The Revelation
Heatter remained with Mutual until, like many of the Depression and wartime broadcasters and commentators, his influence gave way to a newer generation of broadcasters - those who made the transition to television, or started in TV bypassing radio entirely. By the 1960s, Heatter was all but retired.
Not until the 1960 publication of There's Good News Tonight did those who waited hungrily for his nightly news for so many years get a chance to understand what Heatter had to overcome just about every day of his life to make it on the air. But according to Irving Fang, author of Those Radio Commentators, "That turmoil seemed to subside as the years passed by. Age gave this gentle, decent man a kind of serenity."
After his wife's death, Heatter lived in retirement with his daughter until he died of pneumonia in 1972. The audiences who were comforted by his melodious voice and his ability to find the best in even the worst news must have felt that it hurt to lose a cherished friend, but that it was a comfort to believe, in turn, that Heatter had gone to a gentler place. Where he, for a change, would be the comforted.
His daughter is the cookbook writer Maida Heatter. His granddaughter was the artist Toni Evans. His son is the novelist Basil Heatter. His nephew Merrill Heatter is a television writer and producer (Heatter-Quigley Productions).
Read more about this topic: Gabriel Heatter
Famous quotes containing the word revelation:
“Men have come to speak of the revelation as somewhat long ago given and done, as if God were dead. The injury to faith throttles the preacher; and the goodliest of institutions becomes an uncertain and inarticulate voice.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“One revelation has been made to the Indian, another to the white man.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)