Posted by chicagomedia.org on February 04, 2009 at 09:55:16:
In Reply to: Longtime Chicago radio host Eddie Schwartz dies posted by chicagomedia.org on February 04, 2009 at 08:58:05:
'Chicago Ed’ Schwartz, late-night radio king, dies
BY ROBERT FEDER | Chicago Sun-Times
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As the king-size king of late-night radio, Eddie Schwartz was one-of-a-kind character whose passion for Chicago and concern for others were matched only by his oversized girth.
To hundreds of thousands of night owls, insomniacs and third-shift workers, "Chicago Ed," as his familiar theme song called him, was a trusted companion and a friendly voice in the dark for more than two decades.
"Eddie was a treasure that people in Chicago and around the country came to love through the medium of radio," Mitch Rosen, program director of sports/talk WSCR-AM (670), who began his career as an producer for Mr. Schwartz, said Wednesday.
Mr. Schwartz, 62, died Tuesday in north suburban Waukegan after a long battle with kidney disease and related ailments. When word surfaced that he was virtually broke, colleagues rallied to his aid to help defray his medical expenses by staging an on-air radiothon in December 2005.
Born May 5, 1946 and raised on Chicago's Southeast Side, Mr. Schwartz attended Bowen High School and Columbia College. He graduated from Triton College and became a certified paramedic. But from the time his grandparents bought him his first Zenith Royal 500 portable radio, his true calling was broadcasting.
As a performer, Mr. Schwartz credited the late Jack Eigen, a virtuoso schmoozer, as his earliest influence and the role model for his own show.
"When I was a very young kid, I used to fall asleep every night listening to Jack Eigen's show on WMAQ through my little earphone in bed," he once told an interviewer. "He had a talk show on every night. I loved it. It was my link to the outside world. . . . He'd talk about whatever was going on in the world or talk with show-biz people who came through town. And I thought, 'My, my what fun!' "
While a student at Columbia, Mr. Schwartz responded to a posting on a bulletin board and landed his first radio job at WLS-AM (890) in 1965. Working as a receptionist, tour guide and program assistant, he became enthralled with broadcast operations.
He joined WIND-AM (560) the following year as a music librarian and worked his way up in a variety of jobs, including music director, community affairs director, executive producer and assistant program director. Having filled in as a talk show host from time to time, his big break came in 1973 when he was tapped to succeed the man whose show he produced, Larry "The Legend" Johnson, as all-night host on WIND.
Perhaps the most unlikely radio star Chicagoans had ever heard, Mr. Schwartz possessed a wheezing, high-pitched voice, a thick diction and an unabashed civic boosterism that baffled the so-called professionals but endeared him to a loyal following.
"With a lot of late-night radio listeners, I've become kind of like an old bathrobe or an old pair of slippers," he once said. "They know who I am and what I do, and they're comfortable with it. They're glad to find out that I'm here at night, and we get together and maybe everything's OK with the world."
After eight years of top ratings at WIND, Mr. Schwartz was lured over to WGN-AM (720) in 1981, where his audience grew even bigger. At the height of his popularity, he attracted more than 388,000 listeners a week in the metropolitan area -- and many more nationwide by virtue of the station's booming, clear-channel 50,000-watt signal.
Frequent guests included such celebrities as Bill Cosby, Jay Leno, Steve Allen and Robert Conrad as well as senators, governors and mayors. He numbered among his biggest fans Eleanor "Sis" Daley, wife of one mayor and mother of another.
"His audience is larger at midnight than most others are at noon," Dan Fabian, former general manager of WGN, observed in 1991. "If there's something going on in the world and he decides, 'We're going to find out about this,' . . . he had a real sense of urgency, a fever. He believes very much that, in fact, this is full-service, full-time live radio, regardless of the hour."
An outspoken champion of the unfortunate and an advocate for many causes, Mr. Schwartz launched his most successful crusade in 1981 when he learned that then-Mayor Jane Byrne was spending $100,000 to light up the city's bridges and set off fireworks at a time when the shelves of local food pantries were bare.
"That made me very angry," he later recalled. "I said, 'If she won't do something about hunger in this town, I will.' " For the next 12 years, he hosted his annual Good Neighbor Food Drive, an all-volunteer effort to benefit the Chicago Anti-Hunger Federation. It grew into the largest one-night anti-hunger event in the country, credited with collecting more than 2 million pounds of food and more than $1 million in cash. He considered it his greatest legacy.
Mr. Schwartz made front-page headlines and stunned the radio industry in 1992 when he left WGN to join the home of his most vicious detractors at the former WLUP-AM. Although the move doubled his salary and exposed him to a younger audience at an earlier hour, it was doomed from the start.
In what turned out to be a prophetic observation, Steve Dahl, who was Mr. Schwartz's most savage antagonist at the Loop, said at the time of his hiring, 'You can't sign away 13 years of animosity with the stroke of a pen.' "
Due in part to the clash of styles and personalities and to long absences because of illnesses, Mr. Schwartz never achieved the level of popularity at the Loop that he enjoyed at WGN and WIND. A format change at WLUP-AM shifted him to sister station WLUP-FM (97.9), which he left when his contract expired in 1995.
After chronic health problems sidelined him from radio for good, Mr. Schwartz kept his name and his opinions before the public through a weekly column for the Lerner Newspapers, in frequent letters to the editor in daily newspapers, and on his Web site. Though he rarely ventured out of his 50th floor lakefront high-rise apartment, the Internet and e-mail kept him in close contact with his fans and friends in the media.
He is survived by a brother, Hal Ross. Funeral arrangements are pending.