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Former ‘Today’ News Anchor Dies

Aug 23, 2013  •  Post A Comment

A former news anchor on NBC’s "Today" show, whose career started in the early days of television, has died, reports the Associated Press.

Lew Wood died of kidney failure at a hospice in Riverside County, Calif., the story reports. He was 84.

Wood served as the NBC morning program’s third news anchor, replacing Frank Blair in 1975. Wood, however, left the show after just one year, and entered public relations, where he worked until his 2006 retirement.

"He always joked that when he left the ‘Today’ show, it was due to illness and fatigue. They were sick and tired of him," his daughter told the AP.

Before working on "Today," he had anchored for WNBC-TV in New York and worked for CBS as a correspondent, including reporting on the civil rights movement in the 1960s and accompanying Martin Luther King Jr. on a march.

In 1963, Wood covered a breakfast speech made by President Kennedy, then snapped a personal photo of the president before he departed for the Dallas motorcade where he would be assassinated.

"He was a workhorse, very steady and reliable, excellent reporter and had good on-camera presence," fellow correspondent Dan Rather told the AP.

lew-wood.jpgLew Wood

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