Distinguished journalist William Beutel ‘53 died in his home last Saturday in Pinehurst, N.C., following his long struggle with Alzheimer’s disease.
Beutel, who was 75 when he died, was a broadcast journalist for ABC News in New York City for over three decades. He was the first anchor of the show that would become “Good Morning America,” and in 1970, he paired with the late Roger Grimsby to co-anchor the network’s Eyewitness News for the next 16 years.
Beutel’s trademark signoff, “Good luck and be well,” seems to pick up where the weekly farewell of his boyhood idol, Edward R. Murrow, left off. Murrow famously ended broadcasts by saying, “Good night and good luck.” The phrase has since re-entered the collective vocabulary of the American public following last year’s release of a film based about Murrow which took his catchphrase as its title.
“He used to drive us to distraction with his imitations of Edward R. Murrow,” close friend Dick Blum ‘53 said. “All the time I saw that movie [‘Good Night and Good Luck’], while I was watching it I was thinking, ‘This guy does a pretty good imitation, but I think Bill does it better.’”
Beutel once sent a letter to Murrow saying that he wanted to become a radio journalist, and Murrow suggested that he attend the Columbia School of Journalism. Beutel, as it happened, had enough talent, charisma or both that he didn’t need to follow the advice of his role model; he landed a job with CBS radio in New York City in 1957, then moved to television as a reporter for ABC News in 1962.
Cited as a gentleman in an industry full of egos, Beutel “proved you could be a tough newsman and a gentleman at the same time,” WABC President and General Manager Dave Davis said in a statement.
“It was really something to walk down a street in New York with Bill, because you couldn’t walk two feet without somebody stopping you,” Blum said. “He was always very gracious and he always had a kind word; all the fame and all the notoriety never went to Bill’s head.”
Though Blum insists that Beutel “was just another guy” at Dartmouth and did not gain celebrity status until he graduated, his wife Adair said she recently learned that the College had a strong influence on her husband’s life.
“I never knew quite how much Dartmouth meant to Bill until more recently,” she said. “The most nervous I ever saw him — Bill gave speeches everywhere — but when he got the Class of 1953 award in 1998 it was the most nervous I ever saw the guy.”
Beutel spoke with College friends frequently, according to his wife, and attended a Class of 1953 reunion in Louisiana in 2004.
“He kept in touch with everybody and just forged some of the best friendships of his whole life and probably wished he could get that more often,” Adair said.
“They all moved around a lot, but they’d sort of come home to roost. You’d put them in a room together and you could not split them apart,” she said.
In addition to his wife Adair, Beutel is survived by four children by his first wife, Gail.
