CHICAGO (WBBM Newsradio 780) -- News commentator and talk-radio pioneer Paul Harvey died Saturday surrounded by family at a hospital in Phoenix, according to ABC Radio Networks. He was 90. No cause of death was immediately available.
Harvey had one of the most familiar voices in the nation thanks to the longevity of his broadcast career which spanned nearly 50 years. An audience of more than 25 million people tuned in every week and made Harvey the most-listened-to radio personality in America. Fans identified with his plainspoken commentary on current events and politics.
“My father and mother created from thin air what one day became radio and television news,'' said Paul Harvey Jr. in a statement. “So in the past year, an industry has lost its godparents and today millions have lost a friend.''
“Paul Harvey was one of the most gifted and beloved broadcasters in our nation's history,'' ABC Radio Networks President Jim Robinson said in a statement. “We will miss our dear friend tremendously and are grateful for the many years we were so fortunate to have known him.''
Paul Harvey was born in Oklahoma where he started working at a local radio station at the suggestion of a high school teacher who took note of his distinctive voice and helped to launch his broadcasting career.
“Since I was 14, that voice has been my vocation,” said Harvey in a 2007 interview. “As a boy, I fell in love with words and ran away to join the radio. It really was something.”
In 1951, after moving to Chicago, Harvey went national when ABC Radio began broadcasting his “News and Commentary.” Rising at 3:30 each morning, he ate a bowl of oatmeal, then combed the news wires and spoke with editors across the country in search of succinct tales of American life for his program.
“I tried to select from tens of thousands of possibilities those stories which I think you need to know and those stories which I think you want to know. Each broadcast is supposed to be a combination of those,” said Harvey.
In 1976, Harvey added a new five-minute segment called "The Rest of the Story." The cleverly written tales recounted the lives of history makers whose identities would be revealed at the end of narratives full of quirky tidbits, coincidences and twists of fate. Each broadcast ended with one of Harvey’s signature phrases, “now you know the rest of the story.”
"What made Paul Harvey so unique was that he had the ability to stay in touch with the average American,” said Museum of Broadcast Communications President Bruce Dumont. “He would always say before he wrote any story, is this something that Aunt Betty would care about. He really did have an Aunt Betty."
In 1990, Harvey was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame and in 1993 he won a Peabody Award. In 2005, President George W. Bush bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Harvey.
“Americans like the sound of his voice,” said Bush during the ceremony. “His friend Danny Thomas once said to him you better be right because you sound like God.” On Saturday, Bush remembered Harvey as a “friendly and familiar voice in the lives of millions of Americans.” In a statement, the former president said “Laura and I are pleased to have known this fine man and our thoughts and prayers are with his family.''
For most of his career, Harvey broadcast twice-daily from a downtown studio near Lake Michigan. His distinctive Midwest flavor made him a heartland icon and Harvey proudly considered Chicago his home. In 2002, Mayor Daley honored the radio legend by proclaiming a "Paul Harvey Day" in the city.
"Nowhere else could I benefit from the wide-angled perspective which this hub of the wheel makes possible,” said Harvey. “Not from New York, not from Los Angeles, not from Washington, D.C." Harvey said.
Harvey had been forced off the air for several months in 2001 because of a virus that weakened a vocal cord but he eventually returned to work and remained active passed his 90th birthday.
Illinois Governor Pat Quinn joined those remembering Paul Harvey.
"I knew Paul Harvey. I knew him personally and I knew his wife and both of them had servants' hearts. They were very generous people to charities and to all they met. And they were down to earth people," Quinn said. "It's a sad day for America and it's a sad day for the world. A special voice has been stilled. But I'm sure he's looking down and saying, Paul Harvey, Good Night."
At the peak of his career, Harvey reached listeners on more than 1,200 radio stations and his syndicated column was carried by 300 newspapers.
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