Charles Robert Henry (born January 1, 1946) is a retired American
journalist
A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...
, who worked in the
Greater Los Angeles
Greater Los Angeles is the second-largest metropolitan region in the United States with a population of 18.5 million in 2021, encompassing five counties in Southern California extending from Ventura County in the west to San Bernardino Coun ...
media market for 48 years. He worked for nearly 29 years at
KNBC, where he was a
co-anchor of the 5, 6, and 11 p.m. newscasts, and he worked for 19 years at
KABC-TV
KABC-TV (channel 7) is a television station in Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West Coast of the United States, West Coast Flagship (broadcasting), flagship of the American Broadcasting Company, ABC network. ...
, where he served as
reporter
A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...
,
anchor
An anchor is a device, normally made of metal , used to secure a vessel to the bed of a body of water to prevent the craft from drifting due to wind or current. The word derives from Latin ''ancora'', which itself comes from the Greek ἄγ ...
,
director
Director may refer to:
Literature
* ''Director'' (magazine), a British magazine
* ''The Director'' (novel), a 1971 novel by Henry Denker
* ''The Director'' (play), a 2000 play by Nancy Hasty
Music
* Director (band), an Irish rock band
* ''D ...
, and
producer (1971–1978, 1982–1993).
Early life
Born in
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
, Henry was raised in
Covina, California
Covina is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, about east of downtown Los Angeles, in the San Gabriel Valley. The population was 51,268 according to the 2020 census, up from 47,796 at the 2010 census. The city's slogan, " ...
, as one of five children. Henry's parents were the founders of a home for
orphan
An orphan (from the el, ορφανός, orphanós) is a child whose parents have died.
In common usage, only a child who has lost both parents due to death is called an orphan. When referring to animals, only the mother's condition is usuall ...
ed children, with 60 of them regularly part of the Henry family's lives. He graduated from
Charter Oak High School
Charter Oak High School is a four-year comprehensive secondary school in the Charter Oak Unified School District. It is located in the City of Covina, California, in the San Gabriel Valley east of Los Angeles. The school serves 9th, 10th, 11th ...
.
Career
News
Henry began his career in broadcasting at KHVH-TV (now
KITV
KITV (channel 4) is a television station in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States, serving the Hawaiian Islands as an affiliate of ABC. It is owned by Allen Media Group alongside multicultural independent station KIKU (channel 20). The two stations ...
) in Honolulu as news anchor-reporter from 1966 to 1971 with a short interval in
Anchorage, Alaska
Anchorage () is the largest city in the U.S. state of Alaska by population. With a population of 291,247 in 2020, it contains nearly 40% of the state's population. The Anchorage metropolitan area, which includes Anchorage and the neighboring Ma ...
, as a news anchor-reporter for KENI-TV (now
KTUU-TV
KTUU-TV (channel 2) is a television station in Anchorage, Alaska, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by Gray Television alongside dual CBS/MyNetworkTV affiliate KAUU (channel 5). Both stations share studios on East 40th Avenue in mi ...
) from 1967 to 1968.
Shortly before going to Alaska, Henry was
drafted into the
U.S. Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...
and was stationed up in Alaska concurrently during his time at KENI-TV without being sent over to
Vietnam
Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...
.
He then began his first stint at KABC-TV in October 1971, beginning as a morning anchor before moving to weekends. By the spring of 1974, Henry was promoted to anchor of the 5 p.m. ''Eyewitness News'', working alongside
Christine Lund
Christine Lund, also known as Christine Lundstedt (born November 25, 1943 in Sweden) is a former popular Los Angeles news anchor for KABC-TV from the early 1970s to the late 1990s and consistently garnered high ratings.
Biography
Born in Sweden ...
and
Jerry Dunphy
Gerald Raymond Dunphy (June 9, 1921 – May 20, 2002) was an American television news anchor in the Los Angeles/Southern California media market. He was best known for his intro "From the desert to the sea, to all of Southern California, a go ...
.
Henry then served as anchor-reporter at
WMAQ-TV
WMAQ-TV (channel 5) is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, airing programming from the NBC network. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Telemundo outlet WSNS-TV (c ...
, the NBC-owned television station in
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
from August 1978 to March 1982. His WMAQ co-anchors included
Carol Marin
Carol Marin (pronounced "''marine''") (born October 10, 1948) is a television and print journalist based in Chicago, Illinois.
Career
Marin began her journalism career in 1972 at WBIR-TV in Knoxville, Tennessee working as a reporter, anchor, an ...
,
Jerry Taft
Jerry Taft (March 14, 1943July 23, 2020) was an American meteorologist and weather presenter who served as chief meteorologist for WLS-TV in Chicago. He worked for 34 years with WLS, and for 42 years as a broadcast meteorologist in the Chicago ...
and
Linda Yu
Linda Yu (born December 1, 1946) is a Chinese-American former news anchor and author. Yu is best known as co-anchor on the Eyewitness newscast for WLS-TV in Chicago, Illinois from April 1984 until November 2016. Yu became Chicago's first Asian ...
. Then in April 1982, Henry rejoined KABC-TV as reporter, weekend anchor (alongside Joanne Ishimine) and would later work among other capacities, including
film reviews. He left KABC-TV in May 1993.
Henry joined the KNBC staff in January 1994 (just several days after his 48th birthday), replacing
John Beard John Beard may refer to:
* John Beard (artist) (born 1943), Welsh artist and painter
* John Beard (colonial administrator) (died 1685), Chief Agent and Governor of Bengal
* John Beard (embryologist) (1858–1924), Scottish embryologist and anatomi ...
as anchor of the 4 p.m. news and also as a reporter. In 1997, Henry replaced
Jess Marlow
Myron Jess Marlow (November 29, 1929 – August 3, 2014) was an American journalist. He was best known for his work on television in Los Angeles, California, where he spent the bulk of his career.
Early career
Marlow began his television caree ...
on the 6 p.m. newscast and then added the 5 and 11 p.m. newscasts after
Paul Moyer
Paul Moyer (born June 13, 1941) is an American journalist. He co-anchored the 5 PM and 11 PM weekday editions of KNBC-TV's ''Channel 4 News'' with Colleen Williams for a decade after earlier co-anchoring with Kelly Lange.Nieto, Rebecca (2009-05- ...
retired in 2009. Henry would anchor all three newscasts until his own retirement on December 22, 2022.
Henry gained national attention in October 2003, when he and his cameraman were nearly killed in the field while shooting a report about California
forest fires
A wildfire, forest fire, bushfire, wildland fire or rural fire is an unplanned, uncontrolled and unpredictable fire in an area of combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identif ...
. Although the news media were told to leave by the fire department, a sudden change in wind direction prevented Henry and his crew from doing so. Their van was engulfed and lost to the fire and the team had to be rescued by the
LAFD
The Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD or LA City Fire) provides emergency medical services, fire cause determination, fire prevention, fire suppression, hazardous materials mitigation, and technical rescue services to the city of Los Angeles ...
.
Other work
While in Hawaii, Henry did an uncredited cameo on ''
Hawaii Five-O
Hawaii Five-O or Hawaii Five-0 may refer to:
* ''Hawaii Five-0'' (2010 TV series), an American action police procedural television series
* ''Hawaii Five-O'' (1968 TV series), an American police procedural drama series produced by CBS Productio ...
'' in the second season episode of ''Three Dead Cows at Makapuu'' (Part #1). Henry played an Army Lieutenant who attempted to get
Steve McGarrett
Steve McGarrett is a fictional character who is the protagonist of CBS' ''Hawaii Five-O (1968 TV series), Hawaii Five-O''. McGarrett is a former United States Navy officer and the leader of a special state police task force, which is called Five- ...
(
Jack Lord
John Joseph Patrick Ryan (December 30, 1920 – January 21, 1998), best known by his stage name, Jack Lord, was an American television, film and Broadway actor, director and producer. He starred as Steve McGarrett in the CBS television progra ...
) to return three dead cows to the Army.
During his second stint at KABC, Henry, from 1984 to 1991 became best known as host and, in 1988, added producer/director to the popular travel magazine program, ''Eye on L.A.'' (formerly known as ''Eyewitness Los Angeles''). He has visited every continent in the world as host of these programs, which he received several Emmys.
Henry had also hosted the weekday afternoon program ''L.A. Today'' alongside
Ann Martin.
Henry also began hosting national programs including ''Eye on Hollywood'', the national version of ''Eye on L.A.'' (1983-1986, ABC late-nights); ''The Love Report'', a magazine show about celebrity romance (1984, ABC daytime); ''Preview: The Best of the New'', produced by
Robin Leach
Robin Douglas Leach (29 August 1941 – 24 August 2018) was a British entertainment reporter and writer from London. After beginning his career as a print journalist, first in England and then in the United States, he became best known fo ...
(1990, syndication); and ''First Look'', another weekly magazine (1991-1992, syndication).
In 1975, Henry hosted an attempted revival of the game show ''
Beat the Odds
''Beat the Odds'' is an American game show created by Bill Derman for Bing Crosby Productions.
It first aired as a local production on KTLA in Los Angeles, California in 1961 with Mike Stokey as host and Stan Chambers as announcer. Dennis James ...
''. In 1989, Henry hosted a short-lived revival of the classic
Goodson-
Todman
Todman (7 October 1954 – 1976) was one of the greatest Australian Thoroughbred racehorses and an important sire. He was perhaps best known as the winner of the inaugural STC Golden Slipper in 1957, being the first of Star Kingdom's five su ...
game show ''
Now You See It'' on CBS. He was also one of six people to audition to host its replacement, the daytime version of ''
Wheel of Fortune The Wheel of Fortune or ''Rota Fortunae'' has been a concept and metaphor since ancient times referring to the capricious nature of Fate. Wheel of Fortune may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Art
* ''The Wheel of Fortune'' (Burne-Jo ...
'' (which had moved from NBC to CBS); however,
Bob Goen
Robert Kuehl Goen (born December 1, 1954) is an American game show emcee and television personality, best known for his work on ''Entertainment Tonight'' between 1993 and 2004 and as the fourth and final host of the daytime ''Wheel of Fortune'' fr ...
was hired instead.
Henry is also well known for hosting (and executive-producing) ''Travel Café'', a travel program in which he flies all around the world highlighting food and travel. ''Travel Café'', a two-time
Emmy Award
The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...
winner, was the first local (Los Angeles) TV series produced in
HDTV
High-definition television (HD or HDTV) describes a television system which provides a substantially higher image resolution than the previous generation of technologies. The term has been used since 1936; in more recent times, it refers to the g ...
and was also seen on the
Travel Channel
Travel Channel (stylized as Trvl Channel since 2018) is an American pay television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, which had previously owned the channel from 1997 to 2007. The channel is headquartered in New York, New York, United S ...
along with the 1990's program ''Eye on Travel'' (also hosted by Henry).
Personal life
Henry is a member of
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a Nontrinitarianism, nontrinitarian Christianity, Christian church that considers itself to be the Restorationism, restoration of the ...
. He had spent several years as his congregation's Sunday school teacher.
Famous Mormons in the Media
In 1964, Henry married his high school sweetheart, Kay, with whom he has four children.
References
External links
NBC4 - Chuck Henry's bio
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Henry, Chuck
1946 births
Living people
American broadcast news analysts
American game show hosts
Latter Day Saints from California
Latter Day Saints from Illinois
Latter Day Saints from Alaska
Journalists from California
Television anchors from Los Angeles
People from Greater Los Angeles
United States Army soldiers