News legend Peter Jennings lost his fight against lung cancer yesterday, passing away at his Upper West Side home with his wife and children at his side.
“Peter died with his family around him without pain and with peace. He knew he had lived a good life,” said ABC News’ Charles Gibson, quoting a statement from Jennings family on a special report that aired shortly before midnight.
David Westin, ABC News president, said, “Peter has been our colleague, our friend and our leader in so many ways. None of us will be the same without him.”
The debonair, Canadian-born, anchor of “World News Tonight,” made a surprise announcement about his disease on April 5 – bravely promising to continue to broadcast when he could.
“On good days, my voice will not always be like this,” he said. But the good days never came again – that turned out to be his last broadcast.
Jennings, who had been a heavy smoker until he quit in the 1980s, said in the April broadcast that he had picked up the habit again to deal with the stress of 9/11.
When he made the announcement, he was already in the advanced stages of the illness – but just a few weeks ago, he managed to gather enough strength for a brief surprise visit to staffers.
With Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather, Jennings was part of a trio that dominated network news for more than two decades.
Jennings was born into the business, the son of Charles Jennings, a popular correspondent with the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
He landed his first on-air job at the age of 9, hosting a half-hour weekly children’s on CBC.
Catching the broadcasting bug, he dropped out of high school and became a radio reporter in Toronto.
Later, he became the host of a Canadian TV public-affairs show, and by 1962, was the co-anchor of Canada’s first national commercial network newscast.
Jennings joined ABC News in 1964 and did his first stint as network anchor from 1965 to 1968. After co-anchoring “World News Tonight” in the late 1970s, he was named the solo anchor in 1983.
But he was never tied to his desk.
In his years at ABC, as reporter and anchor, he appeared on location for the stories that were shaping history. The Vietnam War, the terror attack at the 1972 Munich Olympics, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the demise of the Soviet Union were only some of the major events he personally covered.
One of his last major stories was 9/11 – he logged more than 60 hours on the air that week.
Less than two weeks ago, on July 29, he celebrated his 67th birthday and news colleagues sent a plane over his apartment trailing a banner saying, “Happy Birthday Peter – love from all the ‘World News Tonight.’ ”
He is survived by his wife, Kayce Freed, and children, Elizabeth, 25 and Christopher, 23.
With Post Wire Services