Charles Osgood, who anchored CBS Sunday Morning for 22 years and also hosted a long-running radio vignette series died Tuesday at the age of 91.
Osgood hosted the CBS News program from 1994 until his retirement in 2016. During his tenure leading the program, it reached its highest ratings in three decades and earned three Daytime Emmy Awards as Outstanding Morning Program.
He also hosted The Osgood File radio commentaries during his more than 45-year run at CBS News.
According to his family, his death was related to the dementia he had suffered in recent years.
“To say there’s no one like Charles Osgood is an understatement,” said CBS Sunday Morning executive producer Rand Morrison, in a release from CBS News. “He embodied the heart and soul of Sunday Morning. His signature bow tie, his poetry … just his presence was special for the audience, and for those of us who worked with him. At the piano, Charlie put our lives to music. Truly, he was one of a kind – in every sense.”
Osgood was succeeded as host of the CBS News program by Jane Pauley, who shared her admiration for his work after learning of his death.
“Watching him at work was a masterclass in communicating. I’ll still think to myself, ‘How would Charlie say it?’, trying to capture the illusive warmth and intelligence of his voice and delivery. I expect I’ll go on trying,” said Pauley. “He was one of the best broadcast stylists and one of the last. His style was so natural and unaffected it communicated his authenticity. He connected with people. Watching him on TV, or listening on the radio, as I did for years, was to feel like you knew him, and he knew you. He brought a unique sensibility, curiosity, and his trademark whimsy to ‘Sunday Morning,’ and it endures.”
