Readers React: Remembering Jess Marlow and James Brady

One of the perks of my job tends to come — perhaps unfairly so — when a figure of some prominence passes away, moving readers to write of their heretofore unreported experiences with notable people.

I’ve read tales of Maya Angelou’s dinner with a reader in Atlanta, James Garner casually walking into a restaurant with his daughters, and Jack LaLanne giving some unconventional advice on longevity and fitness. The letters strip off some of the varnish applied by celebrity and greatness, making these outsized figures more relatable.

That happened this week with the death of Jess Marlow. In addition to the single letter published Thursday, several other readers wrote of their behind-the-camera brushes with the legendary news anchor. In contrast, the letters on James Brady’s passing trumpeted his legacy on gun control.

Meera Cheriyan of Los Angeles says Marlow was a delight to work with:

I had just come to the U.S. and was a student, a minority and a woman who had absolutely no contacts in TV.

Fifteen years later, I told Marlow this story as we walked around in Moscow while working on his TV series on Russia (which later won us an Emmy). He looked at me and said, “I am so proud to have you as my producer.”

To me it was the greatest privilege to have been his producer. He was a real journalist, an amazing person, the perfect gentleman, and he had a devilish sense of humor.

There’ll never be another Jess Marlow in L.A. He was truly a class act.

Lancaster resident Jim Tanksley says Marlow’s on-camera personality wasn’t an act:

In the early 1970s, my beginning journalism class from Cal State Northridge visited the KNBC studios in Burbank. Marlow was our host.

At first we were a little shy from the “celebrity effect,” but Marlow soon put us at ease and handled our questions in a soft-spoken, gracious manner. He was the same person on-camera and off, a true gentleman.

A letter from Janet Maker of Los Angeles reflects other readers’ comments on James Brady:

Brady responded to personal tragedy by becoming a tenacious advocate for common-sense gun laws to prevent dangerous people from having easy access to guns. He and his wife Sarah worked tirelessly to pass a law responsible for saving countless lives.

Brady knew more should be done to prevent bad guys from getting guns. He and Sarah kept up the fight to get Congress to expand background checks to cover all gun sales, including Internet and gun show sales, but Brady died before that vision became a reality.

There might not be another Jim Brady, but we have an opportunity to honor him by turning his vision into reality. We need to demand that Congress finish the job Brady started and expand background checks to all gun sales.