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The Daily Insight

How Rich is Bill Kurtis?Bio, Age, Spouse, Son’s Death, Anchorman, Shows

Author

Mia Horton

Published Feb 27, 2026

Table of Contents

Bill Kurtis Biography

Bill Kurtis is an American television journalist, producer, narrator, and news anchor, born in Pensacola, Florida as William Horton Kuretich. He was also the host of a number of A&E crime and news documentary shows, including Investigative Reports, American Justice, and Cold Case Files. Bill Kurtis joined the national program, CBS Morning News, as a co-host. But after three years, he returned to Chicago, resuming his role as anchor at WBBM-TV.

Bill Kurtis Age

Bill Kurtis was born on September 21, 1940, in Pensacola, Florida as William Horton Kuretich. He is 78 years old as of 2018.

Bill Kurtis Family

Kurtis was born in Pensacola, Florida, to Wilma Mary Horton (1911–2002) and William A. Kuretich (Croatian: Kuretić), of Croatian origin (1914–2001), a U.S. Marine Corps brigadier general and decorated veteran of World War II. His father’s military career included extensive travel for his family. He has a sister by the name Jean Schodorf.

Bill Kurtis Spouse

Kurtis had two wives, the first wife Helen, died at age 36 of breast cancer on June 11, 1977, in Omaha, Nebraska. He later married his partner of 40 years, former Chicago TV news producer Donna La Pietra, on December 13, 2017, she is a partner with Kurtis in his Kurtis Productions company. He has a home in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago and in Mettawa, Illinois.

Bill Kurtis Children| Son’s Death

The American television journalist, Kurtis had two children a daughter  Mary Kristin and a son Scott who succumbed to death in 2009. His eldest and only son died on July 20, 2009, at age 38 at the Kansas cattle ranch owned by his father. He was known to have suffered from paranoid schizophrenia since his mid-teens.

Bill Kurtis Education

He graduated from Independence High School in 1958, the University of Kansas with a Bachelor of Science degree in journalism in 1962 and he earned a Juris Doctor degree from Washburn University School of Law in 1966.

Bill Kurtis Height

How tall is Bill Kurtis – 1,69m.
How much weight is Bill Kurtis – 74kg

Bill Kurtis Image

Bill Kurtis Career

Bill Kurtis is an American television journalist, producer, narrator, and news anchor. He was also the host of a number of A&E crime and news documentary shows, including Investigative Reports, American Justice, and Cold Case Files. Previously, he anchored The CBS Morning News and was the longtime anchor at WBBM-TV, the CBS-owned and -operated TV station in Chicago. Kurtis is currently the scorekeeper/announcer for National Public Radio (NPR)’s news comedy/quiz show Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!, as well as serving as the host of Through the Decades, a documentary-style news magazine seen on CBS/Weigel Broadcasting’s digital multicast network, Decades syndicated subchannel.

Kurtis narrated the 2010 documentary film Carbon Nation by Peter Byck and was the narrator in the 2004 film starring Will Ferrell, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy and its sequel Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013). In 2005, Kurtis founded Tallgrass Beef Company, which raises and distributes grass-fed, hormone-free organic beef. Some of the beef sold comes from cattle raised on Kurtis’s ranch in Sedan, Kansas.

Kurtis and his sister, Jean Schodorf, inherited the historic site of the Little House on the Prairie as designated by the State of Kansas. It is now a not-for-profit museum with their grandmother’s one-room schoolhouse, a tiny post office from Wayside, Kansas, a homesteader’s farmhouse, and attendant farm buildings. A 1972 report by Bill Kurtis while a correspondent for CBS News, Los Angeles, was used as the introduction to NWA’s album, Straight Outta Compton.

On several occasions starting in 2009, Kurtis appeared on NPR’s news quiz show Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!, filling in for regular announcer Carl Kasell. He replaced Kasell on a permanent basis on May 24, 2014. Kurtis also contributed a spoken-word introduction to The Dandy Warhols’ 2005 album Odditorium or Warlords of Mars. The Shrine of Christ’s Passion, an interactive half-mile winding pathway of 40 life-size bronze statues depicting the Stations of the Cross that opened in June 2008, features a description of each scene and a short meditation recorded by Kurtis. Kurtis served as an enlisted man in the United States Marine Corps Reserve (Topeka, Kansas 1962–1966). He has commissioned a lieutenant (j.g.) in the United States Navy Reserve (Chicago, Ill. 1966—1969).

The year 1966 in Chicago was the beginning of a tumultuous four years, and as a reporter and anchor, Kurtis was in the middle of historic events. He covered the neighborhood fires that followed the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and again when Robert Kennedy was shot. The protests against the Vietnam War dominated the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, which Kurtis covered. In 1969, Kurtis produced a documentary about Iva Toguri, “Tokyo Rose,” the first interview after her conviction for treason in 1949. His reporting, along with Ron Yates of the Chicago Tribune, helped persuade President Gerald Ford to pardon her in 1977. His law degree came into play when he covered the Chicago Seven conspiracy trial in 1969, which led to a job with CBS News in Los Angeles as a correspondent. One of his first assignments was covering the Charles Manson murder trial for 10 months. He also covered the murder trials of Angela Davis and Juan Corona and the Pentagon Papers trial of Daniel Ellsberg.

Bill Kurtis Net Worth

Bill Kurtis holds an estimated net worth of $15 million.

Bill Kurtis Anchorman

Born as William Horton Kuretich, Bill Kurtis is a television journalist, news reporter,  and news anchor. he anchored The CBS Morning News and was the longtime anchor at WBBM-TV, the CBS-owned and -operated TV station in Chicago.

Bill Kurtis Cold Case Files

Cold Case Files is a reality legal show/documentary on the cable channel A&E Network, where Bill Kurtis was the host, which ran from 1991–2011.

Bill Kurtis Shows

He was also the host of a number of A&E crime and news documentary shows, including Investigative Reports, American Justice, and Cold Case Files.

Bill Kurtis Twitter

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