Jerry Dunphy

Born: 1921-06-09

Jerry Dunphy was an American television news anchor in the Los Angeles/Southern California media market. He was best known for his intro "From the desert to the sea, to all of Southern California, a good evening." After serving as a pilot in World War II, Dunphy began his broadcast television career in 1953. He was the news director/anchor at then-CBS owned-and-operated (O&O) WXIX (now CW affiliated WVTV) in Milwaukee. Dunphy also was a sports reporter at another CBS O&O, WBBM-TV, in Chicago. Dunphy also served as a color commentator for Green Bay Packers telecasts on CBS in 1956. In 1960, Dunphy took over the anchor chair at the Los Angeles CBS O&O station KNXT (now KCBS-TV), where he anchored Los Angeles' most popular newscast, later titled "The Big News", a program that often attracted a quarter of Los Angeles television owners, ratings unheard of in the market. He was still popular when fired in 1975, yet KNXT sought to adopt a faster-paced, "Eyewitness News" type format. It was then that Dunphy joined KABC-TV, bringing it to the top of the ratings, making it Southern California's news leader. Since Dunphy's unceremonious firing, Channel 2 never recovered in the ratings, until the mid-2000s. Dunphy left KABC-TV in 1989 and joined the upstart KCAL-TV that July (when it was still KHJ-TV) as one of the pioneering anchors of the three-hour primetime news format, "Prime 9 News". He returned to KCBS-TV in 1995 and remained until 1997 as an anchorman, and rejoined KCAL-TV in 1997, where he remained until his death. Dunphy was one of the first newscasters to interview President Richard Nixon after his resignation in 1974. He would later sit down with Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, and Gerald Ford. Dunphy also performed regular cameos in L.A.-based films including Warning Shot, Night of the Lepus, Oh God!, Short Cuts, The Jerky Boys and Independence Day, as well as in episode 6 of Batman Film Way,,,Way Out, and is considered to be the inspiration for two fictional television characters: Ted Baxter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Kent Brockman on The Simpsons (the director of "Krusty Gets Busted", Brad Bird, designed the character and modeled him after anchorman Ted Koppel. Dunphy was also a songwriter. One of his songs was called, appropriately, "From the Desert to the Sea" and was recorded by country music star T.G. Sheppard. On May 9, 1984, Dunphy received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in the television industry, located at 6669 Hollywood Boulevard. He succumbed to a heart attack on May 20, 2002.


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Oh, God!

as Self
Released: 1977-10-07

When God appears to an assistant grocery manager as a good natured old man, the Almighty selects...

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as Self
Released: 1996-06-25

On July 2, a giant alien mothership enters orbit around Earth and deploys several dozen...

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See!
as Newscaster
Released: 1994-05-24

When his boss is killed, Detroit cop Axel Foley finds evidence that the murderer had ties to a...

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Don't See

Hard to Kill

as Newscaster
Released: 1990-02-09

Mason Storm, a 'go it alone' cop, is gunned down at home. The intruders kill his wife, and think...

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Short Cuts

as Himself
Released: 1993-09-05

Many loosely connected characters cross paths in this film, based on the stories of Raymond...

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Bulworth

as Jerry Dunphy
Released: 1998-05-15

A suicidally disillusioned liberal politician puts a contract out on himself and takes the...

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Night of the Lepus

as Television Newscaster
Released: 1972-10-04

Rancher Cole Hillman is fed up of rabbits plaguing his fields. Zoologist Roy Bennett conducts an...

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Pauly Shore Is Dead

as Jerry Dunphy
Released: 2003-03-11

Hollywood comedian/actor Pauly Shore loses everything: his house, nobody in Hollywood wants to...

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Impulse

as TV Anchorman
Released: 1990-04-06

Regularly working alone undercover with a vice squad boss she dislikes as much as he dislikes...

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Jimmy Hollywood

as Anchorperson
Released: 1994-03-30

Jimmy Alto is an actor wannabe who stumbles into the role of a lifetime. He becomes a vigilante...

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Warning Shot

as uncredited
Released: 1967-01-18

Hounded by the press for shooting a doctor, an ousted Los Angeles policeman works his own case.

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Independence Day: The ID4 Invasion

as WNN's Pentagon Correspondent Jerry Dunphy
Released: 1996-06-30

A "mockumentary" of the alien invasion during Independence Day. Barry Nolan hosts the programme,...

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Kitten with a Whip

as Newscaster
Released: 1964-11-04

Straitlaced senatorial hopeful David Stratton has no idea what he's in for when he arrives home...

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The Love Machine

as Newscaster
Released: 1971-08-14

An ambitious TV newscaster has an affair with the wife of a network executive to get a promotion.

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The Great Quake Hazard Hunt

as Himself
Released: 1990-10-18

Educational video with Chip and Dale showing children how earthquakes happen and how to prepare...

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Hart to Hart

as uncredited
First aired: 1979-09-22

Wealthy couple Jonathan and Jennifer Hart, a self-made millionaire and his journalist wife,...

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Batman

as Newscaster
First aired: 1966-01-12

Wealthy entrepreneur Bruce Wayne and his ward Dick Grayson lead a double life: they are actually...

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The French Atlantic Affair

as Self
First aired: 1979-11-15

When the SS Festivale sets sail from New York to France, its 3,000 passengers include Pulitzer...

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Brooklyn Bridge

as Sputnik Play-by-Play
First aired: 1991-09-20

Brooklyn Bridge is an American television program which aired on CBS between 1991 and 1993. It...

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