One Year Later, Remembering TCM Host Robert Osborne

March 6, 2018

By Josh Albarran

Robert Osborne (1932-2017), TCM on-air host.
(Turner Classic Movies)

New York, NY -- It was Thursday, April 14, 1994, at 6:00pm Eastern time when Ted Turner the founder of Turner Broadcasting System pull the switch on at an public ceremony in New York City's Times Square and he introduced on the top of the NYC screen and across the television sets to Robert Osborne the first on-air host of Turner Classic Movies (TCM) as he presented the 1939 Academy Award-winning film Gone with the Wind and the rest was history.

It has been one year ago since Mr. Osborne was passed away after nearly 23 years as the face of TCM, an man from the West Coast (mainly resides in the last few decades from the East Coast of New York) who loves and talks about Hollywood's finest stars and motion pictures including the Golden Age that made the film industry look famous and still is today. I never met Robert, but I watched most of all of his introductions when it appears during primetime and he inspires me how these movies were made and how people became stars in their time.

Osborne started as an student actor in an Washington college before moving to Hollywood and star in several films and television shows before signed with Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz's Desilu Studios to write for its television programs, that pursuit him to do journalism as an reporter and columnist for The Hollywood Reporter which led Osborne to published the best-selling compilation book 60 Years of the Oscars: The Official History of the Academy Awards in 1989 (with updated editions recently with the upcoming anniversaries that followed). Osborne made regularly appearances on local TV in the Los Angeles metropolitan area and on CBS with analysis on the entertainment world.

All of these accomplishments led him to enter cable TV that would be the home of old-school classic movies 24 hours a day, Osborne joined TBS in 1994 to become the new evening host of its cable channel Turner Classic Movies, which is the home of Turner's library of many M-G-M and RKO Pictures films. Back then before TCM was introduced, those films previously aired on Superstation WTBS-TV (today's TBS network) and on Turner Network Television (TNT), with TCM, Mr. Osborne found an home to talk classic movies with its viewers.

In addition to his movie introductions, Osborne interviewed several actors on-air at TCM including stars like Debbie Reynolds, Leslie Caron, Mickey Rooney, Anthony Quinn, Lauren Bacall, Esther Williams, Angela Lansbury and many more talked on their movie experiences in the network's one-long Private Screenings documentaries. He also served as host at select TCM events including the annual TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood and TCM Classic Cruise.

Robert Osborne was an friend to ours, an father to TCM and an American institution to classic movies audiences across the country and around the world. Every day, he will always be remembered on his network and all of our hearts.