Fred Rogers Passes @ 74
Fred Rogers Passes @ 74
Wouldn’t you like to be my neighbor?
Source: CNN.com
‘Mister Rogers’ dies at age 74
PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania (CNN) — Television’s “Mister Rogers,” the cultural icon and kindly neighbor to generations of American children, died Thursday at the age of 74.
Fred Rogers died at his home in Pittsburgh after a brief battle with stomach cancer, according to a spokeswoman for his production company. He is survived by his wife Joanne Rogers, their two sons and two grandsons, according to his Web site.
Marisa Lynch, who has worked for Family Communications Inc. for nearly 20 years, said she was in shock.
“We just learned about his illness in January,” she said. “Luckily, he didn’t suffer.”
Staff members rushed into work around 2:20 a.m. after hearing that the venerable host of the long-running PBS show “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” passed away, Lynch said.
“We’re very loyal and dedicated,” she said of the employees.
The Web site for Family Communications Inc., the non-profit company that produces the show, issued the following statement:
“We are very sorry to deliver the sad news that Fred Rogers died on February 27, 2003 after a brief battle with stomach cancer. We are grateful for the many people, young and old, who have cared about his work over the years and who continue to appreciate Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood on PBS. We hope that you’ll join us in celebrating his life by reflecting on his messages and taking them into your everyday lives.”
According to the program’s Web site, Fred McFeely Rogers was born in 1928 in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, 40 miles east of Pittsburgh.
Rogers began developing his ideas for children’s programming in the 1950s. He is best known for “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” which began in its early form in 1963 as a show on Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Rogers took the idea to the U.S. and in 1967, the first “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” aired on Pittsburgh’s WQED in 1967. A year later, PBS picked it up.
The last original “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” aired in 2001, making it PBS’s longest-running program ever.
The slow-paced show offered an alternate universe to most of today’s quick-edit cartoon children’s programming. But on the eve of his final show, Rogers told CNN’s Jeff Greenfield he looks at it as more than entertainment; it’s a chance to reach young people and give them a foundation for a good life.
“I believe that those of us who are the producers and purveyors of television — or video games or newspapers or any mass media — I believe that we are the servants of this nation,” Rogers said.
That’s why he got into television in the first place.
“I got into television because I hated it so,” he said. “And I thought there was some way of using this fabulous instrument to be of nurture to those who would watch and listen.”
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