Passage: Remembering broadcaster Hugh Downs
This week we marked the loss of a TV pioneer, when we learned of the death of Hugh Downs.
Born in Ohio, Downs started his broadcasting career at a small local radio station. His smooth voice and unruffled delivery boosted him up the ladder to ever-bigger stations, finally landing him at NBC in New York in 1954.
While at the peacock, he performed in a number of roles, including sidekick to Jack Parr on "The Tonight Show," and eventually host of the "Today" show alongside Barbara Walters.
Years later, he and Walters were reunited, at ABC this time, as co-hosts of the magazine show "20/20."
In a memoir, he referred to his "10,000 hours on television" ... an amount of airtime which, for years, held the Guinness World Record.
Hugh Downs was 99.
Story produced by Juan Torres-Falcon and Robert Marston. Editor: Ed Givnish.
Also this week:
Saroj Khan was a legendary choreographer of Bollywood films. In a career lasting more than four decades, she choreographed more than 2,000 songs in more than 300 films, and worked with such leading Indian actresses as Madhuri Dixit, Aishwarya Rai and Sridevi.
She started as an actress at age three, but transitioned to dance, and earned her first leading choreographer film credit in 1974, with "Geeta Mera Naam."
She won three National Awards for Best Choreography, for "Jab We Met," "Sringaram," and "Devdas."
Watch the dance for "Dola Re Dola" from "Devdas":
Among her other films are "Tezaab," "Taal," "Beta," "Saliaab," "Khalnaayak," "Guru," "Nagina," "Chandni," and the Oscar-nominated "Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India."
In 1999 Khan talked with U.K.'s Channel 4 television about choreographing a dance for the 1987 film "Mr. India": "It was a sensuous song … and had to have sensuous movements. In those days, our censors were very quick with their scissors. They would remove anything you show. If you showed a hip movement, it was out. We had to be careful."
Khan died Friday at a Mumbai hospital. She was 71.
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