Ralph Story RIP

For those of us who grew up in Los Angeles in the 60's, this was a wonderful man. I watched Ralp Story's Los Angeles every Sunday evening and made several apperances on it. I was a kid and they always interviewed people in front of stores. I made several passes back and forth behind the person being interviewed. lol







TV, Radio Broadcaster Ralph Story Dies
Sep 27, 1:19 AM EST

Ralph Story, a television and radio broadcaster for three decades and host of the hugely popular quiz show "The $64,000 Challenge" in the 1950s, has died. He was 86.

Story died Tuesday at his home in Santa Ynez, north of Santa Barbara, after a long battle with emphysema, said his longtime colleague and friend, Dan Gingold.

"He was a wonderfully warm gentleman and an extremely talented journalist," Gingold said. "He was not only a good narrator, but was in his own right a producer and writer who became the unofficial historian of Southern California."

Born Ralph Bernard Snyder in Kalamazoo, Mich., he started his broadcasting career in the late 1940s after serving as an Army Air Corps flight instructor and fighter pilot during World War II.

Snyder got his big break in broadcasting 1948 when he was hired to host and direct an early morning show on KNX radio in Los Angeles. At the suggestion of the station's managers, he changed his name to Ralph Story.

Story's casual style and witty observations about life in Los Angeles made him a popular host and won him national recognition.

"Even when he's complaining, as he does occasionally, Ralph is cheerful and amusing," read a 1952 Associated Press profile of Story.

Story later moved into network television, where in 1956 he began hosting the hugely popular quiz show "The $64,000 Challenge." The CBS show was canceled in 1958 while several networks were embroiled in allegations that popular contestants were supplied with answers in advance.

Story, who was not implicated in the scandal, returned to local broadcasting in 1960. He anchored a radio news show on KNX and later joined "The Big News," one of the nation's first hour-long local TV newscasts. His regular feature, "Human Predicament," about people caught in unusual events and situations, became a popular segment. It developed into a local newsmagazine show about the people and places of Los Angeles called "Ralph Story's Los Angeles," which aired for six years.

"It was quite a remarkable broadcast, and won a lot of awards," said Gingold, who produced the show.

Story joined KABC-TV in the 1970s and co-hosted a morning news show that became the precursor to "Good Morning America," Gingold said.

 

Another favorite passes. RIP.

 

Wow,i didnt hear,sorry to hear. Of course living in the Long Beach area all my life he was a part of it.

 

Ralph Story was a class act...he loved LA and his gentle humor was a great influence on my growing up. I think all those BIG NEWS guys are gone now...Jerry Dunphy (half the inspiration for the Ted Baxter character), Bill Keene, Gil Stratton. Wonder if pioneering reporter Ruth Ashton-Taylor is still with us?

 

He was one of the best L.A. broadcasters there was.

RIP.

 

I know Tom Hatton is doing spots on KNX 1070 in SoCal.

 

Very sorry to hear of his passing. Ruth Ashton-Taylor is alive & well. She was intervewed this morning on local radio re:Ralph Story.
84 year old Gil Stratton, "Time to call em as we see em" is still with us.

-Steve D.

 

RIP...I rememebr the opening for Ralph's show (animated "highway" closeup..) I had WONDERED had happened to him over the years..RIP

(I saw years ago in the "World Almanac" he was born in 1912--86 would be 1919-1920..