Today show and 20/20 alum Hugh Downs dead at 99

HUGH Downs has passed away at the age of 99.

One of TV’s most familiar faces for seven decades, Hugh co-anchored NBC’s Today show from 1962 to 1971 and for 21 years hosted ABC evening news magazine 20/20.

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Hugh Downs has died age 99[/caption]

He once held the record for the most hours – 10,000 – in front of a television camera, later broken by Regis Philbin, and he was also recognized for his signature sign-off: “We’re in touch, so you be in touch.”

In a statement given by his family to the New York Times, he died on Wednesday in his home in Scottsdale, Arizona.

He had lived in the state with his wife Ruth, whom he married in 1944.

Ruth died in 2017; he is survived by his children Hugh and Deirdre, his brother, Wallace, and two grandchildren.

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Hugh hosted NBC’s Today show[/caption]

AP:Associated Press

He is survived by two children, a brother and two grandchildren[/caption]

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He had a long working relationship with Barbara Walters[/caption]

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Hugh with Senator Robert Kennedy[/caption]

Hugh had a long working relationship with Barbara Walters; in the 1960s he insisted that she be given time on camera on the Today show.

Barbara also then joined him as a co-anchor on 20/20 for 20 years, until he retired in 1999.

Born in 1921, he worked in radio before he served in the Army during World War II receiving a medical discharge.

He then joined the staff of WMAQ, the NBC station in Chicago.

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He began his career in radio[/caption]

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He hosted 20/20 for 20 years with Barbara[/caption]

“I thought TV was a gimmick like 3-D movies and it would just go away,” he said in an interview with the Archive of American Television.

“I had no idea that the tail would eventually wag the dog and treat me much kinder than radio did.”

In the 1950s and early 1960s he was the announcer on Sid Caesar’s Caesar’s Hour and announcer-sidekick to host Jack Paar on The Tonight Show.

He went on to host game show Concentration, a day time NBC game show, while also working on the Today show, before he moved to 20/20 where he was a comforting face for millions for 20 years.

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Hugh won Emmys for his work on Today in 1970, for hosting PBS series on aging, Over Easy, in 1981 and Live From Lincoln Center in 1991.

Among the several books that he wrote were an autobiography, Yours Truly, Hugh Downs; A Shoal of Stars, his account of sailing a 65-foot ketch across the Pacific, and Thirty Dirty Lies About Old Age.