TV ANCHOR ENJOYED A HIGH-FLYING LIFE, CAREER.

Byline: DAVID KRONKE

TV Writer

In an industry in which many are content to read a teleprompter beneath immaculately blow-dried hair, KTLA's Hal Fishman was the rare TV-news anchorman who exuded intelligence and a thorough grasp of the stories he covered.

Fishman died early Tuesday, just days after being diagnosed with colon cancer, and a week after KTLA honored him with a Guinness World Records certificate citing him as the longest-running anchorman in the history of TV news. He was 75.

"You could tell with Hal that he really knew what he was talking about," said veteran anchor Paul Moyer of rival NBC4, adding that Fishman's breadth of knowledge and ability to contextualize stories were rare commodities among today's news anchors.

"People believed him, they trusted him, and that's why they watched him and they went to him in a crisis," Moyer said.

Rich Goldner, interim news director at KTLA, said Fishman was never content to simply read the news.

"Whether it was in Mar Vista or Malaysia, he knew what was going on, around the country and around the world," Goldner said. "In order to survive in this business this long, you have to be pretty special."

"Hal was a master at extemporaneous speaking and ad-libbing -- I never saw him use a note," said Gerald Ruben, who worked with Fishman at KTLA for 30 years. "If a teleprompter failed, he'd continue with the story and viewers would think he's reading from a script."

On last Friday's MSNBC newscast "Countdown," Keith Olbermann, who worked with Fishman at KTLA in the '80s, described him as "a colleague and a mentor ... a great broadcaster and a greater person."

And yet, Fishman told the Daily News in 2001, "The last thing in the world I wanted to do was to be on television."

He was teaching political science at Cal State Los Angeles in 1960 when KCOP, which then aired televised college courses, asked him to teach a class on American political parties and politics. Fishman wryly called it "the first course that I have ever taught where the student can turn the professor off."

At the end of the term, Fishman was surprised to discover that he had acquired something of a following. KCOP invited him to give daily commentaries while continuing to teach, but the university forced him to choose between careers.

"I said to myself, 'You can reach more people in one broadcast than you can teach in a lifetime,'" Fishman recalled.

Fishman 'The Man'

Fishman joined KTLA in 1965, and his coverage of the Watts riots helped win the station Emmy and Peabody awards. A decade later, he returned to Channel 5 to anchor "KTLA Prime News," a job he held until his death.

"Hal wanted to be No. 1," recalled KFWB-AM reporter Steve Lentz, who worked with Fishman for more than a decade in the 1980s and '90s. "He really wanted to stay on the air until he passed away. I don't think he would've ever retired. He liked to be The Man."

Fishman covered such stories as the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the 1991 Rodney King beating and subsequent riots, the 1994 Northridge Earthquake and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

KTLA broke the story of the King beating because George Holliday, the amateur photographer who shot the footage, was a fan of Fishman's, Lentz remembered.

The 1992 riots were the toughest story he ever covered, Fishman told the Daily News in 2001. He recalled asking a helicopter cameraman to pan the scene around the city.

"There was smoke and fires all over town," Fishman said. "It looked to me like a documentary I had seen of the Blitz in London in World War II. And I looked at that and I said, 'This is my city. This is Los Angeles.' And that is a mind-sticker that I'll never forget."

Goldner said Fishman always looked for the story that affected the most people, which prompted him to focus on Iraq over the past year.

"This is a large military state, and a lot of families have loved ones over there," Goldner said. "Iraq was really on his mind, both as a local story and an international story."

Over his career, Fishman received many journalism awards, including the Associated Press Television-Radio Association's first-ever Lifetime Achievement Award. In the summer of 2000, KTLA commemorated Fishman's 40th anniversary in broadcasting by naming its newsroom -- where his nickname was "Infallible Hallible" -- "The Hal Fishman Newsroom."

Besides journalism, Fishman's great passion was flying. As a pilot, he held 12 world aviation records for speed and altitude.

Ruben remembered numerous trips with Fishman to Catalina Island for one of his culinary favorites, a buffalo burger.

In the 2005 documentary "One Six Right," Fishman described how he was seduced by the world of flight at a young age: "As a little kid, just standing with my hands up against that fence (at Van Nuys Airport), looking out and watching the planes ... and nagging my mother to let me go up in an airplane."

And Fishman brought that passion to aviation stories.

"No matter who the writer was in the newsroom assigned to do a story on a plane crash or the introduction of a new plane, the story was never written the right way," Goldner recalled. "Hal had to sink his teeth into it and put his touch on it."

Lentz recalled traveling to the Mojave Desert to interview Dick Rutan and Gena Yeager, whose Voyager aircraft would set a record in 1986 for flying around the world without stopping or refueling.

"They were just beginning to work on the plane, and Hal was interested in them way before they broke the record," Lentz said. "He talked to them when there was no national media interest. When they set the record, Hal liked that quite a bit."

Lentz also recalled the midair crash of an Aeromexico plane and a smaller crash over Cerritos over the Labor Day weekend in 1986.

"No one was around, but Hal drove (to the station) immediately and started explaining what happened," Lentz said.

"He was there all afternoon until (news) trucks got to the crash site. On any airplane story, he wanted to be No. 1."

Icon in state history

Fishman appeared in movies, as well, usually playing a TV anchor.

"Most recently, he appeared in "Spider-Man 3," "Malibu's Most Wanted" and "National Security."

He wrote two novels, "Flight 902 is Down" and "The Vatican Target," the latter with Barry Schiff.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger issued a statement, touting Fishman's contributions to the residents of the Golden State.

"While he won many awards in his tenure as anchor, perhaps most importantly he won the respect and trust of news viewers throughout California, many of whom followed him through his prestigious 47-year career," the statement said. "Hal will forever remain an icon in California history."

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa also released a statement acknowledging Fishman's contributions to the city.

"Today's loss will be felt well beyond the newsroom and into the homes of every Southern Californian who relied on Hal Fishman's unique voice, his informed opinion and his unwavering integrity over more than 47 years of reporting."

KTLA set up an area on its Web site for fans to voice their own sentiments regarding Fishman. By midafternoon Tuesday, nearly 2,500 tributes had been posted.

"I guess heaven needed a decent 'newsguy!'" read one.

Fishman is survived by his wife, Nolie, and son, David. In lieu of flowers, they requested that contributions be sent to the American Cancer Society for colon-cancer research.

Staff Writer Valerie Kuklenski contributed to this report.

david.kronke(at)dailynews.com

[phone]

www.insidesocal.com/tv/

CAPTION(S):

photo

Photo:

(color) Longtime KTLA anchor Hal Fishman died early Tuesday. He was 75.