WASHINGTON, DC (January 4, 2008) – Ray Farkas, 72, a legendary television storyteller and producer, died peacefully Friday night at the Community Hospice in Washington, his family announced.
Farkas documented his own brain surgery in a musical comedy called "It Ain't Television, It's Brain Surgery" in 2006, and his story was featured on Oprah and Nightline.
The Ray Farkas Education Fund has been established in his memory, and the family asks that donations go to the fund in lieu of flowers.
For many years Farkas was a faculty member at the annual NPPA NewsVideo Workshop in Norman, OK, and during his career he produced hundreds of hours of prime time news and entertainment for ABC, CBS, NBC, BOX, PBS, HBO, AMC and others. Three times he won Emmy Awards ("Marriage License Bureau," CBS in 1989; "The New Civil War," ABC in 1991; and "Catch-22" for The Learning Channel in 1997), and his work has been nominated ten times by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Farkas was a member of the Directors Guild of America.
Farkas and another legend in television, Darrell Barton, also a faculty member at the workshop in Norman, considered themselves fast friends. Upon learning of the death of his buddy, Barton wrote:
Ray didn't like to let the night get away from him. When I would go to Washington for work I would call him.
"Let's go shoot some pool." He would say. "But first come on over and look at a story I just did."
We would go to his office and look at tapes. Sometime around midnight we would go to Babe's Billiards on Wisconsin Avenue. It was a classic old pool hall. That fit Ray who was a classic, and classy, old guy. We would shoot straight pool till two or three in the morning. Ray won most of the games.
"Let's play one more." He would say while he was already racking the balls. When we would finally leave Babe's he would try to get me to go back to the office to look at just a few more stories. Ray didn't like to let the night get away from him. Now he has.
"Darrell and Ray were the best of friends," Bob Brandon said tonight. "They spent many nights shooting pool and discussing ways of storytelling. No one ever won the pool game, and no one won the argument - although each thought he did."
Many people outside mainstream television learned about Farkas through his hit pilot series "Interviews 50 Cents," which originally aired as a news magazine segment on ABC and PBS, and through "Ira's People" which aired on Court TV in 1999. Both were the products of his own production company, Off Center Productions.
His long career started after graduation from Lehigh University when he joined United Press International as a writer. He then worked for NBC News in Washington for 24 years, on the NBC Nightly News, on the Huntley-Brinkley Report, and on the Today Show. For the last two decades he's been an independent producer, and since 2005 he was the executive producer of Metropolitan Edition, a news magazine on WJLA-TV in Washington, DC.
A personal tribute to Farkas written by Barton is online here.
Julie Farkas, Ray's daughter, will hold Shiva for his friends to gather at her home. The address, dates, and times are online here.
