Don Imus

John Donald Imus Jr. (July 23, 1940 – December 27, 2019), also known as Imus, was an American radio personality, television show host, recording artist, and author.

He had a younger brother, Fred Imus (1942–2011).

Imus disliked school, moving "from one hideous private school to another" and described himself as a "horrible adolescent".

When he was 15, his parents divorced.

His father died when Imus was 20.

In 1957, while living in Prescott, Arizona, Imus dropped out of high school and joined the United States Marine Corps at Base Camp Pendleton where he was stationed in an artillery unit before transferring to the Drum and Bugle Corps.

He left the Marines with an honorable discharge, and secured work as a window dresser in San Bernardino, before he was fired for performing strip teases on the mannequins for passersby.

Imus then moved to Hollywood with his brother in an attempt to find success as musicians and songwriters, but they struggled to get radio DJs to play their songs on the air.

This left Imus homeless, resorting to sleeping in a laundry and hitchhiking back to Arizona.

After dropping out of the University of the Pacific, Imus worked as a brakeman on the Southern Pacific Railroad and in a uranium mine in Arizona.

He suffered a mining accident that broke both of his legs.

One of his earliest on-air jokes involved promoting the 1958 Bobby Darin single Queen of the Hop as "a WGAR exclusive" and talking over it in the mode of a Top 40 deejay.

Imus also became infamous for his series of prank calls, even dialing Ohio Attorney General William J. Brown's publicly listed phone number and inviting him to "join the swinging world of show biz".

He once contacted an Ohio Bell phone operator to ask if she was married and if "you mess around", prompting the phone company's lawyers to contact the station.

In 1966, Imus enrolled at the Don Martin School of Radio and Television Arts and Sciences, in Hollywood, after seeing a newspaper advertisement; he was thrown out for being "uncooperative", but studied enough to obtain a broadcasting license from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Upon winning a talent contest at Johnny Otis's night club, he worked as a singer-songwriter, with Otis serving as his manager.

After hearing a morning radio DJ at KUTY, in Palmdale, California, Imus went to the station and successfully persuaded the owner to hire him.

Imus began his first radio job at KUTY in Palmdale, California in 1968.

Three years later, he landed the morning broadcast position at WNBC in New York City.

He signed on the air on June 2, 1968.

While at KUTY, Imus debuted his on-air character Billy Sol Hargis, a radio evangelist inspired by and named for preacher Billy James Hargis and businessman Billie Sol Estes.

Imus was an instant success at the station; in two months, he had become number one in ratings for his time slot, and earned a Billboard Award for Air Personality of the Year in a medium-sized market.

Imus then had a brief tenure at KJOY in Stockton, California, from which he was fired due to an incident that some sources attributed to his Eldridge Cleaver look-a-like contest in which the winner would be incarcerated for a year.

Other sources suggest the firing was because of his saying "hell" and multiple raunchy jokes on-air.

Imus moved to KXOA in Sacramento, California, whose management team—including general manager Jack G. Thayer and program director John Lund—both left for identical positions at Cleveland station WGAR and took Imus with them.

Thayer and Lund were hired by WGAR to revamp the station's old-line middle of the road (MOR) format, and had Imus as the centerpiece for their new adult contemporary format that had been developed at KXOA.

Imus's tenure at WGAR lasted for less than 15 months but immediately showed success.

The October/November 1970 Arbitron ratings listed Imus at number one in the 18–49 demo, ahead of WKYC's Jim Runyon and WJW's Ed Fisher; WGAR as a whole topped both the 25–34 and 25–49 demos.

Imus was honored by Billboard as the number one radio personality for 1971, an honor he shared with KMPC's Gary Owens.

Imus in the Morning was controversial and satirical, with Imus's existing characters and comedy skits garnering immediate attention.

He was fired from WNBC in 1977, worked for a year at WHK in Cleveland, and was rehired by WNBC in 1979.

He remained at WNBC until it left the air in 1988, at which time his show moved to WFAN, which took over WNBC's former frequency of 660 kHz.

Howard Stern's success with national syndication led Imus in the Morning to adopt the same model in 1993.

Imus was labeled a "shock jock" in his later career.

He was fired by CBS Radio in April 2007 after describing the Rutgers University women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hos".

His radio show Imus in the Morning was aired on various stations and digital platforms nationwide until 2018.

In January 2018, Cumulus Media told Imus that the company was going to stop paying him, and his final show aired on March 29, 2018.

He died the following year of complications from lung disease.

Imus was born in Riverside, California, to a wealthy family, the son of John Donald Imus Sr. and Frances E. Imus ( Moore) who ran a 35000 acre ranch named The Willows near Kingman, Arizona.

Imus claimed at one time to practice Judaism then later recanted, calling himself, "spiritual."