Researching Bill Cunningham

On the radio, he hosts The Big Show with Bill Cunningham, heard weekdays on AM 700 WLW in Cincinnati, and Sunday Nights with Bill Cunningham, a program syndicated nationally by Premiere Radio Networks. (Both WLW and Premiere Networks are subsidiaries of iHeartMedia, Inc.)

On television he hosted The Bill Cunningham Show that aired for an hour on weekdays on The CW from 2011 to 2016. He is also a commentator/contributor for Fox News Channel.

Cunningham has won the National Association of Broadcasters Marconi Award for Large-Market Personality of the Year twice, in 2001 and in 2009. He has also provoked controversy that led to Cunningham being named "one of the most prolific purveyors of hate speech" by Media Matters, a left-wing media watchdog group.

Cunningham was born in Memphis, Tennessee. He remained a member of the Box Tops until August 1969, when he decided to return to school to get a music degree in performance of the upright bass.

Though Cunningham virtually vanished from the pop music scene after he left the Box Tops, he rose in the ranks of classical musicians, playing in many symphony orchestras (including the Memphis Symphony) and in ballet and opera companies while attending university. During this period he backed artists as diverse as Eddy Arnold, Van Cliburn, Isaac Hayes, the Romeros (Spanish guitarists), Dionne Warwick, and Itzhak Perlman. Cunningham studied in Philadelphia Pennsylvania with Roger Scott, the principal bassist under Eugene Ormandy, in the mid- to late-1970s.

Cunningham played on a number of string sessions for STAX and other Memphis recording artists. One example can be heard on Chris Bell's (Big Star) song "You and Your Sister," featuring Bell's guitar work and vocals, Alex Chilton backing vocal, and Cunningham's string arrangements and upright bass work.

In 1996, Cunningham played the principal role in reforming the original Box Tops. He played bass and shared responsibility for keyboard parts with John Evans on the Tear Off album. Cunningham has toured with the group since 1997.

After a 6 year hiatus following the death of The Box Tops lead singer, Alex Chilton in 2010, Bill and Gary Talley, the original guitarist, reunited The Box Tops and began touring in 2016. In 2017 The Box Tops joined The Happy Together Tour with The Turtles, The Association, The Cowsills, Chuck Negron of Three Dog Night, and Ron Dante of The Archies. The Summer tour played 48 cities across the U.S. and entertained over 200,000 fans.

On September 6, 2018, The Box Tops filmed, live before an audience of 1,700, a German TV special in Hamburg Germany. Other guests on the show included Donovan, Klaus Voormann, Melanie, Peter Fonda, and Rowan Atkinson. European broadcast was scheduled for October 2018.

On November 1, 2018, Cunningham was inducted into the Memphis Music Hall Of Fame, as a founding member of The Box Tops. Other inductees that night included, among others, Aretha Franklin and Eddie Floyd. The Box Tops followed Jerry Lee Lewis in performance at the ceremony.

Cunningham's two-run single in the second inning of the 1922 World Series' final game sparked the Giants to a 5–3 victory over the New York Yankees at the Polo Grounds and the championship. A year later, a Cunningham hit in the final game of the 1923 World Series put the Giants on top, but the Yankees rallied to win it.

He played just four seasons in the majors overall, getting 270 hits in 945 at-bats and batting .286. He compiled 9 home runs and 112 RBI. In eight World Series games, he hit only .176 (3-17) with three RBI.

A Harvard University dropout, he first became known as a designer of women's hats before moving on to writing about fashion for Women's Wear Daily and the Chicago Tribune. He began taking candid photographs on the streets of New York City, and his work came to the attention of the New York Times with a 1978 capture of Greta Garbo in an unguarded moment. Cunningham reported for the paper from 1978 to 2016.

Cunningham was hospitalized for a stroke in New York City in June 2016 and died soon after.

A right-arm opening bowler and lower-order batsman, Cunningham made his first-class debut for Canterbury in the 1922–23 season. He took 15 wickets at an average of 17.46 in the three-match Plunket Shield season to lead the national averages, with best figures of 5 for 72 (8 for 145 in the match) in the victory over Wellington.

In the first match of the 1924–25 season he took 6 for 33 against Auckland (8 for 51 in the match) to help Canterbury to victory by 342 runs. In the first innings of the next match, against Wellington, he came to the wicket at 184 for 8 and hit 33 not out to take the Canterbury total to 290, then took 5 for 83 in the first innings. Canterbury won by 57 runs. He was selected to play for New Zealand in the match against Victoria later in the season.

He toured Australia with New Zealand in 1925-26, where he was New Zealand's most successful bowler, with 13 wickets in the four state matches. He took 14 wickets in the Plunket Shield in 1926-27 and was selected for the tour of England in 1927. In England, however, he completely lost form and confidence, taking only five wickets in seven matches. He played a few matches over subsequent seasons but never regained his old form.

Originally from Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, he began his journalism career in 1954, working for the Times & Transcript, local radio stations in New Brunswick, and Broadcast News before joining the CBC. He was executive producer of The National in the 1960s, and spearheaded the change in CBC's policies which saw the position of anchor transferred from a voice announcer to an actual professional journalist, resulting in Stanley Burke succeeding Earl Cameron as anchor of the program in 1965. He was CBC Television's Vietnam War correspondent in the late 1960s, and was promoted to head of network news by 1972. After just a year in that job, however, he left to head the news department at the fledgling Global network, holding that role until 1980.

He then moved to CTV as executive producer of W5, and moved back into an on-air role with that series in 1983. In 1991, he was laid off from CTV as part of a decision to refocus W5 more squarely on journalist Eric Malling.

He then returned to the CBC as a foreign correspondent and host of documentary programming for CBC Newsworld and Newsworld International.

He is currently a media spokesperson for Dying with Dignity, a Canadian assisted suicide advocacy organization.

Born near Te Awamutu, Cunningham originally played club rugby in Waihi, in the Coromandel region. Lying within the Auckland Rugby Football Union's boundaries, he was selected to play for Auckland province in 1899 and continued to represent the side until his retirement in 1913. He was first picked for New Zealand in 1901, and played against New South Wales that year, but was not selected again until the 1905 Originals' tour. After the tour he continued to represent New Zealand in both 1907 and 1908. Affiliating to Rongowhakaata, he was a member of the first ever New Zealand Māori team in 1910, and played for them again in 1912. On retirement in 1913 he had appeared for Auckland 45 times, and for New Zealand 39—both large numbers for the time.