Larry Richert hosts a morning show on KDKA, has co-written a screenplay that was made into a film, and made a documentary about a world famous wrestler. Who cares about all that? The guy’s married to Dan Marino’s sister! (And I never use exclamation points.)
They worked at the same radio and television complex, WTAE. He’s been married to Cindi Richert (nee Marino) for 34 years.
“I was working AM at the flagship for Pitt and the Steelers,” Richert explained. “I saw her walking through the cafeteria and she had the greatest blue eyes. I asked someone who she was.”
Marino was cutting a radio promotion for Pitt when Richert’s future wife, Cindi, came downstairs from the TV side where she was an associate producer for a TV talk show.
“I didn’t know her last name at the time,” Richert said. “When I saw her, I told someone I was with that I had to marry that girl. I didn’t even meet Dan Marino until we got engaged.”
The Marino family is from Pizzoferrato, Italy, about three hours from Rome.
Marino invited his sister and Richert to a Monday night game between the Dolphins and Browns. Marino comped the seats eight rows behind the Dolphin bench.
“Then Cindi started screaming, ‘Hey Iceman,’ to her brother. I didn’t know The Iceman was Marino’s nickname in high school and college.”
In that game, Marino threw a touchdown in the fourth quarter to beat the Browns. Richert said he and Cindi were waiting for Marino in one of the tunnels.
“He walked up to me in an AC/DC shirt,” Richert said. “Cindi introduced me saying, ‘This is my fiance.’ He grabbed me by the neck and pulled me close. ‘Take care of my sister or I’ll kill you.’”
Thankfully, he was just kidding. Then he asked Richert if he wanted a beer.
In August, Kevin Battle, Richert’s co-host of the popular KDKA Radio Morning Show, was let go by the station’s parent company Audacy, in an apparent cost cutting move.
Richert has since been paired with Marty Griffin, weekdays 5:30am – 10am on the Big K Morning Show.
“After 34 years with the KDKA Radio, 21 of those in the morning as host, it’s rare to have an opportunity to be part of such a dynamic change,” Richert said.
“Marty Griffin is an extraordinary talent who is a news-breaker, so the combination of us working together gives us the chance to not only to break news, but to use our collective resources to make a difference in our community.”
The morning show grind continues to be a challenge, but Richert believes he has it mastered.
“I get up at three, I’ve got it down to a science,” Richert said. “It’s a very methodical system. It’s the hardest part of the job. I lay my clothes out the night before. The last couple of years I probably could have worn a Hawaiian shirt and shorts.
“Each room has a different species,” Richert jokes. “It’s like an Aqua Zoo, a different species in each tank. The sports station has guys in hoodies, hats backward. You peak in the country station and you’ll see a guy in a cowboy hat with a guitar.”
Richert became fascinated with radio while in high school. The school had recently opened a new video production facility. The school selected 12 students to be in a pilot course, Richert was one of them.
“We all worked on each other’s projects in different roles. I narrated my own, and we played it for school board members. After they heard my narration, someone said, ‘I thought this was for students, not a professional.’ He was told a student did narrate the film. It was me.”
Richert said that experience gave him enough encouragement to pursue radio. To follow his passion.
“My parents always told me to do what I loved. Master self-discipline and become a mental millionaire. After college, I didn’t go into radio right away. I was working, thinking. A good friend worked at radio station in Clarion, WCCB. He went to work at WCCB, lured me up saying how great radio was, and he got me in the door. I was hooked.”
Richert is a very low-temperature guy. He just sounds very laid back.
“I think I’ve always been that way,” Richert explained. “As the middle of five children, I’m generally a moderate person. It’s been so caustic in the country the past couple of years, I think being laid back has helped. I try to maintain a cool demeanor.”
Radio is fine, but screenwriting is pretty cool too. Richert co-wrote a screenplay in 2009 called Shannon’s Rainbow.
“My best friend growing up always wanted to be in movies, his name was Jeff Gardner,” Richert explained. “He got a lot of work, including a lead role in a B sci-fi movie. In 1999, he was repairing a truck when it fell off the jack and killed him.”
Richert delivered a eulogy for his friend, and John Mowod was intrigued.
“John was one of the actors in the film Jeff was going to be in came up and asked if I wanted to write a screenplay with him. He gave me a treatment Jeff and he were working on, which ran a couple of pages. He said, ‘Why don’t you and I write this with me?’”
Richert bought a screenwriting program called Final Draft, and he started working on the screenplay. His brother is a camera operator in Los Angeles and Richert figured he’d be a good person to get the script.
“We sent it to him and asked him what he thought. It bounced around for a while, then it got picked up. The original title was Shannon’s Rainbow and, they went with Amazing Racer when it was released world-wide.”
Richert said directors don’t normally like the screenwriter on the set, apprehensive they might interject something they don’t want to hear…and writers almost always do.
“Then the production got stuck for a little money and I found it,” Richert explained. “All of a sudden I was a producer. Then I got to hang around the set. It was serendipitous. We actually put my friend’s photo in the movie. He was the father of Shannon, who was gone.”
In May, Richert was part of a group that released a documentary about a WWF champion wrestler named Bruno Sammartino. Bruno Sammartino: The Authorized Biography of Wrestling’s Greatest Champion.
Sammartino was an Italian immigrant and heavyweight champion of the World Wide Wrestling Federation for a record 11 years in the 1960s and ′70s. This was long before the federation admitted that its matches were scripted and largely choreographed.
“We found out Bruno was Mike Tyson’s hero,” Richert said. “Arnold Schwarzenegger was also in the film. Took us 18 months to get him.”
Richert had hoped to work on some NFL films after the legendary John Facenda died. Steve Sabol was asked what he was going to do. It’s tough to replace a legend, and Sabol knew that. Richert got a look and was in the top 12, but they were only looking for two.
“They thought I might be able to narrate films. So, I narrated the 1985 Steeler highlights,” Richert said. “Terry Bradshaw, Rocky Blier, John Stallworth, Lynn Swann, they were all childhood heroes of mine. Bradshaw came on and did the weather with me one night. It was an out of body experience.”
Jim Cryns writes features for Barrett News Media. He has spent time in radio as a reporter for WTMJ, and has served as an author and former writer for the Milwaukee Brewers. To touch base or pick up a copy of his new book: Talk To Me – Profiles on News Talkers and Media Leaders From Top 50 Markets, log on to Amazon or shoot Jim an email at jimcryns3_zhd@indeedemail.com.
