Peter Jennings Biography
Peter Jennings was a Canadian-American journalist who served as the sole anchor of ABC World News Tonight from 1983 until his death from lung cancer in 2005.
Peter Jennings Age
He was born on July 29, 1938 in Toronto, Canada.
Peter Jennings Height
He was 6 feet 2 inches tall.
Peter Jennings Education
When he was 11 he began attending Trinity College School in Port Hope, Ontario, where he excelled in sports. He transferred to Lisgar Collegiate Institute. He struggled academically, and Jennings later surmised that it was out of “pure boredom” that he failed 10th grade and dropped out. “I loved girls,” he said. “I loved comic books. And for reasons I don’t understand, I was pretty lazy.” He then briefly attended Carleton University, where he says he “lasted about 10 minutes” before dropping out. He also attended the University of Ottawa.
Peter Jennings Parents
He was the son of Elizabeth (née Osborne) and Charles Jennings, a prominent radio broadcaster for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).
Peter Jennings Siblings
He had a younger sister, Sarah.
Peter Jennings Wife
While stationed in the Lebanese capital, Jennings dated Palestinian activist Hanan Ashrawi, who was then a graduate student in literature at the American University in Beirut.
In 1973, he married for the second time, to Anouchka Malouf, a Lebanese photographer. His first wife was childhood sweetheart Valerie Godsoe.
In 1979, he married for the third time to fellow ABC correspondent Kati Marton.
Peter Jennings Kids
In 1979, he became a father when Marton gave birth to their daughter, Elizabeth. In 1982, Jennings’ and Marton’s second child, Christopher, was born.
Peter Jennings CJOH-TV
By the age of nine, he had his own half-hour weekly children’s radio show on CBC, called Peter’s People. On leaving school, he started work in a bank but followed his father into broadcasting in 1959, joining radio station CFJR Brockville, Ont. He provided CBC with coverage of a train wreck and as a result was offered his first TV job – at CJOH-TV Ottawa when it went on-air in 1961.
He moved into news and in 1963 became co-anchor of the CTV National News. CTV was new and at that time its national news was broadcast from CJOH-TV.
He was noticed by ABC and moved to New York in 1964 to anchor a segment of ABC-TV’s evening news, jumping the following year into the national slot.
The ratings were disappointing, with Peter competing against figures like Walter Cronkite on CBS. After three years ABC made him a foreign correspondent. In 1971 he received an award for reporting on the civil war in Bangladesh and at about that time he was appointed head of the ABC News Middle East bureau in Beirut, where he established the first U.S. news bureau in the Arab world. A profile of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat won him a Peabody Award in 1974. The same year he was in Washington briefly as correspondent for ABC’s A.M. America, but in 1975 he went to London as chief foreign correspondent for ABC-TV. There he anchored the international section of ABC’s World News Tonight until he moved back to New York and assumed leadership of the entire show.
Peter Jennings ABC World News
In April 1983, Reynolds became ill, leaving both Jennings and Robinson to co-anchor the broadcast until his planned return; however, Reynolds would die three months later on July 20, 1983, from bone tumor. A rotation of anchors hosted the program until August 9, 1983, when ABC announced that Jennings became the sole anchor and senior editor of World News Tonight, which took effect September 5, and on that day, the program began broadcasting from New York City on a regular basis.
In September 1984, the program was renamed World News Tonight with Peter Jennings in order to reflect its sole anchor and senior editor. Robinson left ABC News in 1984, after stints of anchoring news briefs and the weekend editions of World News Tonight; he died from complications of HIV/AIDS in 1988. With Jennings as lead anchor, World News Tonight was the most-watched national newscast from February 27, 1989 to November 1, 1996, but from then on until February 2007, it placed second behind its main rival, NBC Nightly News.
In April 2005, Jennings announced that he had been diagnosed with lung cancer and, as before, other ABC News anchors – mostly consisting of 20/20 co-anchor Elizabeth Vargas and Good Morning America co-anchor Charles Gibson – filled in for him.
Peter Jennings Death
In April 2005, he announced that he had been diagnosed with lung cancer. He died of lung cancer on August 7, 2005, at his apartment in New York City, at age 67.
Peter Jennings Salary
His annual salary was $10 million dollars at the time of his death.
Peter Jennings Net Worth
His net worth was $50 million.