pamrose228 wrote:
Lloyd Bonafide wrote:
Tex was on WABC and besides he died in 1983.Tex was NBC before he was ABC.
You must be real OLD cause I don't remember that at all. Didn't he come pissed drunk into the studio or was that Roger?
Having been the audio man on "Eyewitness News" in NYC for 17+ years, I can confirm and debunk some of the recollections about Tex Antoine.
He was told, just as one of you said he was, "Either we all wear smocks or we all wear blazers," by Al Primo. It was a sad day. I have the next-to-last "Uncle Wethebee" drawing he did on the air, framed and hanging in my den.
He did not make his comment about rape ("If rape is inevitable, lay back and enjoy it.") on channel 5. It was on channel 7. I know; I was the engineer. You should have seen co-anchorman Roger Grimsby's reaction. During the weather forecast, Roger kept his face buried in his hands. He knew it was the end of a great career. However, Tex remained at channel 7 for some weeks .
He did apologize on the air the next time for his remark. He did not realize that the story that preceeded him dealt with a five year old girl's rape. It makes only a little, if no difference, but he did think it was about an adult, having just caught the tail end of the story while making last-minute notes about his weather map.
Tex was a brilliant man and had a great sense of humor. Everyone liked him and felt terrible when he made that remark and when he was fired. (He was always making Confuscius-type statements that tied in with his weather reports.) In that moment, he was too quick to come up with one of his sayings.
A second incident involved the audience not being able to see his 25th anniversary birthday cake, because a fellow reporter on the show was blocking it from the camera. Tex said, "...if you'd get out of the f... away, they can see the f..ing cake!"
He was missed by everyone.
- Richard Sloan
