Thursday
Jan022020
In Memorium: Don Imus 1940-2019
Thursday, January 2, 2020 
Imus broadcast his first program from New York City back in 1971. His life journey has by some accounts been arduous, by other accounts a freak parade, and by still others as a matter for a RICO investigation. It began out in the great American West, California and Arizona, and eventually would make its way on across the country to Ohio and New York.
Imus was born in Riverside, California. Ranching was the family business and he was actually raised on a big cattle spread called the Willows near Kingman, Arizona. Don recalls that period of his childhood fondly and his familiar cowboy persona is completely legitimate. His irascibility appears to be equally legitimate, influenced by more than a few hard knocks along the way. If he revels in the agony of others, as he jokes, it may just be because he’s had a little of that himself. His parents divorced when Don was fifteen, he changed schools frequently, got arrested after a school yard fight, won election in secondary school as class president and was impeached, and, at seventeen, was pushed by his mother to join the marine corps as the best strategy to keep him out of jail. While it all added up to what Imus himself has described as a fairly horrible adolescence, it also disproves a theory that he actually had no parents and instead spawned spontaneously in dust clots behind the Laundromat dryers where one day he would seek shelter. When did all of these events unfold? It doesn’t really matter. And why annoy Don by asking?
Despite the occasional rough patch, Imus did spend a full twelve years in public school and emerged with no formal education…a product of automatic social promotion not even casually tied to merit. He graduated with no honors and no skills, a rare stroke of luck because a broadcasting career required neither. Difficulty continued to dog Imus after his school days: his undistinguished, infraction blotched stretch in the marines, onerous labor in a Superior, Arizona copper mine and a Grand Canyon uranium mine where an accident left him with both legs broken. There was work as a freight brakeman on the Southern Pacific railroad and a back injury suffered in an engine derailment and at one point the indignities of homelessness, hitching, being flat broke. Better, and worse days were to come. This quintessential American and often challenging personal passage materially defined Imus, instilling him with humility, a deep respect for our country and its workers, and a disturbing need to get even. He emerged from the experience with attributes that contributed enormously to the broadcasting distinction he would realize: an intrinsic, conspicuous authenticity, and a unique ability to connect with real people who work hard, serve their country, and care passionately about what really matters in the world.
Once Imus began broadcasting, fame and acclaim came quickly. He was showered with the laurels of radio celebrity including inductions into both the National Association of Broadcasters and radio halls of fame. He was the recipient of four Marconi awards, broadcasting’s equivalent of Hollywood’s Oscars. It got to the point that he would throw this or that slab of walnut with crystal crap glued to it against the wall of his office as a convenient means of intimidating horrified underlings. He was featured on television programs from NBC’s “Today” show to CBS’ “60 Minutes.” He was a guest of Charlie Rose, David Letterman, and of special note, Larry King, in shameless, mutual ass-kissing marathons that challenged the audience's gag reflex.
Don and Deirdre continue to run the Imus Ranch Foundation donating to other worthy causes helping children with cancer, autism and all the environmental health problems with our children. Don has raised hundred of millions of dollars for the Tomorrows Children’s Fund, CJ foundation for SIDS, Hackensack University Medical Center and America’s Veterans.
Reader Comments (579)
Iman:
Dunno If God allows folks to see things like this but Happy Birthday Cowboy.
If you're doing time in Purgatory, hopefully it's the one in Maine.
Rhode Island has one but I doubt your old pal Buddy Cianci is there.
I'm wondering what you'd be saying about all this craziness with Donnie Trump.
I remembered when you BANNED him from the show FOREVER. Great move on your part.
You saw thru his bullshit.
Say HEY to Fred.
Wow -- no one is really monitoring this website, or all those spam post entries would simply be removed in total. How old is this technology that it can't be done?
How come Don's family doesn't update this horrible memorial? It looks like it was designed 50 years ago.
How come no one ever hears from his family?
Does anyone know where Imus' archives or memorabilia went? What museum? Library? Anyone know?
By the way, even the web designer made a typo in the copyright notice listed below. It reads "c. 2018 Don Imusr" ... that "r" negates the name Imus. Copyright law is a "use it or lose it" proposition. Everything needs to be perfect. Spell his name incorrectly and that's it!
Yikes! How sloppy is this system? Has no one paid the bills or monitored this thing?
Hey there.. in response to Cowboy Cadoc's Mother.. I wish I knew... Infact I'd take this site over and make it a great memorial page again if someone would let me.. I have Dons wife Deirdre on Facebook and have tried reaching out but she has never responded back to me there only on her page once when I posted my imus coffee cups I still have..... I sure do miss Don...
Rest in peace, Don Imus~~July 23, 1940 – December 27, 2019. My mornings just aren't as much fun without you, Fred, and Bernie. God bless you and keep you.
Thinking of the Imus family today. Hope you all are doing well. You all as well as Imus are thought of often and are missed.
Time sneaks up, doesn't it? Another year passes, and yet, I never heard anything about a memorial (I guess that shipped sailed), or where your archive is going, or went, or any plans for anything you might have left behind, like your recordings, master tapes, press, etc. Well, Cowboy, how quickly the heirs forget, even though you certainly left them enough money to take care of it all. I'll keep looking for the remnants, pal. Wish you had been a lot less stubborn and a lot more practical, but then again, the ending to this story would have been mighty different. See you on the other side -- maybe.
April 2024 and I still occasionally replay pieces of the Imus in the morning show to hear that unique, funny, interesting, show that will never be duplicated. There will never be another one like it or another one like JD Imus.
Thanks for that !
Can’t think of Kinky Friedman without thinking of you. RIP to another cowboy. The world is moving on … and I wish it would slow down. Can’t imagine why your family never held a memorial for you or anything; but I knew a few years ago that something was wrong, because when it came to you, something was always wrong. Here's Kinky's obit from the Times. They mentioned you. RIP.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/27/arts/music/kinky-friedman-dead.html
This comment section is pretty dead. Just like Don.
Wow James:
So where's YOUR exciting and relevent post to this site?
Like Larry P said, I too, go for the occasinal Iman fix.
His insight on life was usually spot on.
I'm sure he'd have a LOT to say about what's going on today.
Here's something to liven up the page. https://youtu.be/dvXdw3tQBso?si=CDtr3Au0HA0R-nmy
Happy birthday, Cowboy. Wish you were still alive ...
Don Imus got me started on my radio career at KIOA-AM/FM, Des Moines, Iowa, and of course he got me fired as well when we both collaborated on a show-prank that went terribly wrong during the 1970’s in the conservative corn fields of Iowa.
During this period, the Knapp Commission and Serpico was on the top of the news involving corruption and prostitution in the ranks of the NYPD, and a key player in that story was Xaviera Hollander a/k/a “The Happy Hooker”.
She gained international notoriety in the 1960s and 1970s as a high-class escort and later became an author, writing a book titled "The Happy Hooker: My Own Story,", originally from Amsterdam and was declared an “undesirable alien” and deported. (Undesirable except in the eyes of The Two Don(s) that is)
The Plan?
Send Don B, up to Toronto where she had been deported to from the US., and interview her in Room 434 of the Carriage House Hotel, the first such live, long length, unscripted radio or television interview of her during that period.
In my old 1968 Mustang, I drove up to Toronto with all of my live on air production equipment, and knocked on the door for my appointment with radio destiny.
I had reached out to Imus at a sister station seeking advice as a young, shithead kid seeking guidance from my elders regarding my big opportunity. I shared the plan with him and he was ecstatic with excitement at the novel idea:
Imus counseled me at the outset “Do something original, do it better than anyone else, and do it professionally and to perfection - but make it your own, differentiated style”.
So, after having secured my appointment with radio destiny and The Happy Hooker, I knocked on the door and was greeted by XH, and rigged up all my equipment and soon was on the air to do a “Virgin Broadcast” of something uniquely original just as Imus had prescribed.
About four minutes into the interview, while live, I suddenly felt this hand going up my leg and then into my zipper, and at age 20, could not contain myself and so during the broadcast these beast-like sounds took over in lieu of the planned serious but penetrating interview….
After being “spent”, I realized that the sound was still up and the connection was also live as well, but nobody back at the station had cut the connection, owing to being equally amused and thinking this was just playmaking sound effects for the interview which was to follow.
Little did I know that my budding friendship with Imus was off to a rocky start, as he sneakily had called ahead and told XH to altar the course of the live interview and my career by “doing me” on live air, for which she readily agreed.
Next thing that happened was I heard the room phone “ring, ring, ring” while I was lying on the floor. I picked it up thinking it was the studio manager to congratulate me and close out the interview. Instead, it was the station manager who said:
“Berlin, your firedddddddd, get the fuck back here!” (The FCC was apparently on the other line - not good!)
I called Imus this last time after XH confessed that Imus has double crossed me for a double prank and was bowled over in hysteria and laughter. He said “I told you to be different and unique, but I forgot to tell you ‘and never trust another dis jock in the radio business’ or you will get fucked every time - literally”.
Thus ended my short lived career as the Corn Stock Jock from Iowa but Imus and I both went on to do better and greater things and along the way,
I became a national security expert, designing data systems for the military that were “something original, better than anyone else, and using my own differentiated style”. All these years later I am still serving in that world.
God sometimes closes “a hotel room door” and opens up a window leading to a new life with plans that you never dreamed possible or thought could ever happen, and along the way you meet and intersect with people that send you in the strangest of directions:
Such was the life and times of the two Dons: True my radio career went limp, but I later carved out a life as a leading subject matter expert for the Department of Defense, where I still serve today, and mostly owing to the safe advice that I received many years ago.
God Bless you Wyatt, your wonderful mother, and the rest of Imus’ family. Be at peace always with the road God paved for you!
Always
Don Berlin
I’ve heard plenty of stories about Imus screwing over people, and not in any good or funny way. "The Happy Hooker" memoir was published in 1971, and Imus didn’t hit WNBC Radio 66 in New York City until December of 1971. Before that, he was on much smaller and less visible radio stations out west. Until he got to WNBC and was featured in "Life" magazine in a December 1971 issue, he would hardly have had the clout to get through to Hollander, but might have been able to starting in 1972. I don’t doubt for a second that he wound up in her little, black book. I’m glad it worked out for you, because Imus’ betrayals and devious behavior didn’t work out so well for others, myself included. I worked with him at WNBC in 1981. It was my third, and because of him, my last radio station.
That “wonderful family” of Don’s has never made any appearance here in five years since his death … so … I’m not sure they will ever see your message. I just watched a TV commercial for St. Jude’s Cancer Research Hospital and all I can think of is that Imus’ allowed his idiot wife to squander $100-million, tax-free dollars sent in for kids with cancer on building their “summer camp” vacation home, which they later dumped on the market and sold for $12-million. That “wonderful” loser of a bimbo was never really an actress or a model or a writer or any of the other professions, including cancer camp doyenne, he imagined. Talk about a Happy Hooker! I’m sure she’s resting comfortably on her tens of millions that the Patron Saint of Hookers left her. As for their kid: according to the Internet he’s still playing at rodeo. He’s 26, the age I was when Imus destroyed my radio career at NBC. I wrote a big, fat, limited edition, coffee table book about it. You can find it on Etsy at ManhattanAttic. By posting here, I will no doubt get attacked by his remaining handful of incel miscreants who crawl out of the woodwork whenever I post here. That’s the sad legacy of Imus. You can see that five years after his death, this is a wasteland of a memorial. Even I feel sorry for Imus for having broadcast for 50 years, only to leave this pathetically abandoned desert of a website behind.
DON'T buy this Kamala-voting bitter hag's shitty book.
Buy Dierdre Imus' book here - https://artgotham.com/products/catalog-deirdre-imus-solo-show-the-things-we-carry
HILARIOUS! Imagine how stupid someone has to be to post as "The I-man," when the I-man is five years dead. I also love the notion that he/she schlepped in Kamala Harris. I can’t fathom what Harris would have to do with anything going on here, as I believe I read somewhere that Don Imus banned Donald Trump from his show. I'm neither a "hag," nor "bitter" -- just telling the TRUTH. And, thank you, anonymous incel, for so rapidly proving exactly what I wrote: that the last of Imus’ miscreant, woman-hating jackasses would instantly and magically (and anonymously) appear out of nowhere to insult me. I don’t think anyone buying Mrs. Imus’ hilarious “art” book is going to spend the $325 required to purchase my fully-illustrated Top 40 radio memoir. But good luck calling that hilarious Deirdre Imus effort either “art” or a “book.” Since no one here has ever seen my massive art project and certainly never read it (I know exactly where all 150 copies are), thanks for the free publicity! I’ll take my chances with any art or literary critic.
This website is so sad and pathetic. Don retired badly, and he passed away too soon. His hideous and cowardly "fans" aren't people who will carry his memory into the future. It's really tragic for a guy who spent 50 years on the air -- shades of Arthur Godfrey and Walter Winchell.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/698111590/ask-me-how-this-happens-a-script-a?click_key=8af87000da8f3bf391791020ab76f4df34666dd0%3A698111590&click_sum=a9e34267&ref=shop_home_active_36&frs=1
Don B:
Helluva story.
Fun read.
Great ending.
Too bad Imus couldn't have gone out in a better fashion.
Sam:
Kiddo, dontcha think it's time to drop the rock?
Kickin' him, Deidre and Wyatt all these years later is it really helping you?
Imus was who he was and he kinda got what he deserved in the end.
He WAS a force of nature for his time but it was what it was.
Pretty sure I've seen you in letters to the Daily News occasionally.
I, along with many others I'm sure, truly MISS Donald J Imus for the laughs, the insight and overall spin he put on our days back then.
Imus improved my Monday through Friday for nearly 40 years, if that doesn't count for something, times 10-20 million, then I don't know how to estimate the value of any given man. He was flawed, loved helping kids with cancer (just ask any of his friends on the board of directors of any number of charities), and lived life on his own terms. I re-read his photography book forgetting the name at the moment maybe 2 guys 4 corners and it gave me some good tears reading his commentary on Fred. I'll always miss waking up to his acerbic humor and intellectual curiosity. God rest you I-Man, and I hope he also grants you peace and closure Sam. Sometimes life isn't fair, most of the time in fact. Count the blessings you do have rather than the insults from 50 years ago and you'll be happier for it.
Yes, that is me in the New York Daily News “Voicers” section. I went on hiatus this year, because I shattered my ankle this past February and didn’t get the hard copies of the newspaper for months. However, I just emailed a letter to them this afternoon. We’ll see if they print it.
That said, I bet I miss Imus more than you do! And no, I don’t think I should drop anything. Because of trauma avoidance, I didn’t get to listen to him or to say a word for 30 years. So, I’m making up for it now, but I sincerely wish he was still around to experience it.
I actually don’t think he deserved to go out as badly as he did. Sure, it was his own supreme narcissism and his sociopathic inability to empathize with anyone that did him in; but had he not been like that, I wouldn’t have had any problems with him in the first place, and I’d probably still be in radio, and this wasteland wouldn’t be here, either.
However, as you said, he was what he was. But then again, so am I …
As for his wife and kid, they have his estimated $75-million estate and never had to work a day in their lives, and it shows, so what do they care? If they cared about anything, they never would have squandered $100-or-more-million sent in for kids with cancer on themselves. But, they did that, too; so they also deserve whatever it is that is thrown their way.
The funniest thing of all, John, is you would absolutely love my book. It’s got hundreds of illustrations, including photos, memos, and all sorts of WNBC Radio memorabilia, including materials Imus told me to throw out, and I wouldn’t, and didn’t. I told his lawyer in 2018, while Imey was still alive, that no one would ever write about him the way I wrote about him in 1981. And that is the truth. As far as I know, in addition to not suing me, he also never saw my book, and he could well afford it. He even could have written it off on his taxes. So, it turns out he wasn’t really as intellectually curious as he pretended to be. If someone created a 480-page, coffee table book about me, I’d certainly want to see it. I suppose even his narcissism had its limits.
And, since it’s getting close to the Christmas holidays, it’s too bad that, once again, I’m reminded that Dickens wrote fiction, and that, no, it’s not really possible for a miserable Scrooge to wake up one morning with a different personality. And so, no matter how many times Imus told the press the same vapid nonsense about being sorry he viciously went after some young person who couldn’t defend him or herself, he was never sorry. And since he now can’t wake up at all, we’re both obligated to wake up for him. You do it in your way, and I’ll do it in mine. Have a nice holiday season, John. I’m sure we’ll be the only people to “wake up” at this location on December 27th.
God dammit I miss Mr. Imus so much. Every Thanksgiving I think of him because of the Wilfred Brimley skits. I still listen to talk radio but it will never be the same as the 40+ years I had the privilege of listening to him. I hope he and Bernie are having a great time together.
My bet is Bernie's doing "time" for the Cardinal skits.
Iman DID love the Baby Jesus and all but wondering if he made it to the Book of Life?
Hope so but one never knows, do one?
Guessing we'll all find out in the final wash eh?
Iman will still be dead five years at almost end of this month. He hung on for Deidre. He was no angel to be sure before he met her or with the final Bill O Reilly and Liz Wiehl sexting porn settlement. Deidre tries her hand in art these days.Good luck with that. Wyatt is still doing some rodeo stuff and his Dad loved him from the start and was proud of his weekend competitions. Imus and Charles McCord deserved the big bucks and acclaim for revolutionizing morning drive time radio. I miss some of that but he changed for the worse as he aged and got sicker. Kind of like Joe Biden. I was never a Trump supporter but that is where Donald Trump learned to be a media star,with phone chats on Imus in the Morning. oy!
Remembering.....Don Imus
Writing about the passing of Don Imus brings with it the risk of those who only know of his rebirth as a political commentator in his later years. Those of a certain age however remember the rise of his pre-political days as a defining music radio personality upon whom virtually the entire station revolved around at 66 WNBC during both of his stays there in the '70's and '80's.
As a teen with a keen interest in radio to such an extent I would enter the field for a career of my own lasting nearly 50 years now, Imus was a giant in the largest of all the large markets, New York City. His arrival there late in 1971 was influential enough to pull me away from WABC, at least in the morning when he was on.
Having had no exposure at the time to those in the radio stratosphere like WOR's, 'Bob & Ray' that had done comedy on the radio longer than most listeners could recall, Imus was a bold departure from time and temp Top 40 DJ's who spent most of their time talking up song intros and doing little else. The notion of entertaining an audience with pre-recorded comedy bits between the records was completely foreign to a wannabee kid DJ and an eye-opening if not ear-opening experience for me.
When I was 15 years old, even before I could drive, I remember riding my bicycle to Roosevelt Field Mall to see Imus do an appearance at a record store. There, he begrudgingly gave me his autograph. And there before one of my radio idols, I could never have imagined in my wildest dreams that a mere decade later I would be working with him on the air at WNNNNNNNNBC in the '80's.
With an age difference of nearly 20 years between us, Imus was a gruff old guy whose reputation of being difficult to get along with was well deserved. Yet something about his demeanor suggested deep down inside, he had a heart of gold. He always seemed to take a liking to me and took me under his wing. Perhaps a young guy early in his career such as me reminded him of his early days and his own radio heroes, Robert W. Morgan and the Real Don Steele at 93 KHJ in Los Angeles.
Whatever the reason, I got along with him well, though I often would not see him for long periods of time as his reputation for showing up late for his show was legendary. In an era before most people had cell phones, he had one the size of a brick and would often call in his breaks from his limo.
Once as I was leaving 30 Rock early one morning after pulling an overnight show, I saw him get out of his limo and rode up in the elevator with him, telling him about specific parts of his novel, 'God's Other Son' I had enjoyed. Minutes later on the way home, I heard Imus talking about me on the air with newsguy, Charles McCord, saying, 'I just saw Lee Chambers in the elevator. That guy is so White he doesn't even leave his own shadow!'
In the studio we had a one sheet that included bullet points about his show that morning or what was coming up tomorrow we could promote. Once, I said something on the air like, 'Imus isn't here right now. But if he were, I know he'd have something terribly important to say like (and then did my best Imus impersonation), 'Oh baby, baby, Baaaaaaaby'.
Naturally, he was listening, called me on the hotline minutes later and said, 'Put me on the air'. What followed was one of the funniest put downs I had ever heard in my life to which I could only reply, 'You gonna show up on time tomorrow, Don?'.
With the sale of WNBC, my association with Imus came to an end. Or so I thought. Many years later, a friend (special thanks to Tim Ivers) forwarded a link to me. Imus had been the guest on the syndicated Glenn Beck show (ironically, I had worked with Glenn at WPGC in DC many years before). Glenn asked Imus if he remembered where they had met (he of course did not). It happened to be while I was on the air at WNBC when Glenn visited me. When Imus asked him what was the name of the guy on the air that night, this was the unexpected reaction from the I-Man:
http://www.tgpdl.com/amandfmmorningside.com/imus_likes_me.mp3
Imagine that! I might be the only person Imus actually liked! To hear him remember me so many years after the fact was the shock of my career. But it lent credence to my theory he really was a curmudgeon with a golden heart.
To be sure, Imus had his share of controversies, not the least of which was his ill-conceived remarks on the Rutgers Women's basketball team. Yet his charitable works with the Imus Ranch Foundation (http://www.imus.com/) and other charitable causes revealed a softer side of him that became increasingly more visible in his later years.
For those who only know of his work doing political talk, I suggest a quick search of the Internet where countless examples of his comedy stylings at WNBC (and earlier at WGAR in Cleveland) abound (try here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMKP_FMklrbWqbSXv0eA0PpX45EiaCoEK).
I can honestly say that with Dan Ingram at WABC being the only exception, (read my remembrances of Dan here: https://www.facebook.com/largelee/posts/10214996215711183) Don Imus was unquestionably the greatest influencing factor in my own radio career. There is no question those two incomparable legends were the very reason for my own career decision eons ago.
Love him or hate him, Don Imus was one of a kind. And one of the all time best. Now, he has joined his alter-ego, the Right Reverend Dr. Billy Sol Hargus of the First Church of the Gooey Death and Discount House of Worship in Del Rio, Texas at that great tabernacle in the sky from whence he shall broadcast into the ether forevermore, and then some. (SFX: Qwak-Qwak). Rest in Peace, Don. Now it's time to meet God's true Son.......
Dear Deidre, Wyatt, and Zach,
I was transferring pictures on WeTransfer, and there was a picture of Mr. Imus sitting on a couch! I hope that they didn't steal one of his pictures! My hope is that they used one of the pictures that one of the three of you took of him, with your permission. Today is Dr. Martin Luther King Day. I always think of Mr. Imus, and have Alexa play the whole "I Have A Dream" speech. You've also been on my mind because I've been watching "Jimmy Carter, Rock and Roll President". I would have loved to hear the stories that Mr. Imus might have known about him, especially when I saw the part with Hunter Thompson and that back story. There is so much about gospel music, the Rock and Roll scene, Martin Luther King senior, etc. So much! I can't imagine how much y'all miss Mr Imus. Hopefully, family hugs bring him closer. Take care. Love, Renee
Glad you died you racist piece of shit
hope you enjoy hell