wish you a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year and all the best for 2018.”
The Peabody Award winner was also known for wearing his bow tie on camera and signing “See you on the radio until then.” What also made Osgood so endearing was his eloquent delivery, which often contained verses. When a magazine writer suggested that men who wore bow ties couldn't be trusted, Osgood responded with this bizarre retort:
“For those who longed to be honored and trusted,
A fly, I say, doesn't hurt.
It's not your tie that most people will keep an eye on –
That’s that big soup stain there on your shirt.”
The Osgood File first aired in 1967 and aired four times daily on the CBS Radio Network, Monday through Friday. Each section only lasted three minutes, but that was more than enough time for Osgood to give his perspective on an unusual person or story. His prose was so captivating that he was named a “poet in residence” on CBS Radio; His voice was so lyrical that in 2008 he was chosen to voice the animated film “Horton Hears a Who!”
When he was about to move to CBS Morning News on Sunday 1994, Osgood explained his radio style to the New York Times. “Sometimes if you take a conventional story and add a rhyme, you can turn it into something special and stretch it out over two and a half minutes. Of course the story should be funny. Or poignant. Sometimes you get lucky and it ends up being both.”
Osgood successfully transferred this approach to television and entertained viewers for more than 22 years.
“Watching him at work was a masterclass in communication,” Pauley said in a statement Tuesday. “I still think, 'How would Charlie say that?' and try to capture the illusory warmth and intelligence of his voice and delivery. I assume I'll keep trying.
“He was one of the best broadcast stylists and one of the last. His style was so natural and unaffected that it expressed his authenticity. He connected with people. Watching him on TV or listening to him on the radio, as I did for years, felt like you knew him and he knew you. He brought a unique sensitivity, curiosity and trademark whimsy to “Sunday Morning,” and that remains.”
Born Charles Osgood Wood III on January 8, 1933, he attended Fordham University in the early 1950s and found himself drawn to college radio. When he wasn't spinning records during his show, Osgood played the piano. He also socialized with colleagues such as Alan Alda and Jack Haley Jr.
“They were infectious and we had a lot of fun,” Osgood said during his interview with The New York Times. “Of course, there were times when we spent more time at the train station than in class, but we still managed to graduate.”
After leaving Fordham in 1954, Osgood saw an opportunity that led him to the Army. While meeting a friend at a radio station, he was introduced to the US Army Band announcer and learned that he was nearing the end of his tenure. Osgood located the soldier's commanding officer and reported himself. From 1955 to 1958, while living in Fort Myer, Virginia, Osgood toured as the band's host. During visits to Washington, he filled in as an announcer for radio station WGMS.
He was there when President Dwight Eisenhower suffered a heart attack, and the station hired Osgood to create a radio show that was broadcast exclusively from Ike's hospital room. “I kept it light because it's not every day you get a captive presidential audience,” he recalls.
While touring with the Army band, Osgood collaborated with his roommate John Cacavas to write songs. (Cacavas later scored TV shows like Kojak and Hawaii Five-0.) A recording of her “Gallant Men” became a hit in 1967, featuring then-Sen. Everett Dirksen from Illinois tells. It won a Grammy for Best Spoken Recording and can be heard on the soundtrack of Easy Rider (1969).
As Osgood told the Los Angeles Times in 1991, “Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda ride into town on their Easy Rider bicycles and a parade marches down the street. They disrupt the parade and are arrested. The band plays “Gallant Men.” Every time Easy Rider plays in Europe I get 4 cents.”
After his service ended in 1957, Osgood joined WGMS as a full-time announcer under the name Charles Wood and was promoted to program director the following year. One of his most notable projects was 1960's “FDR Speaks,” a six-album collection of 33 speeches delivered by President Franklin Roosevelt from 1933 to 1945. Osgood provided the introductions and comments.
Osgood's first experience with television came in 1962 when RKO General, the parent company of WGMS, moved him to Hartford, Connecticut and named him GM of WHCT. As one of the first pay television subscription services with a decoder, WHCT was a financial failure. And so, at the age of 30, Osgood found himself unemployed.
Osgood contacted Frank Maguire, a former Fordham classmate who was in charge of program development at ABC in New York. In 1963, he was hired as a writer and co-host of ABC Radio's Flair Reports – a series of five-minute human interest stories. (One of the reporters there was future Nightline anchor Ted Koppel.) Here Osgood changed his professional name to avoid confusion with Charles Woods, an announcer at the station.
Osgood moved to CBS Radio in 1967. As the transition to an all-news format began, the station selected him to host its first morning drive-time segment.
Osgood was also a mainstay in CBS' TV news division. At some point, he served as a reporter or anchor for all of the network's major news programs, including the CBS Evening News With Dan Rather and the CBS Morning News. From 1981 to 1987 he anchored the CBS Sunday Night News.
His approachable approach lent itself well to a relaxed Sunday morning program.
After beginning with the day's breaking news and national weather, Osgood then moved into general interest stories about music, architecture, politics, ballet and pop culture. For example, the September 18, 2016 issue (prior to his final appearance a week later, dedicated to an Osgood retrospective) featured a story about Ron Howard's Beatles documentary; a piece explaining the science of happiness; a tribute to playwright Edward Albee; a small insight into the art exhibitions in the country's museums; and a profile of makeup artist Riccie Johnson, whose 70-year career at CBS included preparing the Beatles for their debut on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 and lining up correspondents and guests for 60 Minutes. (She was also Osgood's longtime makeup artist.)
With Osgood at the center, CBS Morning News Sunday won two Daytime Emmys for Outstanding Morning Program and three News and Documentary Emmys. The show won a Peabody Award in 1997. Osgood himself won a Peabody Award in 1986 as narrator/writer of the CBS radio show Newsmark: Where in the World Are We? Last year, a CBS News segment he hosted, “The Number Man: Bach at Three Hundred,” also received a Peabody.
The bow tie he wore on his final show as host of the Sunday program was donated to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.
Osgood also wrote a bi-weekly newspaper column for Tribune Media Services for several decades. In 1956 he wrote A Single Voice, a three-act play, and he was the author of seven books, including Nothing Could Be Finer Than a Crisis That Is Minor in the Morning (1979), The Osgood Files (1991), See You on the Radio (1999) and Defending Baltimore Against Enemy Attack (2011).
Survivors include his second wife, Jean (they were married for 50 years); her children Kathleen, Winston, Annie, Emily and Jamie; a sister, Mary Ann; and a brother, Ken.
“Charlie absolutely loved being part of the 'Sunday Morning' community,” his family said in a statement. “We will miss him terribly, but it is comforting to know that his life was enchanted, thanks in large part to you. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts for welcoming him into your homes on Sundays to tell stories and highlight the better sides of humanity. He’ll see you on the radio.”