June 15, 2012 9:41 PM
11:51 p.m. | Updated Sue Simmons, a television institution in New York City, anchored her final newscast on WNBC on Friday night, months after reports of her forced retirement startled longtime fans, colleagues and competitors.
True to herself to the end, Ms. Simmons reacted to a lengthy televised tribute on the station’s 11 p.m. newscast by exclaiming “shut the front door,” a phrase that sometimes substitutes for an expletive. Her co-anchor Chuck Scarborough knowingly laughed aloud at her joke.
“Almost got you, didn’t I?” she said.
“This week I was thinking, somebody’s made a mistake, you know,” Ms. Simmons said, alluding to the fact that she was not leaving WNBC entirely of her own accord. “But, you know, everything comes to an end at some point. And this is it for me here, at this station; I hope to be employed elsewhere at some point, even if it’s maybe just once a week.”
Mr. Scarborough then had to interrupt her, as there were only seconds remaining in the newscast. “We wish you the best,” he said. She kissed her hand, smiled and waved goodbye to viewers.
Ms. Simmons’ goodbye followed a series of tributes by Mr. Scarborough and other notable New Yorkers, including the New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, who said in a taped segment, “Sue, you’re a quintessential New Yorker. We’re going to miss you.”
In another of the tributes, the comedian Joan Rivers hinted at the possibility that Ms. Simmons will find employment elsewhere on television. “I’m not going to say goodbye because you’re going to pop up somewhere bigger and better,” she said.
In her brief remarks at the end of the 11 p.m. newscast, Ms. Simmons said she had been “crying for two weeks” over the prospect of signing off.
“We all have, we all have,” Mr. Scarborough responded. He called her “funny, unpredictable, dangerous, and always there when you and I needed her, covering the news that shaped our lives.”
During the newscast, after a news report about daredevil Nik Wallenda’s walk on a tightrope across Niagara Falls, Ms. Simmons quipped, “I think I’m ready for a walk off of Niagara Falls. Don’t know why.”
Her remarks capped a day of look-backs.
Earlier Friday, WNBC newscasts recounted light-hearted moments in Ms. Simmons’s career, including her imitations of a groundhog on Groundhog Day each year and a meltdown of sorts in the early-1990s when she and her co-anchor at the time, Matt Lauer, couldn’t stop laughing at a video clip from a tabloid TV show.
“It’s certainly an emotional end to a storied career,” Mr. Scarborough said on his 6 p.m. newscast, the one he previously co-anchored with Ms. Simmons.
Left unspoken, at least on the broadcasts earlier in the day, was the reason, or reasons, Ms. Simmons, 69, was signing off. She has declined interview requests, but her role had been diminishing for some time.
In March, when the plans for her departure were made public, one current and one former WNBC staff member, both speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Ms. Simmons was aware when she signed her most recent contract that it was intended to be her last at the station.
WNBC has not said who will replace Ms. Simmons on the 11 p.m. newscast, but Shiba Russell is expected to be named the co-anchor later this year. Ms. Russell joined the station in early 2011 from WCVB, the ABC affiliate in Boston, and she currently co-anchors the 12 p.m. and 5 p.m. newscasts.
The station threw a party for Ms. Simmons on Thursday night, where she was toasted by a number of friends and colleagues, including Brian Williams, the “NBC Nightly News” anchor. On “Nightly” on Friday night, Mr. Williams, who grew up in northern New Jersey watching Ms. Simmons, took a moment to wish her well.
“Sue has always been a piece of work, and those of us who have been so proud to work with her, wish her nothing but the very best,” he said.
from: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/15/a-final-newscast-for-sue-simmons-on-wnbc/
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Sue Simmons was born on May 27th, 1943 according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sue_Simmons
May 27th, 1943
May 27th
37 year = Deeply emotional.
42 month = Everybody loves Sue.
57 day = Heartbreaking.
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