Television News Pioneer. Chambers was a veteran television news reporter in Los Angeles whose career at KTLA spanned more than six decades. He was fresh out of the U.S. Navy, enrolled in USC and working on the campus magazine when he first heard about KTLA. He started work on Dec. 1, 1947, building sets and pushing cameras and soon made his way on to television through guest appearances on a variety of shows. After just 16 months at the station, he covered what would become a defining moment in both his career and in television history: the story of Kathy Fiscus, a 3-year-old girl trapped in abandoned well in San Marino. Chambers, along with journalist Bill Welsh, alternated coverage during a live 27-hour telecast covering the rescue operation. Chambers worked on KTLA’s first daily newscast, launched in 1962 and over the next five decades, would report on the biggest stories in Southern California, including the 1965 Watts riots, the assassination of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and the Rodney King beating. In 1985, he received the Governors Emmy Award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Chambers, who continued to report for KTLA until his retirement on his 87th birthday in 2010, has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and a portion of Sunset Boulevard and a building on the KTLA lot are named after him. He died of natural causes.
Television News Pioneer. Chambers was a veteran television news reporter in Los Angeles whose career at KTLA spanned more than six decades. He was fresh out of the U.S. Navy, enrolled in USC and working on the campus magazine when he first heard about KTLA. He started work on Dec. 1, 1947, building sets and pushing cameras and soon made his way on to television through guest appearances on a variety of shows. After just 16 months at the station, he covered what would become a defining moment in both his career and in television history: the story of Kathy Fiscus, a 3-year-old girl trapped in abandoned well in San Marino. Chambers, along with journalist Bill Welsh, alternated coverage during a live 27-hour telecast covering the rescue operation. Chambers worked on KTLA’s first daily newscast, launched in 1962 and over the next five decades, would report on the biggest stories in Southern California, including the 1965 Watts riots, the assassination of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and the Rodney King beating. In 1985, he received the Governors Emmy Award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Chambers, who continued to report for KTLA until his retirement on his 87th birthday in 2010, has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and a portion of Sunset Boulevard and a building on the KTLA lot are named after him. He died of natural causes.
Bio by: Louis du Mort
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