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Mar 27, 2008 5:47 pm US/Central
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Legendary WGN Radio Host Wally Phillips Dies
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
The golden voice of WGN Radio has died. Wally Phillips spent decades on the air and touched millions of hearts.
The hall of fame broadcaster passed away in Florida after a battle with Alzheimer's Disease. He was 82.
For more than four decades, to talk about Wally Phillips was to talk about the best radio that Chicago had to offer.
Thursday morning, his colleagues at WGN Radio were reflecting on his legacy.
Max Armstrong said, "I think a lot of people felt that Wally was just another individual sitting around the breakfast table in the morning, or a companion in the car. He was a tireless promoter of Chicago."
Phillips joined WGN Radio in 1956 and became host of their morning show in 1965. His broadcast was the No. 1 morning show in Chicago from 1966 until he left to take over the afternoon program in 1986, at times pulling in half of the city's radio audience, an unheard of feat these days.
"Wally Phillips was the biggest, most successful, most influential local radio broadcaster in Chicago history," said Bruce DuMont, president of The Museum of Broadcast Communications, which inducted Phillips into its National Radio Hall of Fame in 1993. ""For over 21 years, Wally Phillips was the number one radio personality. He was the most listened to local personality in the United States."
"You had breakfast with Wally Phillips, you drove to work with Wally Phillips, every day, Wally Phillips was a part of your life growing up in Chicago," DuMont said.
On the last broadcast of his career, Phillips' trademark wit was as sharp as ever.
"I feel like Madonna in the Chicago Bears locker room. I don't know where to start," he said with news reporter Larry Schreiner at this side, celebrating his last show at the Museum of Broadcast Communications in 1998.
Phillips was considered a pioneer of the modern talk radio format.
DuMont said Phillips also was one of the first radio hosts to use humorous and offbeat phone calls, like the one recounted on the museum's Web site in which Phillips telephoned a pet cemetery to arrange a funeral for his mouse.
"He should be called the great innovator," said retired WGN radio host Roy Leonard.
"You felt if you weren't listening to him, you just weren't in touch," said CBS 2's Ed Curran, a former WGN traffic reporter.
He delivered what listeners wanted, and they embraced him like family.
Phillips made one last stop in Chicago in October 2004 to see a street dedicated to him at when the corner of Rush and Delaware streets in downtown Chicago. He had developed Alzheimer's disease, and talked openly about it.
"He was brave to do that. And I think it helped people," Leonard said.
Phillips, a native of Portsmouth, Ohio, started his radio career in Grand Rapids, Mich. after serving in the Army Air Forces in World War II. He then took a job at a Cincinnati radio station, according to the Chicago Tribune.
In 1956 he and Bob Bell, who later became WGN-TV's first Bozo the Clown, left WLW in Cincinnati for WGN Continental Broadcasting
Phillips is survived by his wife and two children. He died in Naples, Fla., where he had moved after retiring in 1998.
Helping people was what Phillips was all about, on the air and off. He established WGN's neediest kids fund and raised millions of dollars for the cause. That charity is still helping children today.
Funeral arrangements are pending.
CBS 2's Rafael Romo and Joanie Lum, and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
(© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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