Henry Rieger, Jr. (September 20, 1918 – March 5, 2014) was an American

publicist A publicist is a person whose job is to generate and manage publicity for a company, a brand, or public figure – especially a celebrity – or for a work such as a book, film, or album. Publicists are public relations specialists who ...

and

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 journalis ...

. He was also a two-time president of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS).

Early years

Rieger was born in Kansas City, Missouri, while his parents visited family, and raised in

Phoenix, Arizona Phoenix ( ; nv, Hoozdo; es, Fénix or , yuf-x-wal, Banyà:nyuwá) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona, with 1,608,139 residents as of 2020. It is the fifth-most populous city in the United States, and the on ...

. He became fascinated with journalism as a young boy, when he attended a golf tournament with his sportswriter uncle. He studied English and journalism at

Phoenix College Phoenix College (PC) is a public community college in Encanto, Phoenix, Arizona. Founded in 1920, it is one of the oldest community colleges in the country. History The college was originally a part of the Phoenix Union High School and Juni ...

and the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory. T ...

. He also took courses at USC, where he later became an adjunct faculty member in the School of Journalism.

World War II and the United Press

While at the University of Arizona, Rieger began writing for the

United Press United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20t ...

(UP). He was drafted into the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

for the

Pacific Ocean theater of World War II The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

, where his writing skills made him company clerk. After the war, he was based at various U.S. bases, assigned to intelligence and counter-intelligence. He left military service as a Major. He returned to his 20-year career as a journalist with the UP bureau in Los Angeles, only taking a year off in 1953 to serve as

press agent In marketing, publicity is the public visibility or awareness for any product, service, person or organization (company, charity, etc.). It may also refer to the movement of information from its source to the general public, often (but not alway ...

for the U.S.

consul general A consul is an official representative of the government of one state in the territory of another, normally acting to assist and protect the citizens of the consul's own country, as well as to facilitate trade and friendship between the people ...

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

NBC and the Television Academy

From 1965 to 1979, Rieger was the West Coast director of press and publicity for

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

Television and promoted popular shows of the time, such as '' Bonanza'', ''

I Spy I spy is a guessing game where one player (the ''spy'' or ''it'') chooses an object within sight and announces to the other players that "I spy with my little eye something beginning with...", naming the first letter of the object. Other players a ...

'', '' Star Trek'', ''

Laugh-In ''Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In'' (often simply referred to as ''Laugh-In'') is an American sketch comedy television program that ran for 140 episodes from January 22, 1968, to March 12, 1973, on the NBC television network, hosted by comedians Dan ...

'', '' Sanford and Son'' and ''

The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson ''The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson'' was an American late-night talk show hosted by Johnny Carson on NBC, the third iteration of the ''Tonight Show'' franchise. The show debuted on October 1, 1962, and aired its final episode on May 22, ...

''. Rieger served as ATAS's Hollywood president from 1973 to 1975 and as Television Academy president from 1977 to 1980, during which he created the ''Emmy Magazine'' for the Academy and helped the Primetime Emmy Award ceremonies become a television stalwart. He left NBC in 1979 to start his own public relations firm and had clients such as the relatively new television network

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...

, retaining them until his death in 2014. He was also vice-president of the

Special Olympics Special Olympics is the world's largest sports organization for children and adults with intellectual disabilities and physical disabilities, providing year-round training and activities to 5 million participants and Unified Sports partners in ...

in California and was part of the organizing committee that sought to bring the

1984 Summer Olympics The 1984 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXIII Olympiad and also known as Los Angeles 1984) were an international multi-sport event held from July 28 to August 12, 1984, in Los Angeles, California, United States. It marked the sec ...

to Los Angeles. In 1994, he was given the Television Academy's Syd Cassyd Award for his long and distinguished service.

Personal life and death

Rieger met Deborah Hays in Phoenix, while he attended college there. They married on October 5, 1947, and she followed him wherever his career took him, although she preferred the West Coast of the U.S. She died at age 92 on April 8, 2013, from heart and kidney problems.Deborah Rieger Obituary
/ref> At age 95, he died in March 2014 of natural causes at an assisted living facility in Oceanside, California.

References

External links

Hank Rieger
interview for the Archive of American Television (1999) * {{DEFAULTSORT:Rieger, Hank 1918 births 2014 deaths Writers from Kansas City, Missouri Writers from Phoenix, Arizona University of Arizona alumni University of Southern California alumni University of Southern California faculty Academy of Television Arts & Sciences American publicists American public relations people