Bill Kurtis, a former CBS-TV news anchor whose on-air career spans seven decades on radio and television, is retiring after 12 years serving as judge and scorekeeper on NPR’s weekly news quiz show “Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!” Kurtis’ last show will air May 23.
Kurtis began filling in as announcer for “Wait Wait…” – where panelists and contestants are quizzed in humorous ways about the week’s news – in 2009, eventually replacing former announcer Carl Kassell in 2014. During his tenure, Kurtis was known for reading news-related limericks with the last word or phrase missing for contestants to fill in, and for opening introductions such as “I’m the voice so rich, it makes you sign a pre-nup.”
NPR’s news release calls Kurtis, 85, “an icon in the world of broadcast journalism.” The Emmy and Peabody Award-winning journalist began his career at 16 as an announcer for Independence, KS radio station KIND and went on to spend nearly 30 years at CBS as a reporter and anchor on Chicago’s WBBM-TV. For several years during the 1980s Kurtis also co-hosted the network’s “CBS Morning News.”
Before joining “Wait Wait…,” Kurtis hosted “American Justice” and “Cold Case Files” on A&E, and was narrator for the movie “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.”
“I couldn’t believe a newsman of his stature, accomplishment and hard-earned credibility would ever stoop to doing our silly little show,” “Wait Wait” host Peter Sagal says. “12 years and hundreds of shows with him later, I still can’t quite believe it, but am incredibly grateful to have been wrong.”
Kurtis, who will continue to fill in as judge and scorekeeper as needed, adds, “There is no better way to stay young than to surround yourself with this crew of outrageously talented people who have no fear in taking down anything and anyone with a well-placed joke,” Kurtis says. “Then to let me give it voice and be standing there when the roar of laughter comes rolling back from the audience. No better feeling! What an incredible chapter ‘Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me’ is in my life.”
