Newsman Hermann Recalled

Just about everyone who ever knew him said Cleve Hermann, one of the distinctive voices in Los Angeles radio for four decades, lived life to its fullest. But what he was really known for throughout the Southland was his simple, deft way with words.

“He had a way of boiling things down to a clear essence. God, what a way he had of putting things,” said Mark Savan, who worked with Hermann at KFWB-AM (980) in the 1970s.

More than 100 people gathered Saturday in a rose-colored ballroom at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel to celebrate Hermann’s life. Instead of a somber occasion, his friends, former colleagues and fans made sure the event was full of gentle happiness, wit and zest; the very stuff, they said, that made up Cleve Hermann.

“He was absolutely passionate about living and loving everyone around him,” said Chuck Sippl, a former radio colleague.

When the event came to a close, they donned black eye patches in honor of the patch that Hermann, blind in one eye, distinctively wore.

Hermann, who was 80, died Dec. 31 at his home in Redding after a fall. Nine years ago, he retired from KFWB, where he had begun his radio career giving sports updates in 1957.

After starting his career as a newspaper sportswriter, he moved to television in 1952. From there, it was on to radio, where he became one of the most popular sports reporters in Los Angeles, mixing scores with homespun opinions in segments that ran every 15 minutes. Aside for a brief stint at KGFJ in the early 1970s, he spent the rest of his career at KFWB.

When they weren’t talking about the way he lived, those at the service spoke with reverence about his alliteration and the way he could make words sing. “He was radio’s counterpart to Jim Murray,” said Sippl, referring to the late sports columnist for The Times. “There isn’t anyone out there who could spin words as clear and crisp as him.”

He was known as one of the pioneers of an informal style of broadcasting that made the news seem “more personal, like he was talking right to you,” said longtime friend Tad Twombly.

Current KFWB reporters Pete Demetrious and Paul Gonzalez laughed about the time Hermann set an office trash bin on fire after inadvertently flicking ashes into it. Hermann was doing a phone interview and was so involved that he never stopped talking, even when the flames got close.

In the mid-1970s, he started reporting a daily feature segment for KFWB called “At Large in L.A.,” which his friends described as the perfect vehicle for him.

Hermann chronicled all facets of the city: the arts, sports, people on the down and out, people coming into their own. “I used to call that show Cleve Hermann ‘Let Loose in L.A.,’ ” Sippl said.

“That show was possibly him at his finest,” Demetrious said. “He didn’t bemoan the loss of the old L.A. He just wanted to tell the story of how it changed.”