Bill Kurtis: An anchorman's journey to 'Anchorman'
Christopher Borrelli
4:08 p.m. CST, December 17, 2013
There was a time, a time long before the "Anchorman" franchise, when the
local Chicago anchorman/journalist/producer/voice-over actor/gala
host/restaurant investor/grass-fed-beef maven Bill Kurtis reigned supreme.
It was a time when people believed everything they heard on TV, an age when
only men were allowed to read the news. And in Chicago, one anchorman was
more man than the rest. Kurtis was a god among mortals, with a voice that
made wolverines purr and suits so fine he made Sinatra look like a hobo.
And then, about a decade ago, director Adam McKay and comedian Will Ferrell
wanted him to narrate "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy," with an
opening narration nearly identical to what you just read.
And lo, it began: "There was a time, a time before cable, when the local
anchorman reigned supreme …"
Kurtis delivered this narration with a gravitas so wryly knowing and
memorable, he stumbled into a gig that he had never anticipated: Playing
straight man to a bunch of clowns. A decade later, in the hotly anticipated
"Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues," Kurtis reprises his role as the
velvety tenor of the journalism gods.
Which has been a change for Kurtis. In early November, moments after his
final recording session for "Anchorman 2," he stood in line at a
Streeterville coffeehouse and wondered aloud about the trajectory of his
career: "You know, in my big journalism days in the '70s and '80s, I broke
the Agent Orange story (for WBBM-TV, Channel 2). I was the first reporter
to Chernobyl (for PBS' "Nova"). I covered Charles Manson, the Pentagon
Papers. I returned to Vietnam to report on the Amerasians fathered there
and left behind after the war. I narrated a zillion documentaries,
producing 500 through Kurtis Productions. Of course, we had those
long-running investigative series on A&E ('Cold Case Files,' 'American
Justice'), which helped give that network a little footing. And now, an
entire generation will just know me as … the voice of 'Anchorman.'"
An older fan stepped up to him in line and asked how Walter is — meaning
Walter Jacobson, Kurtis' former co-anchor at WBBM. "Walter is really good,"
Kurtis said with a gracious smile, then returned to his point:
"See? The older generations know me from television. But this thing, this
crazy twisted sister of a movie series, it has opened up a new demographic
for me, and whatever concerns I once had about doing this …"
He fluttered a hand upward, miming smoke.
"In the end, do you really only want heavy stuff on your epitaph? Let's
have some fun. I'm 73, and I'm officially retired from journalism," he
said. "Why can't I have fun like anyone else does? Guys my age tell me
their grandchildren, all they want to watch is 'Anchorman.' And I'm great
with that! Part of me has always regretted over the years choosing a
profession in which you're expected to be so straight in every corner of
life. I'm not that guy. I have a strange sense of humor. Because of this,
now I get to release my inner Bill!"
He laughed so loudly heads turned.
An hour earlier he had walked into the Chicago Recording Company on Ohio
Street to record his last "Anchorman 2" session. He had already recorded a
half-dozen sessions in mid-September and thought he was finished, and now
McKay wanted him to read a few new lines. The receptionist at the counter
directed him toward a studio where he shook hands with the engineers, who
patched a line to Paramount Studios in Los Angeles. Kurtis wore a tan
trench coat, the kind that Ron Burgundy might wear if he were imitating a
hard-nosed reporter; he draped it over a couch, strolled behind the glass
of a recording booth and waited.
A moment later, a speaker popped and a pleasant voice came over, that of
dialogue supervisor Tammy Fearing:
"Good morning!"
"Tammy, how are you?" Kurtis asked.
She explained that McKay had not yet arrived, but Kurtis only had one or
two lines to say today. And so, as they waited, they made small talk — so
surreal it would not have been out of place in an "Anchorman" film: She
said she had heard Kurtis owns a buffalo ranch. He does, he said proudly;
he founded the Tallgrass Beef Company in Kansas, a big meat supplier to
Midwest restaurants. They talked buffalo for a long while.
"Are they fast?" she asked.
"Thirty miles an hour!" he said.
"Are they brown or more reddish?"
"Both!"
Her parents live in Wyoming, she said, and occasionally she sees buffalo.
Kurtis replied: "A buffalo once separated from the herd and went over to a
neighbor's pasture and we had to shoot him to get him out."
"Oh!" she said.
A new voice came over the speakers: Brent White, an editor on the film.
"Hi, Bill. Adam is stuck doing long-lead press for publications that need
to do 'Anchorman' stories now. He's spending his morning with reporters!"
They laughed at the irony. Then White explained he's from Utah and once
stood beside a buffalo.
"They're America's heritage," Kurtis said solemnly.
"So handsome," White said in agreement, "and some of the best tasting meat
I have ever had."
A scene was cued up: Burgundy and his news team (played by Steve Carell,
Paul Rudd and David Koechner) are told they have become a great big success
on the fledgling Global News Network, and they leap into a group hug.
Kurtis: "The news team was famous in San Diego, but that was small-time
compared to New York! This fame was a rocket ship, a rocket ship that had
free drinks. And flirty stewardesses!"
Kurtis put his hands in his pockets and waited. "That was great," Fearing
said. "Maybe a little bigger."
He read the line a dozen more times, with each reading adjusting the
loudness of "New York" or the tone of "stewardesses," punching "rocket
ship" with near-satirical enthusiasm, sometimes hanging back, sometimes
throwing open his arms and sounding more like a game show host than a voice
of responsibility, sometimes folding his hands into prayer on the first
clause, gradually widening as he began the second.
"That was real nice," White said, then asked him to go again. And this
time, Kurtis nailed it. The line was serious but funny, big but small,
bright but not obnoxious. "Great, great," White and Fearing said in unison.
Kurtis tried one more, then broke down in laughter: "I'm sorry," he said.
"I started listening to myself."
After the session, having received his frozen coffee drink and wound
through the adjoining hotel until he found a table, Kurtis explained how
this odd side career as the narrator to a fictional buffoon happened:
"Adam became a fan when he was living here doing Second City. He sent me
the script and didn't think I would take it seriously, but I remember
reading it on a plane and laughing out loud. I said I would do it — then,
of course, I got scared. What if it's a flop? Now I'm committed. I wasn't
with CBS at the time but CBS had never let us do movies. You know, where
anchors play anchors? It was drilled into me that you didn't do that. There
is a kind of journalist code. But then I wasn't working as a journalist
while doing crime shows …
"I called my friend Harold Ramis (the Glencoe-based writer-director) and
asked: 'Have I made a mistake here?' And he said nobody knows if any movie
will work, but these people are smart. Sometimes you jump."
As for McKay, he said that when he was the head writer at "Saturday Night
Live" in the late 1990s he had tried writing a sketch about Kurtis and the
moroseness of his A&E crime shows, but then he doubted Kurtis was
well-known enough for a national comedy show and the skit never aired. When
it came time to do "Anchorman," he wrote in Ted Koppel as the narrator, but
very quickly realized "that wasn't going to happen, and I said one of the
greatest voices I've ever heard is Bill Kurtis, and Judd (Apatow, a
producer on both 'Anchorman' films) was like, 'Get him to record it. Let's
try it.' We just had him do a demo of the thing, and the second we played
it we were like, 'That's the guy. Oh my God.' Ferrell was like 'That's
amazing.'"
But Kurtis retained small doubts: By doing this film, was he saying his own
life as an anchor was meaningless? Was this more subversively pointed than
he realized? And the language: "I went to Universal City (in Los Angeles)
to record, and I remember Judd wanted me to do a line where the word
'penis' comes up. I wouldn't say it. I had no idea how this film would turn
out. If it's an embarrassment, here I am saying 'penis' in it, and I have
this generally serious career. But now, I would certainly do it! Over and
over again!"
His laugh boomed.
Still, a decade later, Kurtis assumed McKay would want someone more famous
for a sequel: "Brian Williams would kill for this." McKay didn't. And
though the film is more critical this time of the media — Ron and Co.
inadvertently "create" shouty, superficial cable news — Kurtis was less
worried: "(TV producer) Scott Craig and I once did a groundbreaking
documentary criticizing techniques used by TV news in its so-called
investigative reporting … In the struggle for ratings, commercial
broadcasters have succumbed to shorter stories, smaller newsrooms and a
police-blotter news judgment. Granted, a slipping bottom line dictates many
news decisions, but in the transition, journalists must remember who they
are: We pursue facts that make our democratic way of life work. If
'Anchorman 2' helps make that point, I am happy to be a part of it."
Not to mention, Kurtis did the voice-over work for the film's trailer. He
had never voiced movie trailers before. And now he said his agent is
getting requests for more trailer work. "Did you see the movie 'In a World
…' from earlier this year?" he asked, meaning the small Lake Bell indie
about a promising trailer announcer. "I think 'trailer announcer' would be
perfect for me right now! I can do that." And then, in a quiet hotel lobby,
he ran a test, his baritone deepening: "In a world … In a universe, about
to be destroyed …. See, I can do this."
A short coda.
At the end of his final session at the Chicago Recording Company, once the
last line was read and they were saying goodbyes, Kurtis told White and
Fearing what his favorite line in the new film is: "It's goes: 'In the
mid-'80s, most journalists thought a car chase on TV was not news. But Ron
Burgundy was no journalist …'" L.A. and Chicago exploded in laughter. Then
the laughter died. Then White said, "OK, bye Bill."
And Kurtis, gathering his stuff, said to the engineers in Chicago, with
melancholy: "But do I have to leave?"
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