Entertainment

Melba Tolliver now lives quietly in a house overlooking the Delaware River in eastern Pennsylvania. But once, she was a giant of New York TV journalism. Ohio-raised Tolliver, 81, made TV history a few times. She was the first African American to anchor a network TV news broadcast, and member of New York's first female co-anchor team. She launched trailblazing local shows ("Meet the People") that focused on everyday New Yorkers, or on women's issues ("Consciousness Rising"), and built a national profile with a network one ("Americans All"). 
Then, there was the hair. In 1971, she was reprimanded by Ch. 7 for wearing her hair naturally as a reporter to cover the marriage of Tricia Nixon and Edward Cox. She then became something she never wanted to become: A story. A big one. 
We spoke recently about this remarkable career. 
You first arrived in New York in 1959 to become a nurse?&nbsp; I graduated with a diploma from New York University-Bellevue worked as a scrub nurse in Bellevue's OR, then ER. That's when I realized I didn't have the right stuff for a bedside nurse — to balance compassion and sternness. If a patient needed to be suctioned and said to me, "Oh, Miss Tolliver, please don't do that,"&nbsp;I'd say, "OK, I won't." 
You were a young African American woman in the big city in the early '60s at a moment of sweeping change. How did it affect you?&nbsp; First, the term 'African American' was not used at that time. I was 'colored' or the 'colored girl.' But 1963 was the year when things really came together for me and made me come to certain conclusions that I still hold and some I now question. [It was] the year George Wallace declared "segregation forever,"&nbsp;Lyndon Johnson was sworn in, little girls killed in the bombing of the 16th Street Church in Birmingham. The murder of Medgar Evers.&nbsp; Thousands marching on Washington. That year had a tremendous impact on my thinking.&nbsp; 
Exactly how? The New York Herald Tribune published a series of articles, "Ten Negroes"&nbsp;[about black Americans], by national correspondent Robert Byrd [and] I wrote a letter to Byrd — not a friendly letter — saying I was so fed up with his series and that he was not taking the pulse of ordinary everyday people like myself and that as far as America was concerned, we colored people, we Negroes, were Americans and we weren't going anyplace. I was working as a secretary at a pharmaceutical company at the time. A few days later, he called to ask if he could publish it and they did, under a bold headline,&nbsp;"An&nbsp;Angry Woman ..." 
Why was this so pivotal?&nbsp; It proved to me that I have a voice and that I wanted to try to do something with it. I suddenly saw the power of words, the power of communications. I saw a 'female wanted' ad in the Times that said ABC is hiring secretaries [and] thought, 'what does it take to be a researcher' [there]. I gave myself six months to find out [then] AFTRA called a strike of its on-air people. 
You then become the first black person — male or female — in U.S. TV history to anchor a network news program?&nbsp; ABC had an afternoon program anchored by Marlene Sanders called "News with a Woman's Touch,"&nbsp;and when she left the air, they assigned a man to anchor it in Marlene's absence. The show's sponsor, Purex, wanted to know,&nbsp;"don't you have any women working there?"&nbsp;My boss said, "maybe my secretary can do it — she's been a movie extra!' &nbsp;In fact, I'd appeared in a couple of magazine ads. 
Did you realize you had just made history?&nbsp; [Laughs]. I still had dreams of becoming a researcher. The strike ended and around the same time, the Kerner Commission report [into the causes of the 1967 riots] comes out. ABC then set up an in-house training program [and] I became a guinea pig for it. 
Where did you think that would lead?&nbsp; Well, God protects babies and fools and I was too foolish to be scared, but I did see the upside of it. Because ABC didn't have a real program, I was able to design what I wanted to do. 
This was your apprenticeship?&nbsp; There were people who resented me, as the strikebreaker, and I couldn't do much of anything but stand around and rewrite wire copy. [But] I got to know [other reporters like] Mal Goode [one of network TV's first black reporters] who'd let me go out on assignment with them. Mal really took me under his wing. 
How did you finally break in?&nbsp; In most people's minds, I was still a scab, but not long after [the funeral of Robert F. Kennedy] the WABC local news director called and asked if I'd be interested in being a summer relief reporter. After the riots and&nbsp;the Kerner Commission report, news organizations rushed to recruit black reporters. When ABC hired Al Primo, who also created&nbsp;'Eyewitness News' as news director, he sent reporters into neighborhoods to cover stories, then have them come back to the studio to give their reports live, rather than leave it up to the anchorman. It was quite revolutionary at the time.
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What was it like at Ch. 7 in those days?&nbsp; It was a stealth operation. There was no audience and people used to joke that even our relatives never watched 'Eyewitness News." The good side was that if nobody watched, you could test all sorts of things. It was better than being at the networks because network correspondents had to fight to get on the air. We had to fight to get off. 
You also began to anchor various shows, including one with another pioneer, Gil Noble. Gil was more comfortable solo but I was his co-host [on the weekly 'Like It is'] longer than anyone else. That's where I met Toni Morrison for the first time; she had just written 'The Bluest Eye' and was huge in the publishing business [as an editor] but was otherwise just making her name. 
Now the "hair" question, and I'm not talking about the play. In 1971, you are assigned to cover the marriage of Tricia Nixon, but decide to wear your hair naturally rather than artificially straightened. The station pushes back and you become a national story. What happened? I'm told the station manager said, "When I saw her on the news last night it scared the hell out of me. I wanted to jump and hide behind my couch."&nbsp;Primo&nbsp;said, 'I don't like your hair. You no longer look feminine …' I explained to him that what he had been seeing was not my natural hair, and he kept saying no, "that's not your real hair."&nbsp;I said, "yes, this is how my hair really looks."&nbsp;He said, "you're going to have to change it back." I went home and cried.&nbsp; 
The next day I went to Washington, and was told, if you won't change your hair, you won't appear on film. The signature of 'Eyewitness News' was that reporters were eyewitnesses so how were they going to do this? They canceled my studio appearances, canceled my appearance on the local morning show, "AM New York,"&nbsp;canceled everything and I was edited out of the film. I was reprimanded, but somehow the story was leaked to the New York Post, and that was the end of it. But believe me, I was not unafraid during that time. 
You left Ch. 7 in 1976 then return a year later to WNBC/4. Why?&nbsp; I got a midcareer fellowship at the University of Michigan [and] WABC&nbsp;had said it was OK to take the fellowship but would not guarantee a job when I got back. Someone said, 'maybe you should get an agent.' I did … 
How did Ch. 4 go? They were trying to decide who was going to co-anchor the 5 p.m. news and decided [on me]. I hadn't agreed to be the anchor [but] the news director, Norm Fein — who is a friend to this day — said if you say "no,"&nbsp;the company will never forget it. I said, 'Norm, if I say yes and it's a flop, the company will remember that too.' I agreed to co-anchor with Pia Lindstrom and we became the first all-female anchor team in the market. [Later] a new news director came in whose main job — I was told — was to get rid of me. I had given them lip about anchoring and they held it against me. I was labeled a troublemaker."
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Then you leave and make history again — as the anchor, along with Bill Zimmerman, to launch the nation's first all-news local cable network, News 12, in 1986.&nbsp; It was exciting to be there at the start. 
You once said, and I quote, "Long Island is a hotbed of interesting issues that relate directly to mainstream America." Elaborate?&nbsp; It was kind of a microcosm, in terms of race, educational opportunities, housing, employment. Those were the issues that plagued America. It also had close knit communities, where you could be identified immediately if people knew that you came from a certain part of Long Island. It was fascinating and it took a while to understand it.&nbsp; 
Why leave?&nbsp; Our contracts were not renewed. Bill and I had served our usefulness. We were well-known anchors in New York and brought in to get [News 12] attention and whatever kind of credibility we could bring to it."&nbsp; 
You now live in a remote and rural corner of Pennsylvania. Nice, but why there?&nbsp; I was friends with a woman who had a weekend place out here and I was out here one weekend in the guest bedroom and could hear the river over the rapids. It was so peaceful, I thought: This would be perfect.

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What ever happened to: Pioneering reporter Melba Tolliver

What ever happened to pioneering reporter Melba Tolliver?

Former News 12 and WABC's “Eyewitness News” anchor Melba Tolliver, now 81, is enjoying retirement in Bangor, Pennsylvania. Newsday checked in with her as part of our "what ever happened to" series.


What ever happened to: NY TV reporter Melba Tolliver

Newsday

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The New York TV news star was once among the most familiar figures in our lives. But as local TV news ebbed their prominence ebbed as well. What happened to these New York TV legends? Today, a visit with Storm Field. 
For a time in the early '80s, &nbsp;Elliot&nbsp;David Field of Bellmore was perhaps the most famous person in New York TV news. You knew him as Storm.&nbsp; 
After a brief time at a long-defunct news network funded by Joseph Coors, then at WPIX/11, he joined WABC/7's famed "Eyewitness News" team as weather forecaster in 1976, remaining there&nbsp;until 1991. He joined WCBS/2 a year later,&nbsp;then left in '97 for a ten-year run at WWOR/9. (He worked — briefly — alongside his father, Dr. Frank Field.) Field, 73, now lives in Florida near his mom and dad. We spoke recently about his career. 
Your father and his career obviously mean a great deal to you. True? &nbsp;Yes, he was what you aimed for — to be the person that people trust and want to turn to when the weather situation is serious and not when the management wants to make it serious to pump up ratings. &nbsp; 
How do you both get along now? Great. We're very, very close. 
So, you were a Long Island kid long ago, right? I grew up in Bellmore and my parents moved to Massapequa after I graduated from high school — Mepham High. I like to say they moved and didn't tell me [laughs]. But it was a very simple, middle-class, conservative upbringing. 
Where'd you go to college? McGill [in Montreal].&nbsp;I started out in pre-med and ended up honors in English. I was going to be a doctor, then a college professor, then ended up going to optometry school in Boston. After that, I went to work for the [New York] state university as a clinician and instructor, then got a job teaching reporters about medical stories. At McGill,&nbsp;my dad said, "You oughta study weather as a minor just in case." 
After a short time at WPIX/11, you go to WABC/7? I was lucky. It's funny to me because I got the job not because of my dad but because of the [general manager Al&nbsp;Ittelson's]&nbsp;secretary there — Marsha Chin — who kept putting my video reel back on the top of a pile for the general manager to see. She was the gateway for me. She made it happen. 
Your name didn't hurt — and I don't mean the "Field" part but the "Storm" part. I was always Storm to my family.&nbsp;When my mother was pregnant with me, she'd go in for the monthly checkups with the obstetrician and I was very active, and my mother recalled him saying, "My God, that's a stormy kid." So they were calling me "Stormy"&nbsp;even before I was born.&nbsp;
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Tex Antoine — also an early weather forecaster for Ch. 4 later for Ch. 7 — was instrumental in your career. How did that come about? The station brought on someone else because Tex was quite ill and they figured he wasn't going to make it that much longer. But Tex refused to die and hung on [and the other anchor] said, "This is crazy. I'm not waiting around anymore"&nbsp;and [left]. It was then the moment that Tex must have thought, "OK, now I'm going to blow myself up." 
Blow up is right! Either ["Eyewitness News" co-anchors]&nbsp;Roger Grimsby or Bill Beutel had just reported a story of an attempted rape [of an eight-year-old] in the Bronx and Tex, who had not been paying attention, said something like, "It is well to remember the words of Confucius: If rape is inevitable, sit back and enjoy it."&nbsp; [After he was fired] I remember they worked a week or two without anyone doing the weather [then] I was asked, "What are&nbsp; you doing this week? Good. You're doing the weather." That was my start.&nbsp; 
What did you feel? Terrified.&nbsp;I remember before my first night, I was told to fill up extra time, so suddenly I had almost three minutes to do the weather [because] Hurricane Belle was forming. I had plenty to talk about.&nbsp; 
Eventually you became that sex symbol weather guy? I never had time to be a sex symbol. Maybe that's what they were printing but I had no idea. My dad was really great about setting me straight about the [TV] business early on. The advice he gave me was, be nice to people on your way up because those you step on will be the ones who kick you on the way down. He said [success] isn't about you but about the people who are watching. If they like you, that's the reason you stay on the air... I never thought of myself as being any more than anybody else in terms of an an on-air person. I got schooled with the people I worked with, like Gloria Rojas, who had a really tough life story. Their take on the business was this is a blessing.
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I'll never forget when you left, Ch. 7 sent out a news release saying you were leaving to star in a pilot for the network. They made it up. There was never a pilot but they had to explain why I had left. I needed a break and you can't take a break in TV. It's not like other jobs where you can take a six-month sabbatical. If you're not on the air, you're forgotten. I needed to take some time and they wouldn't do it, so I took it myself. My wife and I traveled for a year to the South Pacific [then] my intention was to retire to the Berkshires, but my wife liked New&nbsp; York [City] and I thought might as well get another job. Figured I'd go back to Ch. 7—all I wanted to do was weekend fill-in — but they had other people in the role. That's when I got an offer for a full time gig at Ch. 2. 
It got ugly, right? After a couple years they hired Ira Joe Fisher to do the weather [and] they wanted me to do the new [network] morning show. So I was going to do mornings and afternoons which was OK by me but I was also working without a contract. I asked for one but they said we've got too much going on right now and we'll take care of it down the line. Famous last words from a TV executive. 
There was a standoff just six months later? I gave a two-week notice and [the then-station boss] refused to talk to me, then, on the day I was leaving, gave me a piece of paper with a new deal written on it and there was almost no change at all. I told him it was too little too late. Then they threw me out. 
Did you get a rep out that as someone difficult to deal with — a prima donna?&nbsp; I got a rep as someone difficult to deal with, mostly because I didn't have [an agent] to stand up for me. I was following my dad's lead. He never had an agent … Prima donna? I don't think that was it, but I wasn't user friendly. 
Then those ten years at Ch. 9&nbsp;where you were briefly reunited with your dad.&nbsp; We finally got it all together [at Ch. 9] and firing on all cylinders then Fox [which also owned WNYW/5] took over the station. Over the next year they fired over a hundred people and the building was an empty shell. One night the general manager&nbsp;said it doesn't appear you are very happy working for us —&nbsp;I said I wasn't —&nbsp;and there doesn't seem to be any reason to re-up your contract. I said I wouldn't if I were him. He was stunned. They walked me out with the security guard. 
What then — you were only 58 after all? I was lucky. I had been absent for my children [both daughters], and now was home and got a lot of good years with them, when they were in their young teens then on into college. I was completely there for them and that was a blessing for me. Unfortunately, my wife and I decided not long after that the marriage was over, too. 
You've had a fascinating post-TV career — as a race car driver.&nbsp; I have always been a car guy and always been someone interested in machinery of all kinds. I went to race school back in the '90s [and] made good friends in racing over the years, particularly now, with the guys down here. 
Any regrets?&nbsp; We all have regrets about things we could have done better and I think about the things I could have handled better when I was younger. But you live by making mistakes and hopefully the mistakes you make don't end up hurting other people. With most of my mistakes, I hurt myself. [But] I had a career that lasted over three decades and I'm not unhappy about that. It would have been nice to end it a little differently but then I wouldn't have gotten the time to spend all those years with my girls. That was the nicest bonus I could have ever had.

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What ever happened to: TV meteorologist Storm Field

What ever happened to TV meteorologist Storm Field?

Storm Field (l), who reported the weather for several New York TV stations, is now retired and living in Florida near his dad, the pioneering TV meteorologist Dr. Frank Field (right).  


What ever happened to NY TV meteorologist Storm Field?

What ever happened to meteorologist Storm Field?

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The New York TV news star was once among the most familiar figures in our lives. But as local TV news ebbed their prominence ebbed as well. What happened to these New York TV legends? Today, a visit with Frank Field.&nbsp; 
Franklyn Field, now 96, was best known as "Dr. Frank Field," or just&nbsp;"Dr. Frank" to a generation of New York viewers — including its first generation of them.&nbsp;He started full time at WRCA&nbsp;(now WNBC/4)&nbsp;in 1958, went to WCBS/2 in 1984, briefly working there with his son, Storm, before wrapping his career at WOR/9 in the mid-90s. 
Field was also New York TV's first full-time meteorologist, and its first health and science reporter. He was&nbsp;the first reporter to telecast live surgeries, the first to launch a weekly program devoted to health topics.&nbsp; 
His singular "first," however, saved lives.The&nbsp;Heimlich maneuver, conceived in 1974, was initially debunked by the medical establishment, but over dozens of TV news stories, Field proved otherwise.&nbsp;Since retiring, he's been a tireless crusader for fire safety.&nbsp; 
Here's an edited version of my interview with Field, who now lives in Boca Raton, Florida.&nbsp; 
First things first, how are you doing? 
I'm 96 and will turn 97 in March. I'm walking a little slower, using a cane for assistance, but I've been blessed I've gotten this far. Right now, I'm looking out at the Atlantic. It's all ocean. My wife [Joan] and I have been married 72 years. I've been blessed. We've got a bunch of grandchildren and some great grandkids, so life has been good.&nbsp; 
 Tell me a bit about your early years growing up?&nbsp; 
Grew up in Brownsville [in Brooklyn and] at the time it was a wonderful life, and&nbsp;we didn't know from being poor. It was a tough area and Murder Incorporated [headquarters of Albert Anastasia's mob enforcers] was in the area but we never knew about that. The Dodgers was our team, and it took five cents to get on the IRT." 
 Did you know what you wanted to do?&nbsp; 
I wanted to be a geologist [but] when I got to my senior year [at Brooklyn College], I enlisted in the [Army] Air Force because I didn't want to end up in the infantry. They said, "Gee, we don't need a geologist so let's make him a meteorologist." You can't fight a war with rocks. 
You eventually moved to Long Island? 
I met my wife, Joan, at Mitchel Field [in Garden City] where I was sent before going overseas. I went to the PX and saw this beautiful, blue-eyed, dark-haired woman behind the counter, and bought a Hershey&nbsp;bar for 10 cents, then asked, "What's your name? … After we got married, we lived in Bellmore, then Massapequa." 
 What was the job of the meteorologist in the Air Force?&nbsp; 
We had aircraft going out well ahead of the bombers [from bases in England] and they'd report back weather conditions to us. It was extremely important to get it right [and] when we started flying troops back from Europe, you'd get on a flight and look down 20,000 feet through an inch of plexiglass to take notes on the weather."&nbsp; 
 &nbsp;What did you do next? 
After I got out of the service, I was offered a position as a meteorologist with the Eighth Air Force, and turned it down — already had four years of "yes sir, no sir" — but I did end up working for the Weather Bureau in Manhattan. 
After that, medical school?&nbsp; 
I was trying to make a living with three little children, so decided to become a doctor. A friend at Columbia said the easiest way was to become an optometrist. I commuted from Bellmore&nbsp;into the city, would go to school at night, go home, get some sleep, and come back at 5 a.m. the next day."&nbsp;
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How did TV come into the picture?&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
NBC named as head of the affiliates someone from Oklahoma, who owned stations there and who believed in the importance of accuracy in weather forecasting. In the city, we never cared much about the weather, but in Oklahoma, you had tornadoes. He came to New York and said, "I want a real meteorologist."&nbsp; [Channel 4] called the Weather Bureau and they said, "We do know this guy who's also at Albert Einstein [School of Medicine in the Bronx]." 
Your true passion however was never really the weather, but science? 
When I was working at WNBC in those early days, I discovered that most other&nbsp;journalists were coming from news and didn't understand science and medicine. … There was an open door here and no one was coming through it. 
 Let's talk "Project Research," your&nbsp;groundbreaking series about science and medicine&nbsp;that you launched at channel 4 in the early '60s. How did that come about?&nbsp; 
In [the '50s] one of the big fights in the medical profession was that doctors were not allowed to promote themselves [but]&nbsp;some of these people were doing things that were worthwhile, and there was an opening to report on them. I started reporting on the then little-known Alzheimer's in 1960, for example.&nbsp; 
We ended up doing almost 500 half hours — some of the first reports on Alzheimer's, reports on heart transplants, the first pacemakers, mechanical hearts, a story on cataract surgery with a new procedure. I also did stories on kidney disease and how children were dying because there weren't&nbsp;enough dialysis machines. I had a wide open field until Earl Ubell [former science editor the Herald-Tribune, who joined WCBS/2 in 1966].&nbsp;
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You were also a regular on Johnny Carson's "Tonight"&nbsp;in the '60s taped at Studio 6B at 30 Rock, and even famously carried on a mock feud with him?&nbsp; 
One day, the cameraman who taped the Carson show at 5 p.m. and was doing the camera for the 6 p.m. news says to me, "Why does Johnny Carson hate you?" I said, "Oh yeah, right." The camera crews were always trying to get me to break up [laughing] when I was on the air live. Sure enough, that night, Carson comes on and tells a joke in his monologue, along the lines of something like, "I found out what our weatherman did during [World War II]. He was the lookout at Pearl Harbor.'' It got a big laugh. 
There was also a bit of controversy, too.&nbsp; 
During the 11 o'clock news, he had been up at the Rainbow Room, and while I was on the air, he came down and walked into the [Ch. 4] studio then walked up behind me while I was on the air. I thought, "Oh great, now my career is gone." But later the ['Tonight'] show called and said Johnny could use me [as co-host] when Ed [McMahon] was on vacation. You [news people] weren't allowed to go on entertainment programs in those days and I was told that if I did go on, they'd fire me. But I did end up going on a number of times. 
I vaguely recall something about a bucket of water getting dumped on your head?&nbsp; 
It had been raining for eight straight days in New York, and Carson said, "We've asked Dr. Field to explain what's happening," and he brought out a big weather map. When I turned to it with my pointer, [stage hands] came up from behind me with a bucket of water. He fell off of his chair laughing. 
OK, let's talk about what may well be the most important part of your legacy, the Heimlich maneuver. 
In the early '70s, I had done a story on [thoracic surgeon] Henry Heimlich and two or three years later he called up saying "I've got a way of saving people before they choke to death."&nbsp;…&nbsp;He said we can save 5,000 people a year with this. I asked if his research had been published — I wanted documentation that it had been accepted [by a medical journal]. … Everyone was coming up with a cure for cancer in those days, so we had to be careful. It had been and we demonstrated it on the air. Two days later we got a call from someone in Brooklyn who said he had used it to save his&nbsp;brother, and wanted to send a check to Dr. Heimlich for $10,000 and needed his address.&nbsp;From then on, we started getting more mail. 
 Former TV sports anchor&nbsp;Warner Wolf&nbsp;once saved you. True?&nbsp; 
We were in a restaurant [and] I guess I didn't chew something properly and started to make the choke signal. Warner got up and gave me the Heimlich grip. 
 You've had a remarkable career. Your secret?&nbsp; 
I have been blessed. I opened the right doors, but it was just plain, ordinary luck. … I can't explain it any other way, and as I said, I would have paid to do this. You get up in the morning and want to get to work. You don't want to stop. You want to&nbsp;go to bed at night, and feel that you've done something.

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What ever happened to: WNBC weatherman Dr. Frank Field

The New York TV news star was once among the most familiar figures in our lives. But as local TV news ebbed their prominence ebbed as well.&nbsp;What happened to these New York TV legends? Today, a visit with John Johnson. 
John Johnson, 81, lives quietly now in the Hudson River valley with his wife, Ann Yih Johnson, in a house surrounded by woods and fields. He's a professional artist and has been for decades,&nbsp;but 50&nbsp;years ago Johnson&nbsp;was a pioneer, as network&nbsp;TV's first&nbsp;African-American documentary news producer, and a distinguished one. Born in Harlem, raised in Bedford-Stuyvesant, he would spend the bulk of his storied career at WABC/7 as a reporter and anchor, before moving to WCBS/2 and WNBC/4. He&nbsp;then walked away from&nbsp;a four-year, $3 million contract&nbsp;in 1997 to care for his dying father, John Johnson Sr., on Long Island.&nbsp; 
An edited version of my recent interview with him: 
So to set the stage, it's 1968 and you have published an essay that launches your career. That about right?&nbsp; 
I was working in the New York public school system [and] wanted to teach at a higher level and got a feeler from Lincoln University [southwest of Philadelphia.] But I also had a background in acting, and had studied with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse and was interested in becoming a director too. So I was trying to cobble all of this together when Lincoln became aware of me because of my writing. 
The essay was called &quot;Super Black Man.&quot; What was it about?&nbsp;&nbsp; 
It was essentially saying that no matter whether I'm black, or whatever, I am going to survive — despite whatever, I am going to survive and do well. It was a call to action, that you've got to overcome. There is no other answer. 
ABC News then made a job offer? 
I said 'no way' [but friends] said,&nbsp;'Are you crazy, at least go for the interview.'...I did and was offered a job in documentaries as a writer and associate producer. I saw it as a way to learn the TV and movie business...It worked out. 
You once ruefully called yourself &quot;ABC's dark secret&quot;— the network's only black producer. What was it like at the time?&nbsp; 
There were cameramen who had never taken direction from a black guy. I had to show my stripes and show I was nobody to [expletive] with. I was the middleweight [boxing] champion in City College [so] my reputation became someone who wouldn't take [expletive] from anybody. Eventually I&nbsp;had people want to work with me because they were working on the front lines of documentary television. 
Let's reset the stage again. It's 1971 and you are now an ABC News network reporter, about to cover the Attica prison uprising. Walk me through that.&nbsp; 
I went to Attica and of course it burst into the psyche of America in this unbelievable way — a revolution in a prison — and while I was there, I was picked as pool reporter to go in with the first negotiating team. As I walked in I heard 'hey John!' and turned and said, 'Billy, what are you doing here?'' Some of the people I had grown up with in Bedford-Stuyvesant were there. Then, sitting at the negotiating table, one of the [prison] leaders said, 'Why don't we take these people as hostages too?' and I told 'em 'you can't do that — you gave your word.' 
What happened next?&nbsp; 
I&nbsp;almost got killed myself when the assault team came to the prison, and I was outside the walls, and the police and everyone was screaming [racial epithets] and pointing guns at me … Had to hold up my press card and yell don't shoot, don't shoot … In order to file reports [during the siege] you had to knock on people's doors to ask to use their phone [and] I couldn't get into any house because I was black and they were the families of white prison workers [so] I had to drive to Buffalo. 
Soon after, local news beckoned, and &quot;Eyewitness News?&quot;&nbsp; 
For me, 'Eyewitness' offered what you might call 'social responsibility' and I went ahead and did just that, and also traveled the world, including South Africa where I met Nelson Mandela who&nbsp;I became friends with. 
Your reflections now on &quot;Eyewitness News?&quot; 
For me, it was a coming together of a great newsroom where I would become senior correspondent and go all over the world — the Gulf War, Bosnia, Somalia … Roger [co-anchor Grimsby, who died in 1995] and I also became great friends. Roger was a veteran of [the Korean] war and I knew he had suffered greatly during the war. There was a sadness about him. There were a lot of other close friends at 'Eyewitness' too.&nbsp;Everyone there was a committed journalist. It was the journalism first, always. 
In 1980 you also filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against the station and network.&nbsp;Why? 
My lawsuit was based on the fact that I didn't see any real possibilities across the board for upward mobility for black people and I really thought that needed to be adjudicated. It needed to be brought out. When I filed the suit, we did discovery and found that ABC had counted [me] as five different minority hires. The lawsuit [which was settled out of court] wasn't about me. It was about the principle. 
During your run as anchor and correspondent, you negotiated a number of hostage situations.&nbsp; 
I would try to get everyone to put down their guns, and say, 'You don't want to die over this.' I had a reputation, I guess,&nbsp;as someone who would go in and talk sense to people. 
&nbsp;Why though? You could have been killed.&nbsp; 
&nbsp;The police asked me to. I certainly didn't want to. They were horrendous situations where anything could happen and you're always taking a chance, especially when people have guns in their hands. 
You left WNBC/4 to care for your father at the East Neck Nursing and Rehab Center in West Babylon. Given your fraught history with him, why?&nbsp; 
My mother's death [Irene, in 1995] was a tremendous blow to me and while I didn't adore my father I&nbsp;was heartsick when I was working as my mother was dying and I&nbsp;just couldn't bring myself to let that happen again...I'll never forget that when I quit he said, 'You quit to be with me?' I think that's something he left the world with. 
You've been an artist almost since childhood. Why art? 
The one place I found solace was at the Met. It was like being in a church. But I was always painting. I was long displayed at the Walter Wickiser Gallery [in Chelsea] and had some pieces displayed at the Museum of Modern Art, too. 
You once wrote somewhere that painting forced you to face yourself. What did you learn?&nbsp; 
That I'm scared in the universe [laughs]. I found I have a lot of fear. But I also liked finding beauty in strange places and exploring how we are multifaceted human beings and not just one thing, and that we could be so many more things if we explored more of what we are.&nbsp; 
You are a perfect case in point. Any regrets? No [pauses]. I was once asked long ago to be one of the first anchors of CNN [when it launched in 1980] and even had lunch with Ted Turner, but I turned it down. Didn't want to live in Atlanta. I could say that was pivotal. Maybe I should have. I don't know. But no regrets.

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What ever happened to: John Johnson, longtime NYC news reporter

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The New York TV news star was once among the most familiar figures in our lives. But as local TV news ebbed — as&nbsp;cable news, then the internet flourished&nbsp;— their prominence ebbed as well.&nbsp;What happened to these New York TV legends?&nbsp;Today, Newsday launches an occasional series to find out. 
We begin with Sue Simmons. 
Born 77 years ago in Greenwich Village, Simmons, daughter of prominent jazz&nbsp;bassist John Simmons, had anchor jobs in New Haven, Baltimore and Washington before joining WNBC/4 in 1980. She left in 2012.&nbsp; 
A true trailblazer, Simmons was the first African American woman to co-anchor a nightly New York news broadcast, and New York's most prominent female anchor as well. Her programs, like the groundbreaking &quot;Live at Five,&quot; and the 11 p.m. telecast, were top-rated for decades. 
Simmons&nbsp;was beloved, and then she was gone.&nbsp; 
I spoke with Simmons earlier this week. This is her first extended interview in seven years.&nbsp; 
I sensed a little reluctance on your part to do this. [Laughs] I was concerned about boring people with details of my mundane life.&nbsp; 
What have you been doing with your life? I can't tell you specifically other than living my life day to day,&nbsp;like anybody else who worked and then finds themselves with a lot of time on their hands. But thankfully, because of my career, I'm able to have a place in the city and one in a nearby suburb. I go back and forth between those places. I keep myself busier than I care to, and spend a lot of time with my Mets. I'm a long-suffering fan. 
After all those years of prominence, you disappeared. Why?&nbsp; I'm no Greta Garbo [but] it is fair to say that I have no public profile. I don't have any desire for one. I'm settling in very nicely, being the person I was before TV. ..I have a tendency to enjoy my home and not go out just to go out. But when I do go to my appointments on the West 57th Street crosstown bus, I will get an occasional shout-out from people. It feels so good because I like to be remembered. I do want to be remembered.&nbsp; 
You had one of the greatest runs in New York TV history. Lessons learned?&nbsp; I have a room in my house, my office, and a lot of articles framed on the wall, and photos, and I walk in there occasionally and read some of the stuff. It seems so long ago. I read one — about the proclamation for Sue Simmons Day [upon retirement]. It seemed like it happened to someone else. I miss the team and the camaraderie [but] I&nbsp;must say, the best part of my day was when I was on the air. I never got over that. 
When your contract wasn't renewed in 2012, I sensed that was a bitter, emotional time for you. True? It was very emotional — the end of a 40-year career, 32 of those years in New York. It was a messy ending and one that I didn't want. In the middle of all that messiness I cried because I was sad&nbsp;to leave this thing that had been my life for 40 years. People would come into my office and say 'we're sorry to see you go' and I'd start crying all over again. [But] it wasn't bitter.&nbsp;I had worked until I was 70 and for an anchorwoman, that was ancient. Most people are burdened with retirement concerns [and] I'm not rich but my rent is paid, and I think about all the joy I had through those years. I'm so chill. Not bitter about anything. NBC has given me a fabulous life.&nbsp; 
Of course I have to ask about the famous curse on live TV, in 2008. Not a bad memory. The backstory is that every night, Chuck [Scarborough, her longtime co-anchor] and I would do these promotional spots at 11, and Chuck was so focused— you could drop water on his head and he wouldn't notice — that you could yell at him and he wouldn't hear. I thought it was being&nbsp;taped, and as I read my part of the tease, Chuck was reading off his computer. I looked over at him and said, 'what the [expletive]&nbsp;are you doing?' I then looked over and [someone]&nbsp;lip-synced, 'we're live.'&nbsp; 
You and Chuck Scarborough&nbsp;remain pals? I'm actually having dinner with him. The restaurant where we used to dine, Seagrill, is closing, so we said let's have dinner and celebrate before they close. We saw each other regularly, though less and less as the years go by. But we have dinner every couple months. We like to gossip and talk about family&nbsp;— he's a granddad —and talk about the funny moments over the years. 
You were a trailblazer but you never made a big deal about that. Why? I&nbsp;think I lead by example, simply by the fact that I was there. [But] pioneer? I never saw myself that way. There were so few of us — Carole Simpson, Carol Martin — but I do believe I was the first on a [nightly] New York news show. I fall into another category because I was biracial, too.

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What ever happened to: Longtime Ch. 4 anchor Sue Simmons

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