Former Philly anchor, talker Tom Snyder dies

Tom Snyder, who rose from being a Philadelphia-based talk show host to being a late-night network fixture, has died from complications of leukemia. He was 71.

Snyder was an anchor from 1965 to 1970 at KYW-TV, where he also hosted his first talk show, a morning gig called Contact.

From 1973 to 1982, he hosted NBC's The Tomorrow Show, which followed The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. That run ended to make way for a new show starring David Letterman.

Snyder also had a four-year run on CBS' The Late Late Show With Tom Snyder.

He was known for his casually glib, laughing style, his foofy hair, his chain-smoking, and his provocative exchanges with guests, including Charles Manson and Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols.

According to the Wikipedia online encyclopedia, "peak moments" included John Lennon's final televised interview, an interview with philosopher Ayn Rand in 1979, and a 1980 show in which Plasmatics lead singer Wendy O. Williams rocked the studio by blowing up a TV.

His KYW talk show Contact sought to avoid pap while balancing controversy (such as civil rights or religious renewal) with less weighty news.

Snyder was given to booming around the office in a big voice, a reporter said in 1967, and did not appear to have a shy cell in his 6-foot, 4-inch body.

His nicknames at the station were Snidely and Whiplash (the first and last names of a villain on the Dudley Do-Right cartoon series).

Snyder wisecracked a lot and could be abrasive, said Ken MacDonald, KYW station manager at the time, adding that "he overwhelms people." That's a quality that could cause a lot of trouble, he said, "but Tom's instincts for what he can do and not do, say and not say, keep him from getting in trouble."

Snyder began his broadcast career as a radio reporter in Milwaukee in the 1960s. He also anchored TV news in Los Angeles before moving to late night.

He gained more fame when Dan Aykroyd lampooned him in the early days of Saturday Night Live.

He announced in 2005 that he had leukemia. "When I was a kid, leukemia was a death sentence. Now, my doctors say it's treatable. With pills or chemotherapy or a combination of both," he said on his Web site then.