Celebrity Deathwatch: Robert Trout, CBS Radio Pioneer, 91

["Deathwatch Central" <cdw@slick.org>]

http://www.cnn.com/2000/SHOWBIZ/News/11/14/trout.obit.ap/index.html

Robert Trout, CBS radio pioneer, dead at 91

November 14, 2000
Web posted at: 11:39 AM EST (1639 GMT)


NEW YORK (AP) -- Robert Trout, a radio news pioneer whose stamina and skill
at ad-libbing informed listeners for seven decades for CBS and NPR, died
Tuesday. He was 91.

Trout died of congestive heart failure at Lenox Hill Hospital, said John
McDonough, a producer for the National Public Radio program "All Things
Considered."

"He was the last remaining link to the beginning of broadcast journalism,"
said McDonough, who last worked with Trout three weeks ago on the NPR
program.

Trout began his career in 1931 as a news announcer for independent radio
station WJSV in Virginia.

The next year CBS bought WJSV and retained Trout. Among the events he
covered were John Philip Sousa's last public performance, campaign speeches
by Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the repeal of Prohibition.

During Roosevelt's presidency, Trout was the broadcaster who first used the
term "fireside chat" to describe the radio addresses Roosevelt gave to the
nation.

On March 13, 1938, Trout went on the air to introduce CBS' half-hour "World
News Roundup," two days after the German Army marched into Austria. The
program kept the country posted throughout World War II and for decades
afterward.

Trout spent part of the war years in London, working with Edward R. Murrow
and presenting a program called "Trans-Atlantic Call," which featured talks
with ordinary people.

Back in the United States, he was the announcer who told CBS listeners about
the D-Day invasion in June 1944, at one point staying on the air for seven
hours and 18 minutes straight, according to the reference Current Biography.

Roosevelt enjoyed testing Trout's ability to ad-lib, and Trout was once
forced to talk for nearly an hour while waiting for FDR to get off a
vacation cruise ship, according to Current Biography.

Trout continued to work in radio and television, mostly for CBS, with brief
stints at NBC and ABC, covering events as varied as Douglas MacArthur's
return to Washington in 1949, Alan Shepard's space flight in 1961, political
conventions and the running of the bulls in Pamplona. He won the Peabody
Award for "distinguished and meritorious public service" in 1980.

He retired from full-time reporting in 1996 but continued to work as a
commentator for "All Things Considered."

His wife, Catherine, whom he married in 1938, died in 1994. They had no
children.

Copyright 2000 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may
not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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