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ENTERTAINMENT / Television
Tom Snyder dies at 71
(Reuters)
Updated: 2007-07-31 08:44
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Talk show host and newsman Tom Snyder has died in San Francisco from
complications of leukemia, Entertainment Tonight reported on Monday.[AP]
Veteran talk show host Tom Snyder, whose idiosyncratic interviewing style
bemused and annoyed late-night TV viewers during three decades, has died
after a long battle with leukemia, associates said on Monday. He was 71.
The former host of NBC's "Tomorrow" show and CBS' "The Late Late Show
with Tom Snyder" died on Sunday evening at his home in San Francisco,
said his longtime agent and lawyer Ed Hookstratten.
"Tom was a true broadcaster, a rare thing," said Peter Lassally,
executive producer of Snyder's CBS show, in a statement released by the
network. "When he was on the air, he made the camera disappear. It was
just you and him, in a room together, having a talk."
Comedian David Letterman, who took over Snyder's time slot when Snyder
left NBC and later hired Snyder to follow his own show after moving to
CBS, said: "Tom was the very thing that all broadcasters long to be --
compelling."
Snyder gained national fame for hosting "Tomorrow" in NBC's post-"Tonight
Show" spot from 1973 to 1982, with some of his more memorable guests
including former Beatle John Lennon, Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols and
convicted killer Charles Manson.
But a quirky on-air presence -- including frequent digressions about his
personal life and the habit of laughing gustily at his own jokes shared
with an unseen crew -- made him as much the center of attention as his
interview subjects.
"COLORTINI"
Seated cigarette in hand on a simple, darkened set adorned with just two
chairs, he was alternately pompous and self-deprecating. His style
transfixed some viewers, irritated others and was famously captured by
comedian Dan Aykroyd's impersonation of Snyder on NBC's "Saturday Night
Live."
According to the Web site IMDB.com, Snyder conceded that one of the most
embarrassing moments of his career came when he realized 10 minutes into
an interview with rock singer Meat Loaf that he had been calling him
"Meatball."
At the height of his run, Snyder reportedly was considered a possible
future anchor of the NBC Nightly News or a likely successor to Johnny
Carson to host "The Tonight Show." But a reformatting of "Tomorrow" in
the early 1980s failed to catch on and the program was canceled in 1982.
Snyder's time slot ended up going to Letterman.
After several years back on his original medium, radio, Snyder returned
to national television in 1983 with an interview show on cable TV's CNBC,
adopting the catch phrase: "Fire up a colortini, sit back, relax and
watch the pictures, now, as they fly through the air."
Two years later, he landed on broadcast television again to host "The
Late Late Show with Tom Snyder" on CBS, in the time slot following
Letterman's "Late Show" until 1999.
Snyder announced on his Web site about two years ago that he had been
diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia but said his doctors had
assured him his condition was treatable and "nothing to worry about."
Snyder had quit smoking about five years previously.
Snyder was born in Milwaukee and began his broadcasting career as a local
radio reporter before moving into television and anchoring local
newscasts in Philadelphia.
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