John Roland, longtime Ch. 5 anchor, dead at 81

 John Roland, the longtime WNYW/5 anchor whose tenure at the anchor desk was surpassed only by WNBC/4's Chuck Scarborough in New York TV news, has died. Ch. 5 on Sunday reported that his death was caused by complications from a stroke. Roland was 81.

A giant of New York TV news back at a time when local anchors like Roger Grimsby, Scarborough, Sue Simmons and Jim Jensen actually were considered "giants," Roland joined Ch. 5 in 1969 and — other than a brief run as a reporter — was at the anchor desk over the next 35 years, until he retired in 2004. Ch. 5's "The 10 O'clock News," was the top-rated newscast at that hour over most of that span.

With a calming on-screen presence, and brisk, straight-ahead style, Roland possibly only once belied that image, on the Jan. 19, 1988 edition, when got in a sharp exchange with Joyce Brown and her attorney.

Brown, who had been sent to Bellevue Hospital the year before as part of an expanded program by the Koch administration to force care on the homeless, told Roland her civil rights had been violated. But talking over her, he said he'd often witnessed her erratic behavior on the street outside the studio, while insisting the Koch program had saved her.

 The testy exchange earned him a week suspension and Brown widespread support. She died in 2005. 

Decade after decade, Roland was the face of Ch. 5, along with Bill McCreary, Cora-Ann Mihalik, and Rosanna Scotto, who anchored alongside him from 1994 until 2001.

Scotto, the veteran co-host of "Good Day New York" who joined the station in 1986, called Roland "a great mentor and always willing to teach. He was also a stickler about writing, and whenever we were sitting next to one another he'd say 'you need to fix that script! You can't go on the air with that!'" 

"But we were also good friends and many times we'd go out to Elaine's [the 2nd Ave. celebrity and media watering hole that closed in 2011] and dissect the show, then have a good time. He had a wicked sense of humor." 

Marvin Scott, the WPIX/11 anchor and newsman who spent a decade working with Roland at Ch. 5, said Monday that "he had a reasonable, reassured, calming voice, and he set the style for many of us who are still in the business."

 In an interview with Newsday not long after retiring, Roland explained his own idea of what anchors could do — and often did — during the 1970s, when local TV news was particularly dominant: They "crashed through the TV set into that living room every night and sat right down next to you and took hold of your shoulder and held onto you for the whole program." 

But such dominance waned through the '80s, into the '90s, as those "giants'' — Roland included — became faces in a crowded TV landscape.

A Pittsburgh, Pa. native, Roland went to California State University at Long Beach, then after graduation, worked briefly for NBC News. Not long after joining LA-based KTTV/11 — like Ch. 5, then owned by Metromedia — the WNEW (now WNYW) news director, Ted Kavanau hired him.

Kavanau recalled Monday that he first deployed his new hire as a reporter — "a very good one" — then enlisted him a part of a scheme to undercut the station's incumbent anchor, Bill Jorgensen. 

"I was always at war with Jorgensen, who was very talented but very difficult," said Kavanau who later joined CNN as its founding producer. He demoted Jorgensen as part of a four-man anchor team, which included Roland and McCreary (who died in 2021). When Jorgensen left for Ch. 11 in 1979, Roland and McCreary were co-anchors, then Roland later became solo. 

In her online appreciation of Roland, Scotto said that he "was known for his frank delivery and his compassion for New Yorkers who were living through the violent times in the city in the 1970s. [But] every now and then, he himself would make the news."

Indeed, on May 12, 1983, this was the UPI dispatch: "John Roland of WNEW, was dining at the Racing Club, at 206 East 67th Street, and confronted [three] men as they tried to rob patrons there at 12:15 a.m. He wrestled one man, took his gun and shot him in the right thigh, the police said. The two other men jumped on Mr. Roland, who grabbed the barrel of one of their guns. The third man then hit him over the head with a pistol. Mr. Roland was taken to Lenox Hill Hospital, where it took 36 stitches to close the wound." The report added that the three men were quickly apprehended. 

In 2002, Roland also had a life-threatening attack of diverticulitis while on the air. 

On Monday, Scotto recalled "one epic night" at Elaine's when she and Roland were at a table with Sen. Al D'Amato and David Chase, creator of the then-hottest show on TV, "The Sopranos," debating "whether Dr. Melfi [Lorraine Bracco] should have an affair with Tony [James Gandolfini]. D'Amato said she should, and we were like 'No! They cannot.'" Chase, she said, agreed, and the rest is a small piece of TV history. 

Scott, who maintained a 50-year friendship with Roland, said that "he was enjoying retirement in Aventura [to the north of Miami] and had good reason to be. He had a wonderful wife, Zayda," and through her "finally found something that he had always wanted, a family."