Well-known KDKA anchor dies of cancer
As a KDKA-TV news anchor, and as the daughter of local TV news legend Bill Burns, Patti Burns was one of Pittsburgh's most recognized names for 25 years.
Long after she left KDKA's studios in 1997 and retired from broadcasting, people she didn't know would stop and talk to her like she was their old friend, which she kind of was.
Patti Burns, the pretty half of the TV news team known fondly in KD Country as "Patti and Daddy," was only 49 when she died Wednesday in Shadyside after a seven-month fight with cancer.
Burns may have been a local media star, but she never took herself or her local fame too seriously - even if she had been the Miss Smiling Irish Eyes of a St. Patrick's Day parade several decades ago.
Not long ago, in the produce section of the Shadyside Giant Eagle, a woman came up to her and said, "Hey, didn't you used to be Patti Burns?"
Burns always got a big kick out of that encounter. She liked to tell her friends about it.
Her former colleagues and friends remembered Burns fondly for the smart, warm and funny private person she was - and for the generous public person she became.
"She was really special," said KDKA reporter Mary Robb Jackson. "People who didn't know her didn't have an understanding for how complex she was - and how funny, and how beautiful she was, and how much she did for people.
"People never understood how much she did for the School for Blind Children and so many other charities that she never wanted any acknowledgement for. She was a good egg. She really was."
Former Pittsburgh Mayor Sophie Masloff had a personal and professional relationship with Burns dating back to when Burns was a child. Masloff, who spoke and wrote to Burns often during her illness, said, "Everybody loved Patti.
"She was a very compassionate woman. She was very much interested in Pittsburgh. She contributed a lot of time to charity - the School for the Blind, the Catholic Youth Organization. That's the way she will be remembered."
In April, a malignant tumor was found above Burns' collarbone and she underwent a combination of radiation treatment and chemotherapy. In May, she married her longtime companion, attorney Charles C. Cohen.
Burns had been under hospice care at her home, where she died yesterday afternoon.
"She had been fighting the cancer and had stayed very optimistic," said KDKA-TV investigative reporter Andy Sheehan, her friend and former colleague. He said he last saw her about a month ago.
"She had a great attitude about it and never lost her sense of humor. She wanted to keep it light and laugh and tell jokes."
When he first started at KDKA in 1992, Sheehan said, he had a problem with being nervous on camera. Burns quickly nicknamed him "Bambi," but took him under her wing and was very supportive. She also had fun with Sheehan at the anchor desk.
"As we were about to go on camera," Sheehan said, she'd say things like, 'Don't worry, Andy, only 800,000 people are watching.'"
Sheehan said Burns was a very private, guarded person. "She was very intelligent, extremely well read and an accomplished, street-wise journalist. And she was a very warm and sensitive person."
Sal Sirabella, Mayor Tom Murphy's deputy mayor, first met Burns long ago - in grade school at Our Lady of Grace in Scott Township. He last saw her at a public event early this summer.
"What I remember best were her pigtails," Sirabella said. "The boys used to pull her pigtails on the playground. She had a big smile and freckles and was a fast runner."
Burns, who grew up in Mt. Lebanon, was a Pittsburgh resident virtually her entire life. In 1974, after working two years in Dallas as a TV news reporter, she moved to KDKA as a street reporter.
In 1976, she joined her father, Bill Burns, as co-anchor on KDKA's noon news. Known locally as "Patti and Daddy," the duo was written up in People magazine. They became nationally famous as the country's first father-daughter news anchor team.
Veteran KDKA-TV reporter Ralph Iannotti worked with Patti Burns for two decades. "If there was one word that describes her," he said, "it is class, whether it was on the air or off. She was the consummate professional."
Burns' father was one of Pittsburgh's pioneer news men and a local TV legend. His noon news program was the highest-rated local newscast in the country. Bill Burns worked for KDKA for 36 years, retired in 1989 and died in September 1997.
Patti Burns ended her 22-year career with KDKA in January 1997 after a contract dispute with management that would have drastically reduced her salary and on-air presence.
After her last day, she told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, "I've been in that newsroom all my life. I feel I grew up at KDKA."
Since leaving KDKA, Burns ran Burns Communications, a media training and production company she founded, whose clients included PNC Bank, Mercy Hospital and Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children. She also worked as a contributing editor for "On Q," WQED's evening magazine show.
Burns is survived by her husband, Charles C. Cohen of Pittsburgh; her mother, Jeanne Burns of Naples, Fla., and her brother, Michael W. Burns of Pittsburgh. A memorial service will be held at 5:30 p.m. Sunday at The Carnegie, 4400 Forbes Ave., Oakland.
