Legendary TV morning show host Tom York, a fixture on Birmingham television from 1957 until 1989, died on Sunday, Aug. 1, his family said. He was 96.
“He was such a terrific guy, he’s like an icon there in Birmingham,” said Fannie Flagg, author of “Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe,” who worked on York’s show early in her career. “Every time I came home, I’d go out for coffee and have a good time with him. He was my first partner on television, as you probably know, on the morning show. He will be missed. I miss him very much. I’m heartbroken. He was a champ and lived a long, long, happy life. I wish that for everybody.”
In 1957, WBRC-TV in Birmingham asked York to create a morning show to fill a one-hour void in programming.
“The Tom York Morning Show” became an Alabama cultural institution, outdrawing national morning shows airing in the same time slot. He became one of Birmingham’s best known celebrities.
“When I was a kid, I thought he was world famous,” said his son, Byron York. “Everybody I knew, knew who he was. It was just normal to me.”
The show varied in length from one to two hours and followed a country music show that began the same year, hosted by musician Gordon Edward “Country Boy Eddie” Burns, now 90, who in 1965 discovered singing star Tammy Wynette, then a Midfield hairdresser. Burns’ show ran for 38 years.
“He followed Country Boy Eddie,” York said of his father’s show. “I remember getting up for school, and Country Boy Eddie was ending, and my dad was about to come on.”
Tom York didn’t put on a broadcasting voice when he went on the air.
“He had this remarkable, easy manner,” Byron York said. “He didn’t have a different voice for TV than he did the rest of his life. He spoke to the audience like he talked to us. That’s one of the reasons for his success. Some people have it. They liked him. They liked watching him.”
Byron and his sister, Karen, got to spend plenty of time with their father.
“His show was early in the morning, then he worked all day on the next day’s show,” said York’s daughter, Karen Moore. “He was absolutely all about Birmingham.”
On Saturdays, he’d play golf, and he was a frequent master of ceremonies at community events.
“He was a great Dad,” Byron York said. “So many people in television grew from one market to another. We had the stability of him staying in Birmingham. He was an incredibly caring and thoughtful dad. We never had any disruption in our lives. For the sake of his family and the fact he loved Birmingham, he stayed.”
York was born November 30, 1924 in Holland, Missouri, according to a biography provided by Byron York. His family was poor and worked on a farm in southern Indiana. In the depths of the Great Depression, they left the farm and moved to Florence, Alabama, where an uncle owned a used-furniture store that they could live above. Economic salvation came when York’s father, Earl, got a job with the new Tennessee Valley Authority, giving the family some small financial stability it had never had before.
York had just turned 17 when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Even though he was underage, he convinced his father to allow him to enlist in the Navy, an idea his mother opposed. As a young sailor, York bounced around the country in training and became an airman/radioman/gunner on what was known as the SBD Dauntless dive bomber. He arrived on the Pacific atoll of Tarawa in late November, 1943, just as one of the toughest, most costly battles of World War II was ending. York was part of a Navy force occupying Betio, the main island in the atoll. He also served on other islands in the Gilbert and Solomon chains.
York returned to Florence after the war, 21 years old. As a returning veteran, he used the GI Bill to attend Florence State Teachers College, now the University of North Alabama, where he met his future wife, Helen Hamilton, and he got a job in radio.
York often told the story of the day when, still taking classes, he was driving in his car, listening to a disc jockey from a local Florence station. As he listened, he happened to pass the studio and said to himself, “I can do better than that.” He stopped, went in, asked for a job, and got one.
He learned radio from the ground up; one year, he earned an extra $25 for climbing the station’s tower to change the light bulb.
On Christmas Eve, 1947, after finishing his radio program, York married Helen Hamilton. He made a recording of the ceremony and pressed it on an old 78 rpm record. A year later, they had their first child, Karen, now Karen Moore. They moved to Memphis, where York broke into television. Later came another child, Byron. Not long after came an opportunity to move to WBRC-TV in Birmingham, in the city he would make his home for the rest of his life.
“The Tom York Morning Show” was at its heart about Birmingham. It had news, information, and entertainment, always from a Birmingham perspective. Viewers who wanted a national program could watch the “Today” show on another channel. But many more of them, at least twice as many at any given time, watched Tom York. He was dominant in local TV ratings for three decades.
He was instrumental in founding the Birmingham Touchdown Club and in 1969 helped found the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame, emceeing its annual induction ceremony for decades. In 1996, he was himself inducted into the Hall of Fame. In 2001, he published “The Story of the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame: A Personal Perspective.”
In 1989, at the age of 65, he retired and left WBRC. The show did not survive the departure of its founder and host.
In retirement, York did some writing, some radio, some TV programs. He and Helen traveled. He crossed the Atlantic on the supersonic Concorde.
In recent years, York and his wife moved into Kirkwood by the River. York is survived by his wife, Helen, and children Karen and Byron.