Captain Tony Henkins

Major Career Change.

Tony Henkins  1969 - 2001
For me, it all started in August of 1969. I was attending classes in the San
Fernando valley and had the good fortune of being introduced to Jack Fox who
in turn introduced me to Betty Penny. I started as a “film runner” and worked
on the  assignment desk and was supervised by a wonderful man named Bob Moyse.
Bob was actually a sound man and following a heart attack, was moved inside
at the bequest of Jack and became the Operations Manager. The assignment desk
was then manned by Erik Shuleman (a balding gent who always wore a vest and
placed his glasses on his forehead, Frank Elmquest who usually began his early
morning duties with a little “eye-opener/pick-me up”. Also complimenting the
desk were Dick Wilburn, Steve Leoper, Dick Gaither, Bob Long,  Georges Fisher
and Jeff Wald. The film runner staff was Bob Burgess, Guy Johnson (Director Jim
Johnson’s son) Dee Derazio, Paul Fromm, Bob Konisky, Vance Scott and  Steve
Cain ( who was arrested in the 1970 Cal State Northridge riots after being
mistaken as an activist).
On my first week, I was sent to pickup footage shot at the Sharon Tate murder
scene. The reporter assigned to cover that story, Carl George (aka. Carl
Crime) was a great guy with a warm personality and wonderful sense of humor. 
Around that same time I was sent to a golf course somewhere around LAX to pickup
film (Lennon sisters father murder) from either Chuck Stokes or Bill Wilde and
got terribly lost returning to the station. We didn’t have radios in the
cars back then (unless you could call the 20 pound ‘portable’ which most
times didn’t work) and when I returned, found out the camera crew (who had to
strike their equipment and walk a considerable distance) had beat me back to the
station! No one yelled and my error in judgment was quickly brushed under the
carpet and away from view. It was notable back then, that during the “hippy
days” lots of people were smoking grass and it wasn’t an unusual day to  smell
that heady cannabis aroma wafting from somewhere deep in the bowels of the
building, most notable from the processing lab downstairs. Ken Ponnessa, Wayne
Murphy and Warren Smith were our unsung heroes ‘down below’.
I remember working with Sahl Halpert, Jim Brown, Ruth Taylor, Howard and Dan
Gingold, Bob Dunn and the beautiful weekend anchor (who I had a most obvious
crush on) Sussane Childs. Another memorable encounter was with the always 
unpredictable Bill Stout. I had walked into the restroom one day and while minding
my own business,  Bill waltzes up to the next urinal, looks over and said “ya
know Henkins, we’re the only  two f***ers in this building who know what the
hell their doing”! That got me laughing so hard it was difficult to think of
anything else for the rest of the day. I thought of those words many times in
the following three decades with Channel Two.
One of the more memorable assignments was the 1970 riots in Isle Vista. I was
held-up with the camera crew for I believe 2-3 days and watched as the
students took complete control of that little Santa Barbara university town. I was
standing next to the student who threw the flare into the Bank of  America,
experienced the effects of tear gas and marched with the students as they spent
the day sitting on the airport runway protesting the war. The other most
memorable event was the SLA shootout. I was with Bill Diez for two days, running him
from place to place, looking for Patty Hurst when we screamed into the
intersection at 53th and Compton, one block from gunfire and pandemonium. Rich
Brito and Bill Conroy had started laying camera cable and amid the tear gas and
stray bullets managed to get Diez and eventually Bob Simmons on the air.
Remember the shotgun shell police chief Davis presented to all of us as keepsakes of
the event? Other impressions.....
Film runner, Leland Jessop, accidentally running a gray KNXT Dodge Dart into
the nose wheel of a parked Boeing 727 at LAX. The wonderful days of picking up
Jerry Dumphy’s blue Rolls Royce and taking it to the car wash.... the long
way.
Sam Greenwald’s glowing personality and his comment regarding being teamed up
with Herb Tice... “I hate working with old people”!. Great times.........