Heywood Hale Broun

Heywood Hale Broun (March 10, 1918 – September 5, 2001) was an American actor, author, sportswriter, and broadcaster born and raised in New York City. He was the son of newspaper columnist Heywood Broun and writer and activist Ruth Hale. Broun attended Hessian Hills School and other private institutions before enrolling at Swarthmore College near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He married Jane Lloyd Jones, and the couple had one son, Heywood Orren Broun, known as Hob, a novelist who died before his parents in 1987.

Broun began his professional life in journalism, joining the staff of the New York tabloid PM as a sportswriter in 1940. His career was interrupted by World War II, during which he served in the United States Army field artillery. After the war he returned to PM and continued writing for its successor publication, the New York Star, until that paper ceased operations in 1949.

His Broadway career spanned from 1949 to 1967, encompassing thirteen productions. Among his verified credits are Take Her, She's Mine, Xmas in Las Vegas, The Small Hours, Little Murders, My Mother, My Father and Me, Send Me No Flowers, and Bells Are Ringing. He also contributed as a book writer to Broadway productions during this period.

In 1966, CBS hired Broun as a color commentator for the Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing, where he worked alongside Jack Whitaker. His association with the network extended across two decades and covered a broad range of sporting events. Working with longtime producer E. S. "Bud" Lamoreaux, Broun became a regular presence on the Saturday edition of the CBS Evening News with Roger Mudd from its inaugural broadcast in January 1966. His five-minute Saturday night features ranged from major sporting milestones — including Super Bowls I and III, bouts involving Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, and performances by athletes such as Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Bill Russell, Bob Cousy, Wilt Chamberlain, Jack Nicklaus, and the thoroughbreds Secretariat and Ruffian — to smaller, offbeat subjects such as the national marbles championship in Wildwood, New Jersey, the national left-handed golfers championship in Galesburg, Illinois, and a profile of a rodeo clown in Cheyenne, Wyoming. He also reported from the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, where he covered the Black Power salute by sprinters John Carlos and Tommy Smith, and from the 1972 Munich Olympics, where he reported on the terrorist attack on the Israeli wrestling team. Among his more unusual assignments, Broun rode with British racing driver Stirling Moss, served as coxswain for the Harvard crew ahead of its annual race against Yale on the Thames River in New London, Connecticut, and was knocked down by a wild horse at an American Indian rodeo in Oregon.

In film, Broun appeared in The Odd Couple (1968), playing himself as a sportswriter at a New York Mets game, as well as in For Pete's Sake (1974) and HouseSitter (1992). He also had a cameo as himself in Some Kind of a Nut (1969). On television, he was cast in two episodes of Robert Montgomery Presents in 1952 and 1957, appeared in three episodes of The Phil Silvers Show between 1955 and 1957, and took on five different character roles in the NBC sitcom Car 54, Where Are You? in 1962 and 1963. He appeared twice on The Patty Duke Show and played Charles Kane in a 1965 episode of the CBS legal drama The Defenders.

Broun hosted The Literary Guild's First Edition, a nationally syndicated radio program devoted to authors and books produced by Cinema Sound Ltd. beginning in 1973. A subsequent version of the program, titled Broun on Books, was sponsored by Mobil and produced more than 200 episodes. Guests included Kurt Vonnegut, Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, Günter Grass, Pete Seeger, and Joyce Maynard, among others.

He published three books: A Studied Madness (1965), Tumultuous Merriment (1979), and Whose Little Boy Are You?: A Memoir of the Broun Family (1983). In 2002, ESPN Classic debuted Woodie's World, a 30-minute series devoted to Broun's CBS reporting, featuring four stories per episode with updated contextual information. The series ran for 36 episodes through 2005 and returned in reruns on ESPN Classic beginning in 2009. Broun died on September 5, 2001, in Kingston, New York.