Veteran broadcaster and former KHOU news anchor John Hambrick died in Round Rock after a year-long battle with lung cancer. He was 73.
A Conroe native, Hambrick launched his long television career in the Dallas area during the early 1960s before making a name for himself on the evening news in Cleveland. The charismatic anchor soon found himself landing major market stints in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York, where he'd win his first of several Emmy awards.
The son of an Humble Oil worker, Hambrick grew up around the oil fields of east Texas and Louisiana.
"He approached anchoring the news and writing copy as a creative process."
His early interests in performing lead him to study theater in the late '50s at the University of Texas at Austin, a path he quickly abandoned for Hollywood and a series of small television roles.
Throughout his life, Hambrick fostered his creative side alongside journalistic pursuits — whether it was recording rock and country songs in Nashville or taking bit parts on shows like Friday Night Lights.
In 2002, he produced a documentary with his son and fellow TV news anchor Jack about a group of pioneering African-American artists in Florida. In 2010, he partnered with former news colleague on a screenplay for an action film based on actual events from the Civil War.
"My dad was a creative person, an artist," Jack Hambrick tells WEWS in Cleveland. "He approached anchoring the news and writing copy as a creative process. Whether it was writing scripts, anchoring the news or recording a country album, it was all about creativity with him."
John Hambrick will be buried in Lone Oak, just east of Dallas.
One time KHOU anchor John Hambirck — shown here at WEWS in Cleveland — died Tuesday at 73.
