Tony Zappone

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Tony Zappone (born Anthony N. Zappone, October 9, 1947 in Tampa, Florida) began his career in journalism at age 14 as a freelance photographer with The Tampa Tribune, paid at the rate of three dollars per published news photo.

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[edit] Photographed JFK days before assassination

In 1963, he photographed President John F. Kennedy during a presidential visit to Tampa just four days before Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Nine months later, he presented the slain President's brother, U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, with pictures he had taken that day which were accepted for public display at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston. The attorney general seemed stunned when he viewed one of Zappone's photos showing his brother's limousine returning to Air Force One at MacDill Air Force Base in the final minutes of his Tampa visit without Secret Service agents standing at its rear as had been routine during the entire Kennedy presidency. At that time, the Kennedy presidential library was still in the planning stages so the attorney general ensured the photographs would be held with other exhibits and materials until it was constructed.

Several of the photos Zappone took that day showing the last time Secret Service agents were posted at the rear of the presidential limousine were entered as exhibits during The Warren Commission's investigation into the Kennedy Assassination and are still used today in Secret Service training. Kennedy's Tampa visit was also remarkable in that he was exposed to the public for the second longest period of time of any appearance during his entire Presidency, the longest being his visit to Berlin, Germany five months earlier.

Ironically, Zappone took pictures of citizen Richard M. Nixon in October of the following year while Nixon was on a campaign swing for Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater in St. Petersburg. Nixon had lost the presidential race to Kennedy only four years earlier. While Nixon was speaking to a crowd from the bandshell at Williams Park in the downtown area, Zappone gave his still camera to WTVT newsman Steve Wilson and asked him to take a photo while he stood next to Nixon on the stage. He acted as if he was making light adjustments on Wilson's camera as Nixon spoke just feet away.

[edit] Chimp cited for speeding on expressway

Early in 1964, Zappone was monitoring local police frequencies and overheard a Florida Highway Patrolman requesting a sergeant after he pulled over a chimpanzee driving a compact convertible for speeding on Interstate 4 just east of Tampa. He rushed to grab a ride with another newsman and arrived in time to photograph the lawman issuing the chimp a citation for speeding and having no driver's license. The animal's owner, carnival operator Bob Slover, had limited control of the vehicle from the passenger's seat. The photo made the front page of almost every major newspaper in the nation.

Subsequently, charges against "Cappy" the chimp were dropped after a Hillsborough County judge ruled no infraction had occurred because there was no requirement in Florida law that chimpanzees have licenses to drive. The following year the State Legislature passed a law banning all creatures other than humans from driving on State and Federal highways within Florida. Meanwhile, Zappone was commissioned by NBC Productions, Inc. to shoot film footage of Cappy driving around the Tampa area for later use on that network's The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. During the shoot, he was injured when the animal bit unrelentingly into his right hand during a stop at a downtown Tampa intersection and refused to let go until the light turned green 30 seconds later.

It was during this period that Zappone formed a lifetime friendship with Karl Slover, who at age 19 had played a munchkin in the movie classic Wizard of Oz. Slover was employed by Southern Amusement Enterprises, the same traveling circus for which Cappy performed his vehicle-driving antics and assisted in training the chimp. Karl had been adopted by Bob Slover, who owned the circus.

[edit] Youngest to cover Democratic Convention

At age 16, Zappone was the youngest credentialed photographer to cover the 1964 Democratic National Convention at the original Atlantic City Convention Center (now Boardwalk Hall), having been granted an "All Areas" pass. Each evening he would take his film to the main Atlantic City post office and express mail it to newspapers in Tampa. During the convention, he was interviewed before a nationwide television audience by NBC News Correspondents John Chancellor and Frank McGee.

At the convention, he once again met Robert Kennedy and watched with others as the attorney general and brother of President Kennedy stood at the podium in silence for 22 minutes before a crowd of roaring delegates giving an emotional tribute to what might have been. Kennedy remembered the young Zappone, who had visited him at his Washington office only a week earlier.

[edit] Broadcasting career

Early in his career he photographed news events for the Associated Press and United Press International. At that time, the wire services paid stringers a whopping five dollars per picture transmitted to members across the nation. His spot news and feature pictures submitted for use by the Tampa morning and afternoon papers were often picked up by the services. It was not unusual for his better photos to appear on the front pages of dozens of big-city newspapers on the same day.

At age 17, after a brief stint as junior news hound for Tampa's then CBS affiliate WTVT-TV using a borrowed, spring-wound, World War II era Bell and Howell 16mm camera, he began shooting news film for Tampa television station WFLA-TV. At that time (1965), the going rate paid to stringers by TV news departments was fifty cents per foot of film used on a newscast. The average 30-second story used 18 feet of film.

After 12 years at WFLA-TV, an NBC affiliate, he would return to WTVT-TV as a news correspondent.

On April 4, 1966, he was dismissed from college classes because the electricity went out suddenly. Learning from his car radio that a devastating tornado had ripped through the Carrollwood section of North Tampa minutes earlier, Zappone rushed to the scene and became the first newsman with photos and news film of the extensive damage. His exposed 16mm motion picture film was put on a plane bound for New York City, where it was processed at the NBC News headquarters. The dramatic images of crumbled homes, uprooted trees, mangled cars and other storm aftermath were broadcast that evening on NBC's Huntley-Brinkley Report, the highest-rated evening news program of that time. He was also the first to have still pictures of the tragedy transmitted over the AP and UPI wire services, less than an hour after they were taken.

[edit] NBC Radio's weekend Monitor

During the late 60's and early 70's, Zappone (while in his early 20's) was a frequent contributor to NBC Radio's weekend Monitor program. Once he gained the confidence of the show's producers, the network began calling on him to create and submit feature stories for the legendary weekend radio showcase and to cover central Florida hard news stories for Monitor's "News on the Hour." He also submitted stories from the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe while stationed there in the military, 1970-71. On several occasions, Zappone interviewed then British Prime Minister Edward Heath for the weekend show. Monitor's last program was broadcast January 26, 1975 and the NBC Radio Network has since been dissolved.

[edit] Campus newspaper unfolds

During summer vacations from his studies in political science and mass communication at The University of South Florida Zappone worked as a reporter/photographer with The Philadelphia Bulletin. He was also an intern in the news department at WCAU-TV, Philadelphia, working alongside television news legend John Facenda. He was a founding staff member (photographer and reporter) of The Oracle, the groundbreaking University of South Florida campus newspaper which printed its first issue September 6, 1966. In its first year, the publication won two National Pacemaker Awards given by the Associated Collegiate Press (ACP) for excellence in college journalism and was named to the ACP Hall of Fame in 1989.

In his second year of college, he joined the staff of The Tampa Tribune and The Tampa Times as a full time reporter and photographer. Concurrently, he attended college classes full time and was an active staff member of The Oracle as well until he graduated in 1969. He has been a member of American Mensa since 1982.

[edit] Meeting with U.S. ambassador to Britain

During late 1969 and early in 1970 (a part of the Vietnam Era) while in military training at Pensacola, Florida, Zappone was a part time news and feature photographer for the Pensacola News and the Pensacola Journal (now combined as the Pensacola News Journal) under special arrangement. From 1970-71, Zappone served in the U.S. Navy as part of the Armed Forces Courier Service (ARFCOS), now the Defense Courier Service (DCS). He was assigned to the Defense Attaché section, Embassy of the United States in London, and the U.S. Naval Forces Europe command in Naples, Italy.

In London, he befriended then U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom Walter H. Annenberg, founder of TV Guide and former owner of The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News, who took him under his wings and cleared a path for his advancement in the print and broadcast journalism fields. Zappone also performed functions in Europe during this time for the National Security Agency, headquartered in Fort George G. Meade, Maryland.

While in Europe, he was a contributor to NBC News programs, The London Guardian and The London Observer newspapers and the European editions of Life Magazine in a freelance capacity. He was also editor-in-chief of "The Tartan Log," a newspaper chronicling the non-classified activities of personnel stationed at U.S. military intelligence installations in Scotland.

[edit] Traffic reporting, other assignments

Early in 1974, the general manager of WFLA (AM) Radio assigned him to be the station's first morning and afternoon drive-time traffic reporter and field news correspondent, working with Tampa area broadcast icon Jack Harris. Using police monitors, a citizens' band radio and making frequent calls to law enforcement agencies, Zappone broadcast his "rush hour" reports from a section of the radio studio, then called "WFLA Traffic Central," and still beat the ratings of the nearest competitor who had a retired police officer/pilot describing traffic conditions from the air. He was once challenged by a listener who was familiar with his voice and heard him reporting special event traffic from an exposed outdoor pay phone. It was always kept vague on radio whether or not Zappone, who then had an aversion to heights, was aboard an aircraft during his broadcasts though his reports dealt with traffic in three large cities, Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater as well as surrounding areas.

Over the years, Zappone has been: a newspaper editor; a television news correspondent; a stringer correspondent for the former Westinghouse Broadcasting/American Broadcasting Company-owned Satellite Network News (SNN), remaining after it was purchased in 1983 by then Ted Turner's Cable News Network (CNN); an advertising executive; a university lecturer; a real estate investor and manager; and is currently a marketing, communications and real estate consultant based in Tampa.

He is also actively involved as a fundraiser for One Breath at a Time, Inc., a Florida non-profit organization.

As a hobby, he contributes stories and photographs to a web site devoted to the 50-plus year history of Tampa television station WTVT-TV and to another, founded by radio personality Tedd Webb, that showcases past and present broadcast and other entertainment luminaries of the Tampa Bay area (links below).

[edit] External links

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