Frank S. Blair Jr. (May 30, 1915 – March 14, 1995) was a broadcast journalist for NBC News, perhaps best known for being the news anchor on the Today program from 1953 to 1975.[1]
Blair's radio debut was at WCSC in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1935. Later that year, he joined WIS in Columbia, South Carolina, as a newscaster. In 1937, he became program director at WFBC in Greenville, South Carolina. Several months later, he left there to join WOLinWashington, D.C., where his job included announcing for the Mutual Broadcasting System.[3]
When NBC radio's Monitor weekend program began in 1955, Blair was one of the first news anchors.[6]
Beginning in 1942,[3] Blair served in the U.S. Navy as a flight instructor and transport pilot[5] during World War II before resuming his broadcast career after the war.[7]
Blair (left) with the rest of the 1953 Today show cast, including J. Fred Muggs
In 1951, Blair began his television career as the host of Heritage, an NBC cultural series broadcast live from Washington's National Gallery of Art. From 1951 to 1953, he was the moderator of Georgetown University Forum on the DuMont Television Network. Blair became the news editor and on-air newscaster for Today in 1953, continuing in those roles until he retired in 1975.[3]
Stephen Battaglio, in his book, From Yesterday to Today: Six Decades of America's Favorite Morning Show, described Blair as "a protege of legendary broadcaster Lowell Thomas and a consummate professional."[8] Cathleen M. Londino opined in her book, The Today Show: Transforming Morning Television that one "reason for his success seemed to be that because he was so expressionless in reading the news, he read it in a completely objective manner. 'One could never tell where he stood on what he was reading. In all of his 22 years on the air, nobody can remember hearing him express a single viewpoint.'"[9]
Blair and his wife, Lillian had eight children.[10] He retired from NBC in 1975 to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. In 1979, he published his autobiography, Let's be Frank About It, in which he discussed his life and career, including some bouts with alcoholism.[11]
^ abcdCox, Jim (2007). Radio Speakers: Narrators, News Junkies, Sports Jockeys, Tattletales, Tipsters, Toastmasters and Coffee Klatch Couples Who Verbalized the Jargon of the Aural Ether from the 1920s to the 1980s--A Biographical Dictionary. McFarland & Company, Inc. ISBN978-0-7864-6086-1. Pp. 34-35.
