Former KCAL Anchor And Pioneering TV Reporter, Myra Scott, Dead At 78

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — Myra Scott, a pioneering Los Angeles television anchor and reporter whose life touched some of America's most important figures in politics, entertainment, and broadcast news, has died after a short battle with cancer. She was 78.

Scott was a co-anchor in 1977 at Channel 9, known today as KCAL. She was best known in Southern California for her work at KNBC-TV in the 1970s.

According to her husband, Irv Reifman, she was "by far the youngest member" of a news department that included Tom Brokaw, Tom Snyder, Bob Abernathy, Bryant Gumbel, Kelly Lang, and Jess Marlow.

Before her time in L.A., she broke through gender barriers as the first woman newscaster on television in Sacramento and Minneapolis, Reifman said.

She then moved to the NBC-affiliate at the time, KRON in San Francisco, as a co-anchor and reporter.

She conducted interviews with Ronald Reagan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Hubert Humphrey, Jane Fonda, Cloris Leachman, and many others.

She was also the only TV reporter at the deadly Rolling Stones Altamont concert, where she received death threats over her exclusive tapes.

After retiring from TV, she worked in government and became active in community affairs. She was on the boards of the Asthma and Allergy Foundation, and the National Council of Jewish Women.

She was "stricken with virulent cancer in October and was in Cedars Sinai for most of the last two months," Reifman said. She died Friday.

She is survived by her husband; children Cori, Jeff, Scott, and Marli; the three grandchildren; a brother, sister, and sister-in-law.

(© Copyright 2020 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. City News Service contributed to this report.)