OT. Bill Curry
- Thread starter TFBaum
- Start date
Sweet ole Bill .... I have no clue how he got a Pittsburgh gig ....
He would wear these loud blazers akin to The Gunner ... Bob Prince ...
Oh those were the days ...
He would wear these loud blazers akin to The Gunner ... Bob Prince ...
Oh those were the days ...
I remember Bill.
This is the best I could find to describe how he got to Pittsburgh.
blackandgoldworld.blogspot.com
This is the best I could find to describe how he got to Pittsburgh.
Obituary: Bill Currie / 'Mouth of the South' sports commentator here in 1970s
Died Feb. 11, 2008 Wednesday, February 13, 2008 By Robert Dvorchak, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette KDKA Bill Currie on KDKA-TV in the 1970s. Dresse...
blackandgoldworld.blogspot.com
I was to young really to remember the blazers I just remember my father being disgusted that a southern voice was on Pittsburgh tv.
Yeah . He always had that bloom in his lapel ...I remember Bill.
This is the best I could find to describe how he got to Pittsburgh.
Obituary: Bill Currie / 'Mouth of the South' sports commentator here in 1970s
Died Feb. 11, 2008 Wednesday, February 13, 2008 By Robert Dvorchak, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette KDKA Bill Currie on KDKA-TV in the 1970s. Dresse...
Wow thank you. Sounds like someone who would have been run out of town in today’s world.I remember Bill.
This is the best I could find to describe how he got to Pittsburgh.
Obituary: Bill Currie / 'Mouth of the South' sports commentator here in 1970s
Died Feb. 11, 2008 Wednesday, February 13, 2008 By Robert Dvorchak, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette KDKA Bill Currie on KDKA-TV in the 1970s. Dresse...
You couldn’t make a down home show like this today. Cable centric programming ruined the hometown product.
He always had a 2 minute commentary at the end of his sports report. Very good.
Bill Currie's improbable act was a hit in Pittsburgh. He was, like Bob Prince and later Myron Cope, a character. He stood out on stodgy KDKA like a cat at the Westminster Kennel Club. He could reduce his staid talk show partner, Marie Torre, to hysterical laughter. Loud, funny, irreverent -- and a reverend. Currie dared to rail against station executives (the Yummies up on Carpet Corridor). He gleefully subbed as the weatherman one time when the on-air talent had to draw the forecast on a board. But Currie's favorite targets were the pompous and the self-important. Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn (the Grand Poobah) among them. Group W convinced Currie to move his act to a sister station in Philadelphia, but that did not end well.
In the timeframe that the Rev Bill was here, Pittsburgh was the 9th or 10th largest media market in the USA... big-time talent started, or progressed through here to other Group W affiliates or even outside media groups. Dick Stockton was at KDKA for time, too. Pgh is a quirky town and occasionally quirky media characters are adopted here... as noted above.
A final aside - the tremendous conglomerate that was The Westinghouse Electric Corporation chose to atomize itself (under then-CEO Michael Jordan) into, solely, it's Group W Broadcasting entity. Then, with the proceeds collected from selling off all of those fabulous old businesses (WESCO, Schindler, Turbines, Distribution & Control, Electronics/Avionics, ThermoKing, etc.) Group W acquired CBS Broadcasting. Whose annual report to this day cites "... dba, Westinghouse Electric Corp".
It is my considered opinion that George Westinghouse, and later the corporation that bore his name, was THE most influential business presence in Pittsburgh's history. More even than Carnegie and the multiple metals/machining/mining businesses he spun-up during what would become US Steel.
BTW, the fact that region played a very big role in so many crucial industries - steel, aluminum, gas, oil, power generation, electricity, banking/finance, mining, glass, coatings, even aerospace - it just beggars the mind.
Our downtown, gorgeous as it is, could be a new real estate development in Manhattan if it were dropped onto the island. Yet, in the year that my late father was born (1920) into a large, immigrant Slovak family on the North Side, this city contained more bank wealth than any other in the WORLD!... except for New York. More than Chicago, San Francisco, London, Berlin, Tokyo.
That is freakin' fantastic.
A final aside - the tremendous conglomerate that was The Westinghouse Electric Corporation chose to atomize itself (under then-CEO Michael Jordan) into, solely, it's Group W Broadcasting entity. Then, with the proceeds collected from selling off all of those fabulous old businesses (WESCO, Schindler, Turbines, Distribution & Control, Electronics/Avionics, ThermoKing, etc.) Group W acquired CBS Broadcasting. Whose annual report to this day cites "... dba, Westinghouse Electric Corp".
It is my considered opinion that George Westinghouse, and later the corporation that bore his name, was THE most influential business presence in Pittsburgh's history. More even than Carnegie and the multiple metals/machining/mining businesses he spun-up during what would become US Steel.
BTW, the fact that region played a very big role in so many crucial industries - steel, aluminum, gas, oil, power generation, electricity, banking/finance, mining, glass, coatings, even aerospace - it just beggars the mind.
Our downtown, gorgeous as it is, could be a new real estate development in Manhattan if it were dropped onto the island. Yet, in the year that my late father was born (1920) into a large, immigrant Slovak family on the North Side, this city contained more bank wealth than any other in the WORLD!... except for New York. More than Chicago, San Francisco, London, Berlin, Tokyo.
That is freakin' fantastic.
Born and raised in the midst of it .... East Pittsburgh and surrounding little towns were the happening and hopping places that really did prosper .. So sad now but time moves on I guess .. Great post BTW ....
Thanks Mr 301. I have a passion for this great region... it is among America's treasures
The Pittsburgh media market was highly coveted then. Bill was good and went big time. Funny, but he lived in Steubenville for awhile when getting divorced
Jordan came in because Westinghouse Credit high risk low reward financing debacles nearly took down the entire ship.
Pittsburgh has been blessed with some fantastic media personalities over the years. Cope, Prince, the aforementioned Reverend Bill. Heck, even guys like O'Brien & Gary, Uncle Ed Shaughnessy, Perry Marshall, John Cigna, Fred Honsberger, Uncle Dougie - Doug Hoerth, Lynne Cullen, the Pattie & Daddy noon news, Bruce Keiden & Scott Paulsen had their day and were all treasures in a way.
I make fun of Bill Hillgrove all the time and to an extent he deserves it. But I will say this, it will be a very sad day in Pittsburgh when he retires. He is the last of a dying breed.
I make fun of Bill Hillgrove all the time and to an extent he deserves it. But I will say this, it will be a very sad day in Pittsburgh when he retires. He is the last of a dying breed.
It did take down the ship. Sad thing is 30 years later GE credit did the exact same thing to GE. Westinghouse start USA network and sold it for $650 million. The purchase of CBS turned out to be a reverse merger.
