Chet Forte Dies of a Heart Attack at Age 60

Chet Forte, longtime director of ABC’s “Monday Night Football” who became a radio sports talk-show host at age 55, died at 5 a.m. Saturday from a heart attack at his home in northern San Diego County. He was 60.

Forte, who had a history of heart problems, had triple bypass surgery on June 17 of last year.

For the last five years, Forte had been paired with Steve Hartman on San Diego-based XTRA and the two billed themselves as “The Loose Cannons.”

Forte, a 5-foot-9 guard for Columbia, was a consensus All-American and the United Press International player of the year in 1957, when he averaged 28.9 points per game, second in the nation to Kansas’ Wilt Chamberlain (29.6).

He spent nearly 25 years with ABC, from 1963 to ‘87, winning 11 Emmy awards. He was best known for his 17 years with “Monday Night Football,” but produced and directed a variety of events, including the Indianapolis 500.

He was at the 1964 race when a seven-car crash killed two drivers, Dave MacDonald of El Monte and Eddie Sachs of Detroit.

XTRA’s Lee Hamilton recalled that Forte brought up that race in a conversation they had at the station Friday afternoon, right before Hamilton was to go on the air.

Hamilton had taped an interview with Scott Brayton on Thursday morning and was debating whether he should play it Friday, only a few hours after Brayton had died in a crash at Indianapolis.

Forte told Hamilton ABC played an interview that had been taped with Sachs on the day he was killed, and that it was the right thing to do.

“That was my last conversation with Chet,” said Hamilton, who did play the 12-minute Brayton interview, which included a discussion of the dangers of racing and the driver’s addiction to speed.

Of Forte, Hamilton said, “He was a creative genius beyond ‘Monday Night Football.’ He belongs in somebody’s TV hall of fame.”

Forte may have known about directing sports telecasts, but directing his life was another matter.

Gambling problems led to fraud and income tax charges in 1990 that could have landed him in prison for up to 11 years. But in March 1992, he was given five years’ probation, ordered to perform 400 hours of community service and to pay $39,000 in back federal taxes.

When he left ABC, he had debts of $1.5 million. He admitted he accepted a $300,000 buyout from ABC in 1987, in part, to pay his gambling debts.

XTRA gave Forte a new lease on life when the station hired him in May 1991.

Not long after uprooting and taking the radio job, Forte said, “This is the most fun I’ve had in my entire life. I mean that. I had a lot of wonderful years at ABC, but this seems more fulfilling than anything I’ve ever done.

“Howard Cosell used to say to me, ‘Chester, one of these days I’m going to give up television, but not radio.’ I didn’t believe him, but now I see what he meant. Radio gives you a forum in which to express your opinions. TV is so structured that you don’t have time to dwell on an issue at length.”

Fulvio Chester Forte is survived by his wife, Patricia, and his 17-year-old daughter, Jacqueline.

Funeral arrangements were incomplete.