Clete Roberts (1 February 1912 â€" 30 November 1984) was an American
broadcast journalist and film and television actor.After serving as a
war correspondent in World War II and Korea, Roberts settled in the
Los Angeles area and became a respected radio news reporter,
eventually turning to television in the mid-1950s at KNXT Channel 2
(now KCBS-TV), the local CBS owned-and-operated station. He anchored a
nightly newscast and occasionally ventured to far-flung locations to
report on national and international stories, taking with him his own
Bell and Howell movie camera with which he shot his own news footage.
With him on KNXT's newscasts in that time were three other Los Angeles
television stalwarts, anchor and reporter Bill Stout, weather
forecaster Bill Keene and sports reporter Gil Stratton (who at the
time also doubled as a radio, television and movie actor).After
serving as a war correspondent in World War II and Korea, Roberts
settled in the Los Angeles area and became a respected radio news
reporter, eventually turning to television in the mid-1950s at KNXT
Channel 2 (now KCBS-TV), the local CBS owned-and-operated station. He
anchored a nightly newscast and occasionally ventured to far-flung
locations to report on national and international stories, taking with
him his own Bell and Howell movie camera with which he shot his own
news footage. With him on KNXT's newscasts in that time were three
other Los Angeles television stalwarts, anchor and reporter Bill
Stout, weather forecaster Bill Keene and sports reporter Gil Stratton
(who at the time also doubled as a radio, television and movie
actor).Roberts left KNXT in 1959 and joined Los Angeles station KTLA
Channel 5 as news director and primary anchor, along with news
producer/director Julian Macdonald, virtually remaking that
independent station's news operation. The newscast Roberts and
Macdonald oversaw included such respected figures as Stout (who
followed Roberts to KTLA in 1960), sports reporter and former football
star Tom Harmon, and veteran reporter Stan Chambers (who retired on
August 11, 2010 on his 87th birthday, marking 63 years as a reporter
at KTLA). Roberts' signature conclusion to the early news broadcast
was "I bid you a pleasant evening"; for the late news it was "I bid
you goodnight."In 1966, Roberts returned to KNXT, joining the
station's highly esteemed 6 p.m. "The Big News" broadcast and its
late-night companion "The Eleven O'Clock Report." Roberts joined a
staff that included anchor Jerry Dunphy, Maury Green, Ralph Story,
Keene, and Stratton. Roberts contributed news and feature reports and
anchored the weekend newscasts. Early in 1974 he once again left KNXT
for KTLA and took over the station's hour-long 10 p.m. newscasts.
After two years Roberts decided to step back from nightly television
news and left KTLA; after a hiatus he joined then-PBS member
television station KCET, contributing feature reports and
commentaries. His long tenure in Los Angeles comprised reports and
travels ranging from offbeat local stories to the war in Vietnam.
According to the book Helter Skelter, the young son of a neighbor of
Roberts found what turned out to be the .22 Buntline revolver wielded
by Manson Family member Tex Watson the night of actress Sharon Tate's
and her houseguests' murders, and it was turned over to the police. As
details of the crime came out in the weeks that followed, the boy's
father made several calls to the police, suggesting that the missing
murder weapon was the same broken, long-barreled gun his son had
found. Finally, fed up with months of being ignored by the LAPD, he
asked Clete Roberts to intervene in December 1969. The book does not
say whether the call from Roberts finally did the trick. Clete Roberts Top Movies & Young Movies