Frank Reynolds (November 29, 1923, East Chicago, Indiana – July 20, 1983) was an American television journalist for ABC News.
He is best remembered as anchor of the ABC Evening News from 1968 to 1970 and later as Washington D.C.-based co-anchor of World News Tonight from 1978 until his death in 1983. During the Iran hostage crisis, he began the 30-minute late-night program America Held Hostage, which later was renamed Nightline.
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Frank Reynolds attended Bishop Noll Institute in Hammond Indiana and then attended Wabash College and graduated in 1946. Reynolds served in the United States Army during the Second World War; he was a Staff Sergeant and was awarded the Purple Heart. At his death, President and Mrs. Reagan, family friends, arranged for his burial at Arlington National Cemetery.[1] President and Mrs. Reagan attended the funeral. After the war, Frank Reynolds began his broadcast career with WWCA-AM in Gary, Indiana. Reynolds was a television anchor in Chicago, first on WBBM-TV, the CBS owned and operated station, and later on WBKB-TV, the ABC Network affiliate (later redesignated as WLS-TV).[1]. He joined ABC in 1967, after serving as lead anchor at WLS-TV from 1965 to 1967.
By 1968, he became co-anchor of the evening ABC newscast with Howard K. Smith, who remained as co-anchor after Harry Reasoner was hired from CBS to replace Reynolds in 1970. Afterwards, Reynolds returned to the field as a correspondent for the network. After Reasoner and Barbara Walters ceased their anchor duties in 1978, Reynolds returned to the anchor chair as the Washington, D.C. anchor for the now-revamped World News Tonight newscast, with co-anchors Max Robinson and Peter Jennings, who became the show's sole anchor after Reynolds' death. All three original anchors of World News Tonight are now deceased.
Reynolds was also the original anchor of "America Held Hostage", a series of special reports seen weeknights at 11:30 p.m./10:30 Central on the Iran hostage crisis in November 1979 that evolved into the newsmagazine Nightline in 1980. Shortly after the special reports began, Reynolds was replaced by Ted Koppel.
One famous moment in Reynolds' career occurred on March 30, 1981 during live news coverage of the assassination attempt on U.S. President Ronald Reagan. White House Press Secretary James Brady, a close friend of Reynolds, had been erroneously reported by all three networks as having died from the head wound he suffered in the incident, and, further, they reported that Reagan had not been struck at all. Upon learning that the information was incorrect, Reynolds suddenly appeared noticeably upset and, looking around at staffers in the background, angrily burst out:
"Let's get it nailed down...somebody...let's find out! Let's get it straight so we can report this thing accurately!"
The network quickly moved to a break and upon return, Ted Koppel was seated next to Reynolds to share anchor duties and, perhaps, be a calming influence on his clearly agitated co-worker.
Reynolds is the father of CBS News correspondent Dean Reynolds. Coincidentally, it was a report from the younger Reynolds while he was a correspondent for UPI which first revealed that James Brady was still alive, leading to the aforementioned outburst from the elder Reynolds. [2]
Reynolds died from hepatitis-induced liver failure in 1983; he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma while he was being treated for acute hepatitis in the spring of 1978, just as he was beginning as chief anchorman for World News Tonight. Three months before his death, he presented his last newscast.
Reynolds, who served in the United States Army, is interred in Arlington National Cemetery. On May 23, 1985 he was presented, posthumously, with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Ronald Reagan.
A few years after Reynolds's death, musician Paul Hardcastle recorded a section of an ABC documentary about the Vietnam War, that included narration by Reynolds, and later used it as part of his 1985 U.S. Top 40 and U.K. #1 (5 weeks) hit, "19". Hardcastle had a video made of the song that included footage from that documentary that ABC later demanded be removed. The ABC footage was later replaced with stock footage, but Reynolds' voice remained on the recording.
| Preceded by Bob Young |
ABC Evening News anchor 1968-1970 |
Succeeded by Howard K. Smith and Harry Reasoner |
| Preceded by Harry Reasoner and Barbara Walters |
ABC World News Tonight anchor with coanchors, Max Robinson, and Peter Jennings July 10, 1978–April 20, 1983 |
Succeeded by Peter Jennings |
| Preceded by None |
America Held Hostage (Nightline) anchor 1979 |
Succeeded by Ted Koppel |
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  | ABC News tribute to Frank Reynolds - YouTube - ABC News Frank Reynolds Tribute 1983 |
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