Jack Perkins obit

Former NBC News reporter, A&E ‘Biography’ host Jack Perkins dies at 85

 

He was not on the list.

Former NBC News reporter and A&E “Biography” host Jack Perkins died Monday at age 85.

Perkins served as a reporter, commentator and anchor for “NBC Nightly News” and “Today” during his 25 years with the network. His live reporting included coverage of President Kennedy’s assassination on Nov. 22, 1963.

Early in his career at NBC, Perkins worked under anchor David Brinkley, who helped Perkins shape his understated on-air style of allowing the story to be the primary focus, instead of the reporter.

“What Brinkley taught me was a master class in how TV news should be written,” Perkins said in 2012 interview. “Say less, mean more. If a story is dramatic, you don’t have to tell it dramatically. Be simple. Direct. None of this, ‘The nation suffered a great tragedy’ nonsense.”

After retiring from NBC in 1986, Perkins went on to host the popular A&E series “Biography.”

Perkins is survived by his wife and three children, according to the Sarasota Herald Tribune, including his son Eric, who followed his father into journalism and works as sports director at KARE-TV, an NBC affiliate in Minneapolis.

He was dubbed "America's most literate correspondent" by the Associated Press.

Perkins appeared on NBC Nightly News and The Today Show, and on A&E as host of Biography. Until 2012, he hosted A Gulf Coast Journal, a weekly magazine show which aired on Tampa, Florida PBS member station WEDU-TV.[4] He also hosted and narrated special programs on Chattanooga, Tennessee PBS member station WTCI-TV. From 1982 to 1986, Perkins was also a news anchor and commentator for NBC owned-and-operated station KNBC, in Los Angeles.

Perkins devoted a great deal of his time to creating original photography and poetry which he brought together in books, titles including Island Prayers: Photographs and Poems of Praise (2006) and Nature of God: Exploring Nature to meet the Creator.

His 2013 book Finding Moosewood, Finding God tells of the period in his life between 1984 and 1999 that he and his wife, Mary Jo, lived on Bar Island off Acadia National Park in Maine to live a simple life, and there found God.