Henry D. Owen, American diplomat, died he was 91.

Henry David Owen was a diplomat, Brookings Institution Director (1969–78) and United States Ambassador at Large for Economic Summit Affairs from 1977 to 1981, on the National Security Council  died he was 91..

(August 26, 1920 – November 5, 2011) 

Life

Owen was born in Forest Hills, Queens. He graduated from Birch Wathen Lenox School, and Harvard University with a BA in 1941.^[4]
He served in the United States Navy from 1942 to 1946 and on the State Department Policy Planning council from 1952 to 1968. He recruited Zbigniew Brzezinski. He was director of foreign policy study, at the Brookings Institution, from 1969 to 1977.^[5]
He was a member of the American Academy of Diplomacy, Council on Foreign Relations,^[6] and Trilateral Commission.


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Gordon Higginson, British educationalist and engineer, died he was 81.

Sir Gordon Robert Higginson, DL, BSc, PhD, DSc, LLD, DEng, FREng  was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Southampton for nine years from 1985 to 1994 died he was 81..^[2] He was co-author of the standard text on hydrodynamic lubrication and the Higginson Report on A levels.

(8 November 1929 – 5 November 2011)

Higginson was born in Leeds in 1929.^[3] He was educated at Leeds Grammar School and the University of Leeds from which he received the degrees of BSc and PhD, both in Mechanical Engineering. Higginson worked briefly for the Ministry of Supply and was then appointed Lecturer at Leeds in 1956. In 1962 Higginson became an Associate Professor at the Royal Military College of Science, Shrivenham and in 1965 he was appointed to a chair in Civil Engineering in what is now the School of Engineering and Computing Sciences at the University of Durham.^[4] His research interest was hydrodynamic lubrication and tribology, later extending to bio-engineering.^[5]
In the 1990s he served as chair of the engineering board of the Science and Engineering Research Council, the major grant-awarding body in UK academia.^[6]
He came to wider prominence when he chaired a committee set up to advise on the reform of the A Level system, producing the "Higginson Report" into the use of technology to support learning in colleges.^[1] Despite gaining widespread approval, the report was curtly rejected by the government, but many of the detailed proposals still enjoy some currency.
Within the Further Education sector of England there was, arguably, a more successful "Higginson Report". The Learning and Technology Committee, chaired for the FEFC by Gordon Higginson, published its report in 1996. Known universally across English FE as the "Higginson Report", it made a number of recommendations for how the FEFC should go about supporting colleges' use of IT. It set a framework for Information & Learning Technology (ILT) development across the FE sector over following years.
Following the privatisation of the railway system in the UK in the 1990s, he was the founding Chair of the Railway Heritage Committee, which supervised the transfer of historic artefacts and records to collecting institutions.^[7]
Higginson was knighted in 1992. The University of Leeds conferred the degree of LLD honoris causa on him in 1994^[4] and the University of Loughborough conferred the degree of DSc honoris causa in 2002.^[8] Higginson was also appointed a Deputy Lieutenant (DL). The University of Durham has both a lecture series, the annual Higginson Lecture, and a building named in his honour.^[9]
Higginson was married from 1954 until her death in 1996 to Marjorie Rannie. They had three sons and two daughters.^[10]


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Bhupen Hazarika, Indian singer, died he was 85.

Bhupen Hazarika  was an Indian lyricist, musician, singer, poet and film-maker from Assam Loulou de la Falaise, French fashion muse and designer (Yves Saint-Laurent). His songs, written and sung mainly in the Assamese language by himself, are marked by humanity and universal brotherhood and have been translated and sung in many languages, most notably in Bengali and Hindi. His songs, based on the themes of communal amity, universal justice and empathy, have become popular among the people of Assam, besides West Bengal and Bangladesh. He is also acknowledged to have introduced the culture and folk music of Assam and Northeast India to Hindi cinema at the national level. He received the National Film Award for Best Music Direction in 1975. Recipient of Sangeet Natak Akademi Award (1987), Padmashri (1997), and Padmabhushan (2001), Hazarika was awarded with Dada Saheb Phalke Award (1992), India's highest award in cinema, by the Government of India and Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship (2008), the highest award of the Sangeet Natak Akademi, India's The National Academy for Music, Dance and Drama. He was posthumously awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India's second-highest civilian award, in 2012.^[2] Hazarika also held the position of the Chairman of the Sangeet Natak Akademi from December 1998 to December 2003.^[3]

^{(1926–2011)}

Early life

Hazarika was born on 8 September 1926 to Nilakanta and Shantipriya Hazarika in Sadiya, Assam.^[4] His father was originally from Nazira, a town located in Sivasagar district. The eldest of ten children, Bhupen Hazarika (as also his siblings) was exposed to the musical influence of his mother, who exposed him to lullabies and traditional Music of Assam.^[5] His father moved to the Bharalumukh region of Guwahati in 1929,^[4] in search of better prospects, where Bhupen Hazarika spent his early childhood. In 1932 his father further moved to Dhubri,^[6] and in 1935 to Tezpur.^[4] It was in Tezpur that Bhupen Hazarika, then 10 years of age, was discovered by Jyotiprasad Agarwala, the noted Assamese lyricist, playwright and the first Assames Filmmaker and Bishnu Prasad Rabha, renowned Assamese artist and revolutionary poet, where he sang a Borgeet (the traditional Assamese devotional songs written by Srimanta Sankardeva and Sri Sri Madhabdeva), taught by his mother at a public function. In 1936, Bhupen Hazarika accompanied them to Kolkata where he recorded his first song at the Aurora Studio for the Selona Company.^[4] His association with the icons of Assamese Culture at Tezpur was the beginning of his artistic growth and credentials. Subsequently, Hazarika sang two songs in Agarwala's film Indramalati (1939): Kaxote Kolosi Loi and Biswo Bijoyi Naujawan at the age of 12. He wrote his first song, Agnijugor Firingoti Moi at the age of 13^[6] and he was well on his way to becoming a lyricist, composer and singer.

Education and career

He studied at Sonaram High School at Guwahati, Dhubri Government High School^[4] and matriculated from Tezpur High School in 1940. He completed his Intermediate Arts from Cotton College in 1942, and his BA (1944) and MA (1946) in Political Science from Banaras Hindu University. For a brief period he worked at All India Radio, Guwahati when he won a scholarship from Columbia University and set sail for New York in 1949. There he earned a Ph.D. (1952) on his thesis "Proposals for Preparing India's Basic Education to use Audio-Visual Techniques in Adult Education".
In New York Bhupen Hazarika befriended Paul Robeson- a prominent civil rights activist, who influenced him in ^[6] his song Bistirno parore which is based on the imagery and theme of Robeson's Ol' Man River. This song is translated in various Indian languages, including Bengali and Hindi (by the artist himself), and is still popular. Being inspired from some other foreign ones, he also composed several other songs in Indian languages. He was exposed to the Spiritual, and the multi-lingual version of We are in the Same Boat Brother became a regular feature in his stage performance. At Columbia University, he met Priyamvada Patel, whom he married in 1950. Tez Hazarika, their only child, was born in 1952,^[7] and he returned to India in 1953.
His famous songs include (in Assamese):

1. Bistirno Parore
2. Moi Eti Jajabor
3. Ganga Mor Maa
4. Bimurto Mur Nixati Jen
5. Manuhe Manuhor Babey
6. Snehe Aamar Xoto Shrabonor
7. Gupute Gupute Kimaan Khelim
8. Buku Hom Hom Kore

IPTA years

Hazarika began close association with the leftist Indian People's Theatre Association soon after returning from the USA in 1953^[6] and became the Secretary of the Reception Committee of the Third All Assam Conference of IPTA, held in Guwahati in 1955.

Professional life

After completing his MA he briefly worked at the All India Radio station at Guwahati^[7] before embarking for his doctoral studies at Columbia University.
Soon after completing his education, he became a teacher at the Gauhati University.^[6]
He was elected the President of the Asam Sahitya Sabha in 1993.^[8]

Later life

He met Kalpana Lajmi in the 1970s^[9] and they made the film Ek Pal (' at the Internet Movie Database) (1986). Subsequently, Lajmi began assisting him professionally and personally till the end of his life.^[10][11][12]
In the period after the release of Ek Pal (1986) until his death, Bhupen Hazarika mainly concentrated on Hindi films, most of which were directed by Kalpana Lajmi. Ek Pal (1986), Rudaali (1993) and Daman: A Victim of Marital Violence (2001) are major films this period. Many of his earlier songs were re-written in Hindi and used as played-back songs in these films. These songs tried to cater to the Hindi film milieu and their social activist lyrics were browbeaten into the lowest common denominator.^[13]
He served as an MLA (Independent) during 1967-72 in the Assam Legislative Assembly from Nauboicha Constituency.^[14]
He contested as a Bharatiya Janata Party candidate in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections from the Guwahati constituency,^[15] which he lost to the INC candidate Kirip Chaliha.

Death

Hazarika was hospitalized in the Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital and Medical Research Institute in Mumbai in 2011.^[16][17] He was admitted to the intensive care unit on 30 June 2011. He died of multi-organ failure on 5 November 2011.^[18][19][20] His body lay in state at Judges Field in Guwahati and cremated on 9 November 2011 near the Brahmaputra river in a plot of land donated by Gauhati University. His funeral was attended by an estimated half a million people.^[21][22]

Legacy and influences

Hazarika (right) with Hartmut König (left) at the Berlin Festival of Political Songs in 1972

As a singer, Hazarika was known for his baritone voice and diction; as a lyricist, he was known for poetic compositions and parables which touched on themes ranging from romance to social and political commentary; and as a composer, for his use of folk music.^[23] In a poll conducted in Bangladesh, his song, Manush Manusher Jonno (Humans are for humanity)' was chosen to be the second most favourite number after the National anthem of Bangladesh.^[24] Some of his most famous compositions were adaptations of American Black Spiritual that he had learned from Paul Robeson, whom he had befriended during his years in New York City in the early 1950s.^[25]

Awards and honors

Bhupen Hazarika Statue

• Award for the Best Feature Film in Assamese (Shakuntala; Directed by Bhupen Hazarika) in the 9th National Film Awards (1961)^[26]
• Award for the Best Feature Film in Assamese (Chameli Memsaab; music by Bhupen Hazarika) in the 23rd National Film Awards (1975)^[27]
• Padma Shri - the fourth highest civilian award in the Republic of India (1977)
• Gold medal from the State Government of Arunachal Pradesh for "outstanding contribution towards tribal welfare, and uplift of tribal culture through cinema and music." (1979)^[28]
• All India Critic Association Award for best performing folk artist (1979)
• In 1979 and 1980 he won the Ritwik Ghatak Award as best music director for two theatre plays, Mohua Sundari, and Nagini Kanyar Kahini
• Bengal Journalist's Association Indira Gandhi Smriti Puraskar in (1987)
• Sangeet Natak Akademi Award (1987)
• Dadasaheb Phalke Award (1992)
• First Indian to win Best Music for the film Rudaali at the Asia Pacific International Film Festival in Japan (1993)
• Padma Bhushan - the third highest civilian award in the Republic of India (2001)
• Honorary Degree from Tezpur University (2001)
• 10th Kalakar Award for Lifetime Achievement in the year 2002, Kolkata.
• Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship (2008)
• Asom Ratna - the highest civilian award in the State of Assam, India (2009)
• In February 2009, the All Assam Students Union erected a life size statue of Hazarika on the banks of Digholi Pukhuri in Guwahati.^[29]
• Muktijoddha Padak - the highest civilian award by Bangladesh Government (posthumously, 2011)
• Asom Sahitya Sabha has honoured him with the title "Biswa Ratna".
• Padma Vibhushan - second highest civilian award in the Republic of India (2012)^[30]

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Loulou de la Falaise, French fashion muse and designer (Yves Saint-Laurent), died she was 63.

Loulou de La Falaise was a fashion muse and designer of fashion, accessories, and jewelry associated with Yves Saint-Laurent ied she was 63..^[2][3] Author Judith Thurman, writing in The New Yorker magazine, called La Falaise "the bohémienne".^[4]

quintessential Rive Gauche haute

^{(4 May 1948, England – 5 November 2011, Boury-en-Vexin, France)}

 
Daughter of an Anglo-Irish fashion model and a French marquis, La Falaise was a close friend and creative partner of Yves Saint Laurent (YSL). According to The Independent, she helped inspire his 1966 women's tuxedo Le Smoking and his see-through blouses.^[5]
After more than three decades designing jewelry and accessories for Saint Laurent, La Falaise launched her own fashion business, designing ready-to-wear, costume-jewelry, and accessories, which were retailed in the U.S. as well as two Loulou de La Falaise shops in Paris.^[6][7]
The family's actual surname is Le Bailly, though members have used Le Bailly de La Falaise, referring to an ancestral estate, since the mid 19th century; it is typically abbreviated to de La Falaise.^[8]
The title held by the head of the family, Marquis de La Coudraye, was granted, by an 1876 act of succession, to the younger son of Pacôme-François Le Bailly, Seigneur de La Falaise, and his wife, Pauline-Louise-Victoire de Loynes, daughter of Denis, Marquis de La Coudraye. However, the title of Marquis was never registered at the "Sceau de France, Ministry of Justice" and is therefore not valid. The same goes for the title of Count. Male descendants can on the other hand claim the title of Ecuyer. The family's younger sons typically call themselves Count de La Falaise.^{[9][10][11][12]}

Family

Christened Louise Vava Lucia Henriette Le Bailly de La Falaise and born in England, she was the eldest child and only daughter of Alain, Count de La Falaise (1903–1977), a French writer, translator, and publisher, and his second wife, the former Maxime Birley, an Anglo-Irish fashion model, whom photographer Cecil Beaton once told, "You are the only English woman I know who manages to be really chic in really hideous clothes".^{[13][14][15][16][17][18]}
Three of her christening names honored relations: Louise (her father's elder sister, who died as a teenager); Vava (one of the names of her maternal grandmother, Lady Birley); and Henriette (the name of her paternal grandmother, Henriette Hennessy, Comtesse Alain Hocquart de Turtot). La Falaise was allegedly baptised not with holy water but with Shocking, the scent by fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli, her mother's employer.^[19]
La Falaise's maternal grandfather was portrait painter Sir Oswald Birley, and an uncle was Mark Birley (1930–2007), restaurateur and founder of the London nightclub, "Annabel's". Another uncle, her father's elder brother, was Henri de La Falaise, (1898–1972), film director and third husband of American actress Gloria Swanson. Her paternal grandfather was a three-time French Olympic gold medallist in fencing, Louis Gabriel de La Falaise (1866–1910).^[20]
Loulou de La Falaise had one sibling, Alexis Richard Dion Oswald Le Bailly de La Falaise,(1948-2004), a furniture designer, who appeared in the Andy Warhol film Tub Girls.^[17][21] Upon their parents' divorce in 1950—following Maxime de La Falaise's infidelities and a French court's declaration of her as an unfit mother—Loulou and her brother went to live with foster families until she was seven.^[22][21] After that, La Falaise was enrolled in English boarding schools, and "her school holidays were shared between mother, father, and the second foster family".^[22] She attended a boarding school in Switzerland as well as the Lycée Français de New York, though was expelled from each due to her rebellious nature.^[23]
Her niece, Lucie Le Bailly de La Falaise (born 19 February 1973), a model, is the wife of Marlon Richards, son of Keith Richards and Anita Pallenberg. Her nephew, Daniel Le Bailly de La Falaise,(born 6 September 1970), was also a model, notably appearing in Madonna's book Sex; briefly an actor, he is now a professional chef.^[24][25][26]

Career

La Falaise moved to New York City in the late 1960s, where she briefly modeled for American Vogue before turning to designing printed fabrics for Halston. Late in the decade she worked as a junior editor at the British society magazine Queen, during which time she met Saint Laurent.^[23] Eventually, she moved to Paris, where she joined his haute-couture firm in 1972. Responding to a description of her as a Saint Laurent muse in 2010, La Falaise responded, “For me, a muse is someone who looks glamorous but is quite passive, whereas I was very hard-working. I worked from 9am to sometimes 9pm, or even 2am. I certainly wasn't passive.”^[19]
"Her official task was to bring her eccentric style to accessories and jewellery, and she duly came up with often-chunky designs incorporating large colourful stones, enamel work or rock crystal".^[23] La Falaise also inspired Saint Laurent with her inventive wardrobe: "one week she was Desdemona in purple velvet flares and a crown of flowers, the next Marlene [Dietrich] with plucked crescent-shaped eyebrows".^[22][18] In 2002, when Saint Laurent retired, La Falaise began producing her own clothing and jewelry designs.^[6] As reported in The New York Times by fashion writer Cathy Horyn, "The clothing line captured much of her rare taste—well-cut blazers in the best English tweeds, French sailor pants in linen, striped silk blouses with cheeky black lace edging, masculine walking coats with fur linings, and gorgeous knits in perfectly chosen colors".^[7]
She also designed cloisonné boxes and porcelain vases for Asiatides,^[27] as well as jewelry for the boutique of the Majorelle Gardens in Marrakech, Morocco.^[18][28]
She sold simplified versions of her jewelry designs in a line created for the Home Shopping Network and created costume jewelry for Oscar de la Renta.^[29][30] She operated two of her own shops in Paris, one of which was designed by her brother, Alexis.^[6][31][32]

Marriages

Loulou de La Falaise was married twice:

• Desmond FitzGerald, 29th Knight of Glin, an Irish nobleman, who died on 14 September 2011. They married on 6 October 1966, separated the following year, and divorced in 1970. Her title upon marrying the knight was Madam FitzGerald.^[33]
• Thadée Klossowski de Rola, a French writer, who is the younger son of the painter Balthus. They married in Paris, France, on 11 June 1977; the bride wore a harem-and-turban ensemble from Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche. They had one child, a daughter, Anna.^[34]

Death

La Falaise died at her residence in Boury-en-Vexin, France, on 5 November 2011.^[1] The cause of death was not specified, other than as the result of a "long illness".^[35] An obituary published in Women's Wear Daily stated, "According to sources, de la Falaise was diagnosed with cancer last June, but implored intimates to keep her health a private matter.^[30

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Norton Dodge, American economist and art collector, died he was 84.

Norton Townshend Dodge was an American economist who has amassed one of the largest collections of Soviet-era art outside the Soviet Union. died he was 84^[1][2]

^{(June 15, 1927 – November 5, 2011)} 

Art collection

A Sovietologist who did pioneering work on the role of women under Joseph Stalin, Dodge smuggled into the West the works of dissident artists, painters and sculptors in the former Soviet Union. He continued to acquire art and meet clandestinely with artists, often at great personal risk, till the death of dissident artist Evgeny Rukhin and the coming of perestroika. He managed to smuggle nearly 10,000 works of art from the USSR to the United States during the height of the Cold War. Dodge's role in the preservation and patronage of art disallowed by the government led to his being called "the Lorenzo de' Medici of Russian art" (Elena Kornetchuk in Mcphee 1994)."^{[citation needed]} Dodge's work is detailed at length in John McPhee's The Ransom of Russian Art (1994).
Dodge appears in an Andrei Zagdansky documentary Vasya (2002) about a Russian Nonconformist artist Vasily Sitnikov. The latest award-winning documentary about Norton Dodge and his unique art collection "The Russian Concept: Reflections on Russian Non-Conformist Art" was produced in 2009 by Igor Sopronenko.
The Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Soviet Nonconformist Art, which contains roughly 20,000 works of art, was donated to Rutgers University in the mid-1990s, where it is on permanent display at the University's Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum.
Dodge is one of the founding board members of the Kolodzei Art Foundation, a US-based group dedicated to advancing the study of Russian non-conformist art.

Education and teaching

A native Oklahoman and graduate of Deep Springs College, Dodge first traveled to the USSR in 1955, ostensibly to study tractors as part of his research for a Ph.D. from Harvard University. He completed his doctorate in 1960, with the thesis Trends in Labor Productivity in the Soviet Tractor Industry: a Case Study in Industrial Development. Johns Hopkins University Press published his research on women's roles in the Soviet economy in 1966 as Women in the Soviet Economy : Their Role in Economic, Scientific, and Technical Development. Dodge was a professor of economics at the University of Maryland, College Park for over twenty years until 1980 when he took a post at St. Mary's College in southern Maryland. He retired from St. Mary's in 1988.

Bibliography

• Rosenfeld, Alla (editor); Dodge, Norton T. (editor). From Gulag to Glasnost : Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union. Thames and Hudson/The Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers, 1995. ISBN 978-0-500-23709-0.
• McPhee, John The Ransom of Russian Art. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998. ISBN 978-0-374-52450-0.

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Les Daniels, American writer, died he was 68.

Leslie Noel Daniels III, known as Les Daniels  was an American writer died he was 68..

(October 27, 1943 – November 5, 2011^[1])

Background

He attended Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where he wrote his master's thesis on Frankenstein, and he worked as a musician and as a journalist.^[2]

Career

He was the author of five novels featuring the vampire Don Sebastian de Villanueva,^[3] a cynical, amoral and misanthropic Spanish nobleman whose predatory appetites pale into insignificance compared with the historical catastrophes which he witnesses in his periodic reincarnations. These are: the Inquisition in The Black Castle (1978); the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs in The Silver Skull (1979); and the French Revolutionary Reign of Terror in Citizen Vampire (1981). In the later novels Yellow Fog (1986, revised 1988) and No Blood Spilled (1991), Sebastian is resurrected in Victorian London and India, where the horror of his vampirism is again contrasted with non-supernatural evil, now in the person of Sebastian's human enemy, Reginald Callender. A sixth (and presumably final) Don Sebastian novel set in Tibet and entitled White Demon was planned and is advertised by some sources as being available for purchase, but in fact was never completed: Daniels had begun writing it before abandoning it due to the demands of his non-fiction projects and was told when able to resume that his publisher had lost interest.^[4]
Daniels also worked with the historical fiction genre. The Black Castle features appearances by Torquemada and Columbus; in The Silver Skull Sebastian confronts Hernán Cortés; in Citizen Vampire he has a couple of friendly encounters with the Marquis de Sade; and Madame Tussaud makes an appearance in Yellow Fog.^[4]
Daniels described his works as "tragedy, in which evil consumes itself", as opposed to the melodrama of most contemporary horror novels, in which "customarily good guys meet bad guys and win in two out of three falls".^[5] He cited Robert Bloch as an influence on his sardonic style, and was an enthusiast of the works of John Dickson Carr, who in several of his own works combined historical fiction with horror and the detective story.^[6]
Daniels was also the author of Comix: A History of the Comic Book in America (1971) and Living in Fear: A History of Horror in the Mass Media (1975).^[4][7]

Fiction

Don Sebastian de Villanueva

• The Black Castle (1978)
• The Silver Skull (1979)
• Citizen Vampire (1981)
• Yellow Fog (1986; revised and expanded edition 1988)
• No Blood Spilled (1991)
• White Demon (started circa 1991 but never completed)

Non-fiction

• Comix: A History of the Comic Book in America (1971)
• Living in Fear: A History of Horror in the Mass Media (1975)
• Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World's Greatest Comics (1991)
• DC Comics: Sixty Years of the World’s Favorite Comic Book Heroes (1995)
• Superman, the Complete History: The Life and Times of the Man of Steel (1998)
• Superman: Masterpiece Edition (1999)
• The Complete History: The Life and Times of the Dark Knight Batman (1999)
• The Complete History: Wonder Woman (2000)
• The Golden Age of the Amazon Princess: Wonder Woman (2001)
• The Golden Age of DC Comics: 365 Days (2004)

As Editor

• Thirteen Tales of Terror (1971; with Diane Thompson)
• Fear (1975)
• Dying of Fright: Masterpieces of the Macabre (1976)

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George Ansbro, American radio announcer, died he was 96.

George Ansbro was a radio announcer for NBC and ABC for six decades, working with soap operas, big bands, quiz shows and other programs died he was 96.
He began at NBC in 1928 as a boy soprano on Milton Cross' Sunday show, Children's Hour. Three years later, he was hired as an NBC page in 1931, but he was soon employed as an announcer at NBC. On Friday, May 18, 1934, radio columns in New York newspapers noted that Bert Parks of CBS would be “relinquishing his status as New York’s youngest network staff announcer to the newly appointed George Ansbro on the NBC announcing staff.”^[1]

^{(January 14, 1915 – November 5, 2011)}

Parade of programs

Ansbro’s radio career included announcing for FBI Washington, Treasury Salute, Wake Up, America, Young Widder Brown, Manhattan Maharajah and the popular Dr. I.Q. quiz show. He also announced for Across the Board and other television shows. During these years, he lived in Manhattan at 50 East 10th Street and thus could be at an NBC microphone in a matter of minutes.
By 1948, with NBC Radio's Blue Network subsidiary having led to the formation of the ABC Television Network, Ansbro had moved into television announcing as well. He would ultimately become one of ABC's longest-lasting and principal live voice-overs, in most of the network's weekday and weekend dayparts, along with the rotating staff of announcers. Come the 1980s, the majority of Ansbro's announcing was during the ABC daytime lineup, handling sponsor plugs for their daytime soap operas especially, mid-break bumpers (specifically for One Life to Live) and the show preview announcements that were run during end credits. However, in prime time, Ansbro would still be heard occasionally.
During the 1970s, he appeared on two shows looking back at vintage radio, beginning with ABC's Return To Studio 1A (1970). Radio's Golden Age which aired July 16, 1976, on WMUK-FM (Kalamazoo, Michigan), featured an interview with Ansbro about early radio soap operas. It was written and produced by Eli Segal for Western Michigan University.
In a letter dated October 1, 1986 (the 55th anniversary of his hiring by NBC), Ansbro was acknowledged by ABC's then-parent owner Capital Cities for not only being the oldest employee of ABC and its derivatives, but for being the longest-tenured employee of any network in the history of American broadcasting. Ansbro continues to hold the record to this day, having served fifty-eight years, three months and twelve days with ABC upon his retirement on January 14, 1990, his 75th birthday.^[1] Notably, within a few months after his retirement, Ansbro was officially replaced on ABC's daytime schedule with Ken Lamb, who in 2008 became ABC's chief booth announcer. (Bill Rice, who had become ABC's senior announcer in 1990, retired in 2008.)
Ansbro wrote a book about his radio experiences, I Have a Lady in the Balcony: Memoirs of a Broadcaster in Radio and Television (McFarland, 2000). The title is taken from the once familiar catch phrase heard weekly on Dr. I.Q. Leonard Maltin did the foreword for the book.^[1]
Ansbro was a resident of Spring Lake, New Jersey.^[1] He died on November 5, 2011 in Bloomfield, Connecticut, aged 96.


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