Veteran television journalist and former TODAY host Hugh Downs died Wednesday at the age of 99 at his home in Scottsdale, Arizona, his granddaughter-niece confirmed.
Downs had not been on television since 1999, but was previously a mainstay on the small screen, featuring TODAY and ABC “20/20” throughout his career.
Downs, who also hosted the game show “Concentration” in the 1950s and 1960s, was part of “The Tonight Show” when it launched in 1957 with Jack Paar, acting as an announcer and guest presenter. It would happen TODAY, which anchored from 1962 to 1971.
I was with the show when it changed from black and white to color. “It made television more real and it was better for the viewer, but it didn’t change much the way we did things,” he once said in an interview.
While with TODAY, he would also work with a producer who would then sit next to him on “20/20”: Barbara Walters. He joined “20/20” in 1978 and she would become his co-host in 1984.
Downs would host ABC news magazine for two decades until his retirement in 1999.
It was such a frequent presence on television that he owned the record for most of the hours on the air before Regis Philbin shot down his brand in 2004, according to the Washington Post.
In a 2012 interview, Downs shared how he would like to be remembered.
“I would like people to remember me as fair and enjoying what I did and being honest with the audience,” he said at the time.
