The Rugged Anchor Man

His grandfather crossed the plains to Montana in a covered wagon, and Chester Robert Huntley's childhood was spent on the raw edge of America's last frontier. The rugged spirit he absorbed from his family and the land prepared him to cultivate the unfilled fields of electronic journalism. As co-anchor man of NBC's Huntley-Brinkley Report for 14 years, he became one of the country's most recognizable celebrities while earning respect for his skill as a newsman. When he left NBC in 1970, he returned to Montana, and it was there that he died last week of lung cancer, at 62.

Chance Pairing. Depression hardship and anemic science grades ended Huntley's early hopes of becoming a doctor, but a rich baritone voice and a penchant for oratory led him to his lifetime work.

After being graduated from the University of Washington in 1934, Huntley took on a $10-a-month announcing job at a tiny radio station in Seattle. The deal included free meals in return for on-the-air plugs.

The station had no news-gathering facilities, so Huntley satisfied his itch to broadcast news by buying a Seattle paper each evening and rewriting stories for use on the air.

During later stints with CBS, ABC and NBC outlets in Los Angeles, Huntley insisted that TV news should be more than a dry recitation of bulletins. He expressed opinions when he felt they were called for and drew right-wing fire for advocating minority rights and criticizing Senator Joseph McCarthy.

NBC brought Huntley to New York in 1956, ostensibly to compete with CBS'S Edward R. Murrow. But a chance pairing with Washington Correspondent David Brinkley at the 1956 political conventions made television history. Huntley's informed earnestness was the perfect foil for Brinkley's wry wit. Enthusiastic viewer response prompted NBC to reunite the team on the evening news in October. The program's sign-off ("Good night, Chet"--"Good night, David") soon became a slice of Americana. The Huntley-Brinkley Report consistently clobbered the opposition networks in ratings and won every major award available to television news.

Huntley's rather glacial TV presence was a mark of his professionalism, not his personality. A large, genial man, he possessed an openness that seemed out of place in Manhattan's canyons. His second wife Tipton, a former TV weathercaster, shared his love of travel and the unspoiled wilderness. He had two daughters by his first marriage, which ended in divorce in 1959.

Despite his amiability, controversy frequently dogged him. His refusal to honor his union's picket lines during a 1967 strike by the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists aroused the ire of many colleagues. (Huntley argued that AFTRA is a union of "singers, actors, jugglers, announcers, entertainers and comedians, whose problems have no relation to ours.") The Nixon White House regarded him as a special thorn, and internal memorandums depicted him as a paradigm of the influential journalists who badgered the Administration. Further criticism followed his decision--after retiring from the program--to lend his anchor man's cachet to airline commercials. As board chairman and promoter of Big Sky, a planned $20 million Montana resort area, Huntley was attacked by conservationists.

Huntley might have avoided some of these problems, but sophisticated p.r. maneuvering was not his strength. Stubborn independence was, and that trait communicated itself to his millions of viewers. It made him believable, the essence of success in the medium he helped form and shape.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.