Roger Grimsby; Acerbic TV Newscaster

Roger Grimsby, the stone-faced television newsman whose acerbic comments were more typical of an outraged pedant than of the “happy talk” “Eyewitness News” shows he anchored on both coasts for many years, has died.

He was 66 when he died Friday in a New York hospital of lung cancer.

For many years, at stations in San Francisco, New York and San Diego, Grimsby personified the rogue newscaster, slipping his own perspective of the news of the day into his nightly reports.

Famous for a cold stare and feisty attitude, the cantankerous anchor worked 18 years at WABC-TV and two years as a news commentator on WNBC-TV, both in New York.

His last TV job ended in 1991 when he was fired as an anchor for KUSI-TV in San Diego.

Although he was usually the featured star of the “happy talk” news teams that brushed over war and disaster to devote more time to lurid tales and cow-milking contests, Grimsby’s manner was anything but.

“His style was spare. . . his sense of humor very dry. His sense of tragedy very well developed and his feeling for words extraordinary,” former New York co-anchor Bill Beutel said of his longtime friend. “Take all those things together, throw them on the air and you’ve got Roger Grimsby.”

Grimsby’s on-air feuds with fellow “Eyewitness News” team members, including Howard Cosell, Geraldo Rivera and gossip reporter Rona Barrett, whom he openly called “Rona Rooter,” were legendary. He once introduced Barrett after reading a story about garbage by saying, “Speaking of garbage. . . .”

Former New York Yankees pitcher and “Ball Four” author Jim Bouton, part of the “Eyewitness News” team in New York from 1970 to 1972, recalled that once, after days of snide comments exchanged on camera, Cosell launched into a sonorous, verbose attack on Grimsby.

“When he finally finishes, the camera goes to Roger and Roger is sitting there, eyes closed and snoring, pretending to be asleep. . . . It was the best put-down I ever saw.”

A six-time Emmy Award winner who covered the Vietnam War and at his peak earned nearly $1 million a year, Grimsby was nevertheless critical of TV reporters who put on Hollywood airs or considered themselves stars.