John Rowland, Fox’s flagship 10 p.m. news program Emmy Award-winning anchor and a reliable presence on local New York TV news for 35 years, died Sunday in North Miami Beach, Florida. He is 81 years old.
His wife, Zaida Garasso, said the cause was complications from a stroke.
Fox 5’s nightly news show started with the ominous question, “It’s 10pm. Do you know where the kids are?” Rowland was an inspiration during a quarter-century of weeknight show anchors from 1979, when he replaced Bill Jorgensen when he was lured to WPIX-TV, until his retirement in 2004. The show was the highest rated program. At that hour of television news.
“John was a very likable person, not as formidable as Bill Jorgensen,” said Ted Kavanaugh, the station’s news director from 1968 to 1974, in an email. “He was more of the Jimmy Stewart type. An American ordinary person who somehow managed to find his way into the spotlight and leave a surprisingly strong impression.”
One of Rowland’s co-anchors, Judi Licht Della Femina, calls herself “Channel 5’s first female anchor,” adding, “When Channel 5 was a pretty rough, testosterone-filled newsroom, John was there to protect.” myself. He took care of me. “
John Rowland Singer Jr. was born on November 25, 1941 in Pittsburgh to John and Marian Singer. His father was a foundry inspector.
After graduating from California State University, Long Beach in 1964, Rowland began his broadcasting career in 1966 as a fellow at NBC News in Los Angeles, abbreviating his name.
As a reporter for KTTV, the local metromedia station, he was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to murder seven people, including a film actress, in the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy and in 1971. I covered the trial of Charles Manson. Sharon Tate.
In 1969, Rowland was hired as a political reporter for Metromedia’s sister station, WNEW in New York (now WNYW at FOX). He also worked as a weekend anchor and produced a cooking feature before being promoted to weeknight anchor.
In 1983, Mr. Rowland made the news by disarming one of three robbers who tried to take over a restaurant on East 67th Street in Manhattan across from the Fox Broadcast Center. He fired one shot with the robber’s own gun, but was hit in the head with a pistol. It took 36 stitches to close his wound.
In 1986, he partnered with Upper East Side restaurant Marcello, which received a two-star review by Brian Miller of the New York Times.
Rowland was suspended from his job in 1988 after an intense on-air interview with Joyce Brown. Joyce Brown is a homeless woman with mental illness whose admission to a mental hospital for her involuntary treatment was successfully challenged by the New York Civil Liberties Union. Mr. Rowland met with Ms. Brown, also known as Billy Boggs, prior to her imprisonment. She lived in front of a hot air vent near a TV station.
The interview turned combative when Rowland disputed Brown’s claim that he never needed hospital treatment. He cited her behavior on the street that he witnessed and felt uncomfortable with. The station was inundated with complaints as well as support for Mr. Rowland.
A spokeswoman for the agency said she was suspended because “emotion prevailed over objectivity” during an interview. He later apologized on air and in a call to Ms. Brown, saying the interview was “very insensitive.”
Rowland won two local Emmy Awards as a scriptwriter for the Sunday 10 p.m. bottom.
He appeared as an anchor in the films Hero at Large (1980), Witness (1981), The Object of My Affection (1998), and The Scout (1994) as himself.
Mr Rowland was married four times. In addition to Mr. Galasso, he has his younger brother Ronald. stepdaughter Natasha; and his granddaughter-in-law.
He left the 10pm slot in 2003 and anchored the 5pm and 6pm news shows until retiring in 2004.
“Thank you for inviting me into your home over the years,” he said from the anchor desk on his final broadcast. “This was never an invitation I took for granted, I always considered it an honor.”