Gil Noble dead: Legendary 'Like It Is' host dies at 80
theGRIO REPORT - Legendary television host Gil Noble has died according to the New York local ABC affiliate. He was 80 years old...
Legendary television host Gil Noble has died according to the New York local ABC affiliate. He was 80 years old.
Noble was hospitalized after a stroke earlier this month.
“Gil Noble’s life and work had a profound effect on our society and culture,” said WABC-TV President and General Manager Dave Davis. “His contributions are a part of history and will be remembered for years to come. Today, our hearts are with Gil’s family his wife Jean and their five children and we thank them for so lovingly sharing him with the world all these years.”
Noble joined New York television station WABC in 1967 as a reporter, and soon became the anchor of the station’s weekend newscasts.
He produced and hosted Like it Is, the longest running black public affairs program on television, for WABC starting in 1968. The program continues to air.
Over the decades, Noble interviewed important news- and history-makers, including Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard, Arthur Ashe, and Jim Brown; political leaders including former New York City mayor David Dinkins, former Chicago mayor Harold Washington, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Andrew Young, Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture), and Bruce Wright.
Viewers of Like it Is also saw interviews with heads of state from Africa (including Sekou Ture of Guinea, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and Julius Nyerere of Tanzania) to the Caribbean (includng Jamaican prime ministers Michael Manley and P.J. Patterson.) And Noble interviewed a number of entertainment legends, including Bill Cosby, Sarah Vaughan, Sammy Davis, Jr., Dizzy Gillespie, Carmen McCrae, Aretha Franklin, Nancy Wilson, Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, Nipsey Russell, Lena Horne and Wynton Marsalis.
In addition, Noble produced several documentaries, on W.E.B. DuBois, Malcolm X, Paul Robeson, Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella Baker, Martin Luther King Jr., Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., Jack Johnson, Charlie Parker, and the scourge of drug addiction in the black community.
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