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ANDRE BARUCH — CBS Announcer
'T'ODAY finds Andre Baruch one of the youngest of Columbia’s staff of announcers at its New York key station, WABC. One of the few foreign horn announcers in the business, Andre, appeared on this earth on August 20, 1906, in Paris, where he spent his first 11 years before migrating to New York. He soon mastered English, having studied its fundamentals for three years in Paris. Completing his elementary studies here he enrolled in Columbia University, graduating with an A.B. degree in 1929. There followed a year of art study at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, and a scholarship which took him to the Beaux Arts School in Paris. He also studied piano technique under Hans Bachmann in New York. And as early as his freshman year he made his radio debut, quite by accident. One day when he was passing the Coney Island Hotel where station WCGU was located, he was inspired to step in and apply for a job as staff pianist. The impulse bore immediate fruit, but he soon was graduated to the role of announcer. During his college days his announcing was heard from WCGU, WBBC, WSGH, and WLTH in Brooklyn as well as from WGBS (now WINS), New York, and WTIC, Hartford. Active in athletics, Andre represented Columbia on the football, basketball and swimming teams, and he was on the track squad. He also found time to draw for “The Jester,” Columbia’s comic magazine. He still swims to keep himself fit. His specialty is the dashes, although he held a back-stroke record won in a Paris sectional meet, and won the Metropolitan Diving Championship in a New York meet. After his return from Paris in 1930 he decided to cast his lot with radio and applied for a position as staff pianist at the Columbia studios. But just before he turned in his application blank he changed his mind and scratched out the word, pianist, to replace it with the word announcer. Several interviews and an audition followed, and he was accepted. His “au ’voir” is now familiar to all of Columbia’s listeners. Andre speaks seven languages, an accomplishment that any announcer would welcome. He is fluent in English, French, Spanish, and Italian, while he can carry on a fair conversation in Dutch, Flemish, and Portuguese.
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