{"id":56590,"date":"2020-07-02T21:46:30","date_gmt":"2020-07-03T02:46:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=56590"},"modified":"2020-07-02T21:46:30","modified_gmt":"2020-07-03T02:46:30","slug":"56590","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=56590","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2020\/07\/02\/hugh-downs-longtime-tv-personality-dead-at-99\/\">Hugh Downs, longtime TV personality, dead at 99<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Hugh Downs, the avuncular, versatile TV personality, whose career stretched back to the birth of television, died at his home in Scottsdale, Arizona, on Wednesday. He was 99.<\/p>\n<p>Downs\u2019 long TV r\u00e9sum\u00e9 encompassed both news and entertainment. He hosted NBC\u2019s \u201cToday\u201d show from 1962 to 1971, was late-night host Jack Paar\u2019s longtime announcer\/sidekick on \u201cThe Tonight Show,\u201d appeared in dozens of commercials and even hosted the daytime quiz show \u201cConcentration\u201d for over a decade.<\/p>\n<p>Downs was perhaps best known as the co-host of ABC\u2019s newsmagazine \u201c20\/20,\u201d teaming with Barbara Walters, with whom he\u2019d worked at \u201cToday.\u201d They also co-hosted the short-lived syndicated daytime show \u201cNot for Women Only.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>His TV career began in 1950 as an announcer for the NBC soap \u201cHawkins Falls\u201d and never seemed to stop until he retired in 1999.<\/p>\n<p>In 1985, Downs was certified by the Guinness Book of World Records as holding the record for the most hours on network commercial television (over 15,000) \u2014 a record that stood until it was broken by Regis Philbin in 2004.<\/p>\n<p>His wife, Ruth Shaheen Downs, died in 2017 at the age of 95. They were married for 73 years.<\/p>\n<p>Downs is survived by his daughter, Deirdre; his son, Hugh R. \u201cH.R.\u201d Downs; two grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hugh Downs, longtime TV personality, dead at 99 Hugh Downs, the avuncular, versatile TV personality, whose career stretched back to the birth of television, died at his home in Scottsdale, Arizona, on Wednesday. He was 99. Downs\u2019 long TV r\u00e9sum\u00e9 encompassed both news and entertainment. He hosted NBC\u2019s \u201cToday\u201d show from 1962 to 1971, was &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=56590\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-passages"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56590"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56591,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56590\/revisions\/56591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}