Bob Foster loved to remind me how glad he was to see me the first
time we met. It was in the early 1970s at a hotel near Los Angeles International Airport
where CBS was hosting TV critics for a preview of its new programs.
"It's about time your paper sent somebody down here," he told me at the time. "We
were starting to think they were never going to cover television."
I remember being somewhat at a loss for words, but that really didn't matter when you were with
Bob because he could fill up all the empty spaces with plenty of his own words, if you let him.
While I fumbled for something to say, he went on to tell me how important TV was and how he'd
just seen a survey in Editor & Publisher that said TV columns were the most read
features in the modern newspaper. That was news to me.
One of the reasons I was at a loss for words that day was the fact that my paper really hadn't
assigned me -- or anybody else -- to cover television. I was a suburban news bureau chief in
those days and I was only covering the so-called TV "press tour" because my paper's
Sunday editor wanted some TV-related feature stories and had asked me to take a "freebie"
trip to L.A. with all expenses paid by the network.
I was embarrassed to tell that to a stranger, even an affable one like Bob Foster, who had
pretty much told me his entire life story in the first hour we were together, in between those
moments when he was telling me how important he was to the history of television in America.
Being young and arrogant, I wasn't sure I wanted to be befriended by this rather overwhelming
guy from a paper much smaller than mine. I wondered what his motive possibly could be. Did he
think I could get him a job on my paper or something? Besides, if he knew all those famous TV
people as well as he said he knew them, why didn't they blow trumpets or something whenever he
showed up for a press conference?
Well, so much for my ability to judge people on first meeting. As it turned out, Bob Foster
was to become one of the most important people in my life. My paper, the San Jose Mercury News,
did indeed finally appoint somebody to cover television and I was the one they picked. Bob
approved the deal and subtly began my education as a fledgling TV columnist.
For the next 25 years, he was my professional mentor and my dear friend. And when he died late
Monday afternoon August 14, 2000 at age 85 after a courageous battle with cancer, I knew that
my life would never be the same again. You see, I know there really are some people who can't
be replaced. And I knew long ago that Bob was one of them.
Once I got to know Bob, I realized he was a very generous man -- even though we actually were
competitors, working for rival newspapers. When I became a full-time TV columnist in the fall
of 1977, he went out of his way to brief me on the power structures at the networks and cheerfully
introduced me around to the important people at the Bay Area TV stations. He told me what
equipment I'd need to get and helped me get it. He made sure I was invited to all the important
press conferences and TV-press affairs. If he thought I was out of the loop, he'd even call me
and tip me to a breaking story.
I'm happy to say he wasn't just being nice to me. He was that way with almost every newcomer to
the TV beat. He was glad to give the new person a helping hand. He didn't expect anything in
return.
Though Bob worked for a small regional newspaper called The San Mateo Times, he pursued his job
as though he worked for The New York Times. He didn't write as if a small local audience was
reading him. He did his job as if everybody in the world woke up wondering what Foster was going
to have in his column that day. If he walked up to the president of a network, he behaved as if
they were old pals, even if the network president had a look on his face that said, "Who
IS this guy anyway?"
That's a tried and true approach in journalism. If you scrape and bow, they'll always treat you
like one of the help. Walk right up to them like you're a fellow member of the board and you
might catch them off guard before some public relations man hustles them away. I knew some of
this stuff already, but watching Bob in action was like a graduate course in chutzpah.
I'll have to admit that Bob sometimes gladhanded a bit too grandly and embellished the stories
of his successes a might too richly from time to time. If I called Bob up and proudly told him
I'd just arranged a "one on one" with Lucille Ball, for instance, I could be sure he'd
wind up telling me about the time he and a few people were having dinner with Lucy at her house
when a surprise guest showed up: Jackie Gleason.
His point was made: You're no big deal, Ron. I've been there and done that. But he'd never say
it like that, of course. His ideal way to puncture a blowhard was to be a bigger blowhard.
Perhaps that's why we got on so well from the start.
It didn't really matter to him if the "few people" at Lucy's house amounted to 25 or
30 other junketing TV critics, delivered there by network bus. He could care less if Gleason's
"surprise" visit had been booked a month in advance. Bob told his stories well and I
usually enjoyed them the first 40 or 50 times I heard them, even when they leaked a little at
the seams.
However, I do remember getting a little fed up with Bob after we'd known each other three or
four years and he kept telling me how this or that glamorous female TV star was such a good
friend of his. The one that irritated me the most was Elizabeth Montgomery from "Bewitched,"
who used to call Bob all the time just to shoot the breeze, according to him. I respected Bob too much
to tell him to blow it out his rear end, but I really longed to expose him as a name-dropping
charlatan.
One day my big chance finally arrived. We were in L.A. to preview the new TV season and we went
to a Fourth of July party on the "small town America" street at Disney studios. Lots
of stars were there with their children, enjoying an outdoor buffet with the visiting TV
columnists. Bob and I were in the chow line when I spotted Elizabeth Montgomery not too far
away. Bob was preoccupied, so I didn't tell him who I'd seen. Instead, I excused myself and
darted over to her and introduced myself.
"I'm with an old and dear friend of yours," I told her, "who would love to say
hello. He's right over there in the buffet line."
The lovely TV star looked where I was pointing and suddenly yelled, "Bob!" Moments
later, she was hugging him and bringing him up to date on all her latest gossip and I was
stewing in my own juice, perfectly squelched. I learned not to try that again.
Bob really did know practically everybody. He was born to schmooze. He spent most of his
workdays at the local TV stations, having coffee with the news people or the publicists,
picking up gossip like a magnet picks up metal shavings. He seldom missed a local story. He did
the same thing when he visited L.A., dragging his net through the network waters, catching a
few tons of newsy tidbits every time.
Where I found his help most valuable was those times when I needed to go back into TV history
to find out how something had developed. There weren't many books around that contained the
sort of information I wanted. Bob often had the information tucked away in his head. For example,
I did an interview with Ralph Nelson, who directed the immortal live telecast of "Requiem
for A Heavyweight" for "Playhouse 90," but had forgotten to ask a few things
about the atmosphere on the set on that historic night of the telecast. So I called Bob, who
had actually had been there, and could remember what I wanted to know.
Bob's long run as a TV critic was virtually unrivalled. Consider this: He began covering
television for his paper before there was any TV to be seen in the San Francisco Bay Area. He
wrote about the start-up of KPIX-TV, the first Bay Area TV station, before it went on air in
1948, then started reviewing the shows. When he retired, he was the senior TV critic attending
the network press events and probably was writing the longest-running TV column in America.
Bob's close friends loved to tease him about this. My favorite gag was asking Bob if that wasn't
him in those famous pictures, slightly out of focus, looking over the shoulder of Philo T.
Farnsworth on that historic day in 1927 when he demonstrated the first TV picture tube. Bob
usually said "no," but reminded me he knew Farnsworth's widow pretty well.
One of the things I liked best about Bob was his youthfulness. Foster was always ready to go
some place and stay out late, especially if it had something to do with TV. He also was right
on top of every new technology. When TV critics first started using computers on trips, Bob
knew how to program them all. It was common to see a line of columnists outside Bob's hotel
room door every night, waiting their turn to have him fix their laptops in time to meet their
filing deadlines for their columns.
Bob's desire to be part of every new development was nearly obsessive. He frequently bought the
latest video or TV equipment at his own expense, just to be on the cutting edge. On one very
comical occasion, I wound up sharing a hospital room with another TV columnist, George Blumenson,
who was being treated for cancer at Stanford Medical Center. Bob visited us both every day.
One day they wheeled in a huge electronic machine to scan George's abdomen and I told George,
"Let's hope Foster doesn't show up while that's here. He'll want to get a newer model just
to show you up!"
In our working days together, Bob and I loved to go on radio or TV shows together. He was very
glib and could have had a completely different -- and probably richer -- career as a radio guy.
He was booked as a guest on so many radio shows in his golden days that he often got more fan
mail than the regular radio guys.
Because TV had been such a big part of Bob's life for so long, it was very hard for him to put
it behind him. After he retired from the Times, he went back to work for them as a freelancer,
continuing his column. When that came to an end with new owners taking over the paper, Bob
wrote for a syndicate. By the time he reached his 80s, though, he finally stopped writing. The
last column he ever wrote was his eulogy for William Winter, the Bay Area's first TV newsman,
which became the first "guest column" for this website in December of 1999.
This year turned out to be a harrowing one for Bob. His beloved wife, Patricia, a lovely English
girl he met while stationed in London during World War II, finally died after a long confinement
in a nursing home. Then Bob was diagnosed with stomach cancer after collapsing at home. His
daughter, Lyn, who devoted her full attention to taking care of him in the last year of his
life, was told the cancer was well-advanced and had spread to his liver. He would not survive
the year.
Bob knew he was doomed, but refused to admit it. In fact, I'd say he pretty much ignored it.
He slipped once, though, and told me he hoped he'd live long enough to be on a "then and
now" TV critics panel with me and several of our old friends, sponsored by the Broadcast
Legends group, in June. He not only made it, but enjoyed himself tremendously, saying "hello"
to lots of his lifelong friends who mostly weren't aware he really was saying "goodbye"
to them.
Many of his colleagues from radio, television and the print media helped make his final months
a great last adventure for him. Sports Broadcasting legend Lon Simmons, for one, arranged for
Bob to attend the Giants opener in their new San Francisco ballpark and picked him up in a limo.
Bob kept busy answering phone calls, letters and e-mail from his legions of friends around the
world.
Two weeks ago, Bob and I went through a slew of his old photos, showing him with some of the
greatest stars in a half century of television history. He wanted to write a series of columns
for this website, using the photos as the jumping off place for his remembrances of those glory
days. It was a grand notion, but it didn't happen. Bob's condition took a sudden turn for the
worse and he was bedridden for the first time in his illness.
During the last two weeks, Bob and I talked frequently. I was flattered that he'd rather talk
to me than watch the 24-hour Game Show Network, which had become his primary viewing passion
since he'd become housebound in late July. Perhaps he feared I'd throw a tantrum or something
if he didn't put the sound on mute. Or maybe I just had the good fortune to arrive during the
shows he didn't like that much.
Anyway, Bob and I always got along like old Army buddies who had spent a couple of years in a
foxhole together, under enemy fire. Come to think of it, that's a pretty accurate metaphor for
covering the TV beat. Anyway, I don't think we ever had an argument. We trusted each other and
we'd saved each other's bacon on a number of occasions. He always thanked me for "dropping
by" to see him in his final days. How could I tell him I had no idea how I was going to
make it when I no longer could "drop by"?
I'll never forget the long drives we'd take together, sharing one car on "away"
assignments. He loved big band music and often would put on a favorite tape as background
while we talked about his days in London during the blitz. We usually ended those interludes by
listening to Vera Lynn sing about the "White Cliffs of Dover." That was an exciting,
romantic era for Bob and he made me catch the spirit of it, too. I really can't count all the
things Bob introduced me to or made me appreciate more fully. I think he did the same thing for
his readers all those years.
It was hard for me to say goodbye to Bob, so mostly I just sat there with him during the visits
I made in his final days, holding his hand, now and then touching his face, sharing this last
experience with him without words. He was surrounded by people who loved him and I'm sure he
knew that he wasn't alone, even when he no longer could speak or open his eyes to acknowledge
us.
Even on his final day, when we all knew he only had hours to live, I caught myself wondering
what Bob was going to think about an item in USA TODAY, predicting the pending purchase of the
Chris Craft TV stations by Rupert Murdoch's company. I guess I'll never know what he might have
thought about a lot of things like that.
But if there are readers where he is now, Bob probably will put it in his new column, telling
his new audience how he knew about that in advance because Murdoch always calls him first.
Rest in peace, Bob...
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