Ray Forrest, 83, who worked for many years at his family's jewelry store in Paterson, N.J., died March 11 at a hospital near his home in Kinnelon, N.J. He was all but forgotten as the man who became a hero to hundreds in 1939 as the nation's first television personality.
If Mr. Forrest is better remembered among older New York television viewers for the acclaimed educational program "Children's Theater," which he produced and was a host for WNBC-TV from 1949 to 1960, there is a reason his earlier work has been virtually forgotten.
At the time he became the most visible presence on television, fewer than 1,000 television sets were in existence.
Wearing a tuxedo to intone the formal sign-on when NBC went on the air each evening, Mr. Forrest announced every station break and every program.
He covered wrestling, boxing, hockey, horse racing and movie premieres; interviewed men and women on the street; introduced dramatic productions; served as quiz show announcer and variety show host and became the network's first full-time news anchorman (after Lowell Thomas, whose radio news had been simulcast on television, decided to do his broadcasts from his upstate home).
Jack Tarver, 82, who rose from a country editor to publisher of the Atlanta Journal and the Atlanta Constitution and chairman of the Associated Press, died yesterday. The cause of death was not immediately available.
He served the newspapers as general manager in 1952-1956; vice president in 1956-1957; president in 1957-1958; publisher from 1958 to 1976; and vice chairman of the parent Cox Enterprises Inc. from 1976 to 1983.
He was chairman of the Associated Press, a nonprofit cooperative news service serving 1,400 newspaper members and 3,600 broadcasters, from 1977 to 1983.
Ernie Wise, 73, a British comedian who made his name in a legendary act with the late Eric Morecambe, died yesterday. His wife, Dorreen, told BBC television he died in Nuffield hospital in Slough, west of London. Born Ernest Wiseman in Leeds, he formed a comic partnership with Mr. Morecambe when they were both 15 years old, which lasted until Mr. Morecambe's death in 1984. Mr. Wise played the "straight man" to Mr. Morecambe with a gift for comic timing that belied his role as the small, put-upon man.
Pub Date: 3/22/99