Sam Rubin, a veteran journalist who anchored KTLA’s leisure protection for greater than 30 years, died Friday in Los Angeles. He was 64.
KTLA information anchor Frank Buckley confirmed Rubin’s loss of life early Friday afternoon. Preventing again tears as he introduced the information on the air, Buckley known as his colleague’s loss of life “stunning” and “exhausting to understand within the second.”
“Fairly merely, Sam was KTLA,” he stated, including later, “The newsroom is in tears proper now.”
Rubin was on the air Thursday, interviewing actor Jane Seymour, however had known as in sick Friday, with movie critic Scott Mantz filling in. The channel didn’t share further particulars about Rubin’s loss of life, however a supply acquainted with the incident informed The Occasions that he had suffered cardiac arrest at his West Valley dwelling Friday morning and was transported to a hospital, the place he was pronounced lifeless.
“Sam was an enormous within the native information business and the leisure world, and a fixture of Los Angeles morning tv for many years,” KTLA stated of Rubin in a assertion shared on social media. “His chuckle, allure and caring character touched all who knew him.”
Mantz wrote on social media that he was in “absolute shock” to find out about his colleague’s sudden loss of life. “I all the time known as him ‘The Godfather of Leisure Information,’ and that was true. An absolute legend [and] a beneficiant individual.”
Rubin was born Feb. 16, 1960, in San Diego, went to highschool in L.A. and attended Occidental Faculty, the place he was awarded a level in American research and rhetoric.
He joined KTLA’s “Morning Information” program in 1991, incomes a popularity for his disarming interviews and heat character on and off the air. In response to founding co-anchor Carlos Amezcua, Rubin contributed a way of Los Angeles authenticity that the fledgling present wanted.
Amezcua, 70, described Rubin as “the connective tissue” that helped him, climate forecaster Mark Kriski and co-anchor Barbara Beck attain their meant viewers.
“What can all the time be stated about Sam is that he helped the ‘KTLA Morning Information’ hook up with Los Angeles as a local Angeleno who liked L.A. and knew town higher than anybody else on set,” stated Amezcua, who joined KTLA the identical yr as Rubin. “We had L.A. in our name letters, and Sam all the time stated that we knew L.A. and L.A. knew us.”
What impressed him most was Rubin’s depth of data. “He knew Hollywood and what was necessary to the leisure business,” stated Amezcua, co-founder of digital streaming service Beond TV.
Over time, Amezcua stated, viewers and even some inside the business started to treat Rubin himself as a star.
“We used to make enjoyable of him on a regular basis about that,” Amezcua stated. “I used to inform him, ‘You’re as huge because the celebrities you’re interviewing.’ He would simply chuckle and say, ‘C’mon,’ however I feel deep down he knew that.”
However that stage of native fame typically discovered Rubin in conditions that pushed the boundaries of journalistic ethics, like in 1992, when he accepted a bit half on “The Jackie Thomas Present” simply weeks after serving to publicize the sitcom by interviewing star Tom Arnold and his then-wife, Roseanne Barr — between the sheets of their mattress.
“I can perceive the objection to it, however I’ve been crucial of the Arnolds prior to now and I will likely be in future,” Rubin informed The Occasions that December. “And it’s only a two-line walk-on. I’m not making huge cash for this. I might make much more promoting a nasty article on the Arnolds someplace.”
For his work as Reporter No. 1 on the sitcom, Rubin stated he was paid scale — then $466 a day.
Beloved by his colleagues and lots of others in Tinseltown, Rubin additionally had a historical past with The Occasions that included a number of contentious back-and-forths between him and varied writers for the newspaper.
Rubin wrote a chunk for The Occasions in February 1999, firing again at Brian Lowry, who was then a TV columnist for the outlet and is now a senior leisure author for CNN. Within the buildup to that yr’s Academy Awards, Lowry had listed Rubin as considered one of a brand new breed of native TV reporters “that locations a lot emphasis on entertaining, the reporting has turn out to be a little bit of a joke.”
“Brian Lowry shows such vitriol and rancor in his latest diatribe towards me and the enlargement of broadcast leisure journalism that maybe he simply wants a bit of lesson in how these of us who’re profitable on this line of labor really do our jobs,” Rubin wrote in his response. “I’ve by no means attended ‘Clown Faculty,’ however since Mr. Lowry insists I’m the P.T. Barnum of my era, listed here are a number of suggestions.”
Rubin went on to advise Lowry to discover a “real appreciation” for his viewers and, most significantly, be taught “the significance of tone.”
“I’ve to run now and placed on my clown swimsuit; there’s one other child’s celebration I will likely be entertaining at,” Rubin stated in closing. “My clown costume, after all, is hanging in my closet, proper beneath the shelf containing my three native Emmy Awards.”
Two years later, once more round Oscars time, The Occasions’ TV critic Howard Rosenberg wrote a narrative about competitors between morning information reveals during which he talked about “weathercaster Mark Kriski, who appears to stay for being the type of enjoyable man you’d see hanging from a chandelier with a lampshade on his head at a cocktail occasion. And in addition … the present’s beanbag with lips, show-biz groupie Sam Rubin.”
Rosenberg, now retired, famous that Rubin and Kriski had torn up a replica of The Occasions containing a narrative in regards to the battle between KTLA and rival KTTV, dwelling of No. 2 morning present “Good Day L.A.” They didn’t like that the story reported that whereas KTLA was No. 1 within the morning, its general viewers was down from the yr earlier than.
Nonetheless, in the identical column, Rosenberg known as Rubin “somebody who has turn out to be the one factor, greater than another, that ‘Good Day L.A.’ is unable to match.”
In return, Rubin penned a narrative during which he proposed a job swap with Rosenberg.
“I can envision my week as the tv critic for the Los Angeles Occasions. ‘Honey, might you regulate the La-Z-Boy? This therapeutic massage characteristic isn’t working. And sweetie, might you pop in one other video from some obscure cable channel? Now, let me see, the place on this planet am I going to seek out the time to write down the occasional evaluation and my two scheduled columns for all the week?’” Rubin wrote.
“Howard goes to be in for an actual change of tempo. He can use my alarm clock — the one that’s set for 4 a.m. Howard can select what tales to report on, write each phrase of his report himself, order the videotape he wants, choose all of the graphics, get made up and give you one or two gags that poke enjoyable at his bosses on the L.A. Occasions. After all, he must do that for 5 days in a row.”
Away from the TV cameras and media sparring, Rubin’s life revolved round his household, former colleague Amezcua stated.
“I’ve 5 kids they usually all knew Sam and his household, and Sam was simply so beneficiant together with his time,” Amezcua stated. “He was an excellent household man they usually liked him. All of us liked him.”
Former information director Jason Ball, who labored at KTLA from 2008 to 2021 earlier than retiring, known as Rubin “larger than life” and “a lion” who “deserves to be memorialized.”
Ball stated he often butted heads with Rubin on present concepts however didn’t thoughts it when his colleague “pushed him outdoors his consolation zone.”
“Generally you didn’t know what he was going to do, which might be a problem for me,” Ball stated. “However I all the time knew he had the present’s coronary heart in thoughts and I don’t actually understand how KTLA goes to operate with out him.”
Because the face of KTLA’s leisure protection, Rubin received over Angeleno audiences, together with celeb viewers Tom Hanks and Henry Winkler.
“He made you’re feeling particular each single time,” Winkler stated in a name to KTLA on Friday. “He made each human being really feel so particular and acquired them to open up like a flower.”
He additionally had a means of turning chaff into wheat. “There are lots of silly, boring celebrities on the market,” “Alias” actor Greg Grunberg stated by way of cellphone on the published Friday. “And man, did he make all of them appear attention-grabbing.”
The San Diego-born reporter additionally introduced his business information to platforms abroad. He often appeared on BBC Tv and contributed often to Australia’s Triple M radio and Channel 9 Tv, in accordance with KTLA’s web site.
The writer of biographies on former first girl Jacqueline Onassis and “Rosemary’s Child” star Mia Farrow, Rubin received a number of Native Emmy Awards for his leisure protection. He additionally obtained a Golden Mike Award for leisure reporting and an Related Press Tv and Radio prize for his work. Different accolades included honors from the Southern California Broadcasters Assn., the Los Angeles Press Membership and the Nationwide Hispanic Media Coalition.
“He was born to be a broadcaster. He was one of the best broadcaster that there’s,” Eric Spillman, KTLA reporter and Rubin’s longtime colleague, stated throughout Friday’s broadcast.
Outdoors of his on-air work, Rubin was a founding member of the Broadcast Movie Critics Assn., owned a self-named tv manufacturing firm and supported a number of nonprofits.
Rubin is survived by his spouse, Leslie Gale Shuman, and 4 kids.
