Charlie Brailer, 74; longtime broadcaster on radio station KFWB

Charlie Brailer, 74, a radio broadcaster on KFWB-AM 980 in Los Angeles from 1969 to 1993, died Nov. 7 at his home in Lancaster. He had received a heart transplant in 2000. His wife, Carolyn, said he died of advanced lung disease.

Brailer came to the all-news station as executive producer. In the early to mid-1970s he was a reporter and interviewer on KFWB’s nighttime “News Line” program and later became a morning anchorman.

Born in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 13, 1932, he majored in journalism at the University of Maryland.

While in college, he took a detour from print into radio, according to a profile in Don Barrett’s 1997 book “Los Angeles Radio People.”

“I wrote for the campus newspaper and the administration was offended by an editorial I had written and wanted me to retract it,” Brailer said. “I refused and lost my position on the paper. I went to the campus radio station that had no news department and started one, and that’s how I got into broadcast news.”

After college, he worked as a producer for Voice of America, then served a stint in the Army. While stationed at Ft. Huachuca in southern Arizona, he edited the post newspaper.

When Brailer finished his military service, he worked as a radio engineer for Mutual Broadcasting and for Westinghouse in the Washington, D.C., bureau before moving to Los Angeles. He retired in 1993.

Brailer and his wife ran a pet-sitting service in the Antelope Valley.