L-A Radio: Remembering Boss Jock Charlie Tuna

KRTH 101.1 FM has posted a tribute on its website to Charlie Tuna, who passed away February 19 from complications of liver cancer at the age of 71. (Click Here For Original Posting)

Charlie’s family released the following statement on his official website:

"It is with a heavy heart that we share the sad news that American disc jockey and radio personality, Charlie Tuna, passed away peacefully in his sleep February 19th, 2016. His was a life well-lived, and he will always be remembered for the joy, laughter, and love of music he brought to many throughout the world with his presence on the radio. All who knew him will sadly miss him. Memorial donations can be made to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. We ask that you respect his family’s privacy during their time of grief."

Charlie Tuna worked as morning drive radio personality for more stations and formats than anyone in Los Angeles radio history: Top 40, AC, Hot AC, Oldies, Talk, Sports Talk and Country. In 1990, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce honored Charlie by presenting him with a Star on the Walk of Fame. In 1999, he was inducted into his home state Nebraska Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame. 

In1997, Los Angeles Radio People readers voted Charlie one of the Top 10 L.A. Radio Personalities of All Time. In 2007 & again in 2013, Charlie was elected by his LARadio.com broadcast peers as one of the Top 10 Los Angeles Radio Personalities."

K-EARTH 101 Program Director Chris Ebbot said, “Charlie was a beloved member of the K-EARTH family for nearly 7 years. He will always be a part of this radio station and his memory will live on in the hearts of all who had the pleasure and honor of working with him. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family during this tough time.”



Memorial donations may be made in Charlie Tuna’s name to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles’ Helping Hands Fund here.



Among his L.A. Radio credits:

• Was part of the legendary KHJ Boss Jock line-up; starting KROQ radio; starting KIIS and serving as both Program Director and Morning Man for KIIS AM & FM.
• Tuna was heard around the world daily on the Armed Forces Radio Network for a 25 year 6000 show run from 1971 to 1996, as well as on numerous nationally syndicated radio shows, since the early 1970s.
• He can be heard across the U.S., Canada and internationally on his syndicated 5 hour daily and weekend shows, plus a daily Hollywood Minute entertainment feature.
• Tuna was the announcer for the television game show Scrabble which ran for seven years on NBC, and a dozen other TV shows ranging from the Mike Douglas Show to America's Top 10 with Casey Kasem. He hosted Cinema, Cinema, Cinema for 30 years, an internationally syndicated TV show featuring the top movies in the US each week, with clips from the films. He also hosted the international TV show Inside Hollywood for three years. 
• Appearances in two movies, hundreds of TV and radio commercials, VH1's use of Charlie's Celebrity Interview Archives, dozens of radio station voice imaging clients, narration of the U.S. Air Force's 50th Anniversary CD, and serving as a musical network TV consultant round out the media side of Charlie Tuna.
• Charlie also raised nearly 2.5 million dollars for Children' s Hospital in L.A. with his annual "Tunathon" in past years, hosted the red carpet and emceed the Revlon Run/Walk for 5 years, and emceed the annual 4th of July Warner Park in Woodland Hills celebration which attracts annual crowds of over 50,000 spectators.
• Charlie called Tarzana home in California and served as the city's Honorary Mayor since 1977.

Tuna also was involved in a key moment in pop radio history in 1968 when KHJ, then heavily focused on three-minute singles as were most pop radio stations, decided to take a gamble on actor-singer Richard Harris’ recording of songwriter Jimmy Webb’s epic “MacArthur Park,” which ran more than seven minutes.

It was getting airplay on then-new underground FM stations, which increasingly were drawing listeners away from pop stations as the boundaries of rock music, and the lengths of songs, were expanding.

“We were paying attention to what they were playing,” Tuna told The LA Times in 2013. “We didn't want to lose that hip crowd.”

Once KHJ played the record, Tuna said, other stations followed suit, a statement that Webb confirmed.

It became a national hit and helped throw open the door to AM radio playing longer tracks such as the Beatles’ “Hey Jude” and Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Boxer” and “Bridge Over Troubled Water.”

The LA Times reports Tuna received a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame in 1990 and was inducted into the Nebraska Broadcasters Assn. Hall of Fame in 1997. In various surveys of radio listeners and his radio industry peers Tuna landed several times on rankings of the Top 10 L.A. radio personalities.