So Long, TS

For reasons that I find it difficult to explain, Tom Snyder was my second favorite late night talk show host during the 1990s.

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From Bill Carter's obituary in the Times

Tom Snyder, the idiosyncratic, cigarette-waving interviewer who was one of the pioneers of the late-night television talk show and a long-time anchor for both local and national news, died Sunday in San Francisco. He was 71.

The cause was complications of leukemia, his friend and producer Michael Horowicz said yesterday.

Known best for “Tomorrow,” the late-night interview program on NBC of which he was host for eight years in the 1970s and 1980s, Mr. Snyder’s career spanned four decades and included jobs in New York and Los Angeles, with stops in Savannah, Cleveland and Philadelphia.

“Tomorrow” was a showcase for Mr. Snyder’s interviewing style. Leaning forward in his chair, punctuating questions with his ever-present cigarette, cajoling or berating his subject, or simply expostulating on his own, Mr. Snyder made conversation a kind of performance art.

“He made the camera disappear,” said Peter Lassally, who produced Mr. Snyder on “The Late Late Show” on CBS in the 1990s. “He was talking directly to the viewer.”

At the peak of his career, he was a glutton for work (and air time), appearing four nights a week on “Tomorrow” on NBC after having been anchor for “NewsCenter4” on WNBC in New York in the evening. Sunday nights he was the anchor of NBC’s national newscast.