Art Bell dies at 72
https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/local-nev...ies-at-72/
Longtime late-night radio host Art Bell, best known for his unsettling conspiracy theories, died Friday at his Pahrump home. He was 72.
Bell was awake when most of the country was asleep, sharing his fascination with the unexplained — Bigfoot, UFOs, alien abductions and crop circles — on his nighttime paranormal-themed show, “Coast to Coast AM.” He was his own producer, engineer and host.
Coast to Coast was syndicated nationwide on about 500 stations across the United States and Canada in the 1990s before he left the nightly show in 2002. He broadcast the show from Pahrump’s KNYE 95.1 FM, a station he founded.
Lorraine Rotundo Steele, who had been listening to Bell for more than 21 years, said Saturday that she was stunned by the news of her favorite radio host’s death. The 60-year-old Canadian resident started tuning in to Bell’s show after her dad died.
“Art taught me how to keep an open mind,” Rotundo Steele said. “At a very dark time in my life, he kept me sane. Art’s fascination with life after death was what I needed after losing my father.”
Bell retired several times in his career, which included a short-lived show on SiriusXM satellite radio in 2013.
Returning to terrestrial radio afterward was not a difficult decision, he told the Pahrump Valley Times in August 2013.
“That’s easy, because I love it,” he said at the time. “It’s my life, and that’s all I have ever done. I went through a lot of family problems, so that interrupted things, and I was overseas for four years, and that certainly interrupted things. I went back into radio because I love it.”
Bell was inducted into the Nevada Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame in 2006 and into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2008.
For a time, he also held the Guinness world record for a solo broadcast marathon, logging in more than 115 hours of airtime while working as a DJ in Okinawa, Japan.
Bell was born in Jacksonville, North Carolina, on June 17, 1945. The only child in a military family, he moved around a lot as a kid.
He later served in the the U.S. Air Force as a medic during the Vietnam War, but his love for radio was always there. According to the Coast to Coast AM website, he was an FCC licensed radio technician at age 13, and while in the Air Force, he created an on-base pirate radio station.
But it wasn’t until the mid-1980s that talk radio captivated Bell when he joined KDWN-AM in Las Vegas. There, he mastered his famous blend of contemperary and unsettling.
“I want to bring topics on radio you otherwise might not here,” Bell, then 50, told the Pahrump Valley Times in January 1996.
His cause of death has not yet been determined. Bell’s autopsy is scheduled for later this week, according to the Nye County Sheriff’s Office.
https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/local-nev...ies-at-72/
Longtime late-night radio host Art Bell, best known for his unsettling conspiracy theories, died Friday at his Pahrump home. He was 72.
Bell was awake when most of the country was asleep, sharing his fascination with the unexplained — Bigfoot, UFOs, alien abductions and crop circles — on his nighttime paranormal-themed show, “Coast to Coast AM.” He was his own producer, engineer and host.
Coast to Coast was syndicated nationwide on about 500 stations across the United States and Canada in the 1990s before he left the nightly show in 2002. He broadcast the show from Pahrump’s KNYE 95.1 FM, a station he founded.
Lorraine Rotundo Steele, who had been listening to Bell for more than 21 years, said Saturday that she was stunned by the news of her favorite radio host’s death. The 60-year-old Canadian resident started tuning in to Bell’s show after her dad died.
“Art taught me how to keep an open mind,” Rotundo Steele said. “At a very dark time in my life, he kept me sane. Art’s fascination with life after death was what I needed after losing my father.”
Bell retired several times in his career, which included a short-lived show on SiriusXM satellite radio in 2013.
Returning to terrestrial radio afterward was not a difficult decision, he told the Pahrump Valley Times in August 2013.
“That’s easy, because I love it,” he said at the time. “It’s my life, and that’s all I have ever done. I went through a lot of family problems, so that interrupted things, and I was overseas for four years, and that certainly interrupted things. I went back into radio because I love it.”
Bell was inducted into the Nevada Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame in 2006 and into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2008.
For a time, he also held the Guinness world record for a solo broadcast marathon, logging in more than 115 hours of airtime while working as a DJ in Okinawa, Japan.
Bell was born in Jacksonville, North Carolina, on June 17, 1945. The only child in a military family, he moved around a lot as a kid.
He later served in the the U.S. Air Force as a medic during the Vietnam War, but his love for radio was always there. According to the Coast to Coast AM website, he was an FCC licensed radio technician at age 13, and while in the Air Force, he created an on-base pirate radio station.
But it wasn’t until the mid-1980s that talk radio captivated Bell when he joined KDWN-AM in Las Vegas. There, he mastered his famous blend of contemperary and unsettling.
“I want to bring topics on radio you otherwise might not here,” Bell, then 50, told the Pahrump Valley Times in January 1996.
His cause of death has not yet been determined. Bell’s autopsy is scheduled for later this week, according to the Nye County Sheriff’s Office.
