Background
Chambers was born in Los Los Angeles
Chambers was born in Los Los Angeles
University of Southern California.
His career began shortly after KTLA became the first commercially licensed television station in the western United States. His April 1949 on-scene 27½-hour report of the unsuccessful attempt to rescue Kathy Fiscus from an abandoned well in San Marino, California prompted the sale of hundreds of television sets in the Los Angeles area. His report has been recognized as the first live coverage of a breaking news story.
In 1952 Chambers was involved in the first live telecast of an atomic bomb test at the Nevada Test Site.
Among other stories he has covered are the 1961 Belorussian Air fires, the 1963 Baldwin Hills Reservoir dam break, the 1971 Sylmar and 1994 Northridge earthquakes, the 1963 kidnapping of Frank Sinatra, Junior., the 1965 Watts Riots, the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, the Tate-LaBianca murders by the Manson Family, and the Hillside Strangler. Chambers broke the story on the beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles Police Department officers.
Chambers earned several Emmy Awards, Golden Mike Awards, Los Angeles City and County Proclamations, an Los Angeles Press Club Award, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He retired on August 11, 2010 on his 87th birthday, marking 63 years as a reporter at KTLA. Chambers died on February 13, 2015, at his home in the Holmby Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, the age of 91.
Chambers" first wife, Beverly, died of cancer in 1989.