Bay Area icon Dennis Richmond braces for an emotional sign off

This just in: Dennis Richmond is crying.

Yes, the buffed-up, baritone-voiced and steadfastly unflappable TV newsman who, when on the air, always looks like he'd rather implode than display even a microscopic trace of emotion, is shedding actual tears.

Alas, there are no cameras around. Not this time.

Richmond, 65, is sitting next to his wife, Deborah, in their gorgeous San Ramon home, where he had been doing just fine — until she committed an apparent faux pas by talking about the much-dreaded Wednesday night broadcast, when he'll sign off a KTVU (Channel 2) newscast one last time.

Just thinking about that night gets Richmond all emotional. Hence, the tears.

"Why'd

you have to go and start that, baby?" he asks, dabbing his eyes.

After much hemming and hawing, Richmond, the iron man of Bay Area anchors, will retire from KTVU, ending an extraordinary 40-year career that saw him rise from office clerk to Bay Area icon. But first comes that final newscast in which he'll bid farewell to hundreds of thousands of viewers who made him their go-to source for local news.

If he's not careful, it could turn into a real blubberfest.

"I'm still struggling over how I'm going to get through it," says Richmond, dressed in jeans and sipping a scotch. "I think the viewers are going to see me like they haven't seen me in 40 years — all red-eyed and teary."

Such an image might surprise those

in the audience, but not Deborah. She claims that, behind the steely exterior, lies an honest-to-goodness softie.

"I'm probably going to have to drive him home that night," she says.

Here's something else that might surprise you about Richmond: The marquee "star" of Channel 2 — a man who defined the newsroom culture and who pulled down a salary rumored to be in the high six-figures — has long occupied a cramped cubicle at KTVU's Oakland headquarters. It's no bigger than those of his lesser-known colleagues, but it does have a lovely view "... of the parking lot.

"I think people would be stunned to see it," says KTVU news director Ed Chapuis. "They'd be, 'Where's the shrine?' That's not Dennis. He's among the people."

Photos of family members, including daughter, Amber, and his 14-month-old granddaughter, Mya, line the cubicle walls. On Richmond's desk sits a computer monitor flanked by two small TVs. There is also a large tray of loose change and several invitations to play in local golf tournaments.

"Can't make it. I'll be in Grass Valley," he says, with a sense of anticipation in his voice.

Grass Valley is where Richmond plans to play out the rest of his life — in his dream home amid a cluster of ponderosa pines, just off the fifth green at Alta Sierra Country Club. It's a quiet little place, he says, "away from everything."

Richmond envisions a post-television existence consisting of plenty of golf and dinners with friends, some traveling and maybe even a stab at writing a mystery novel. Deborah wants to make a "gentleman farmer" out of him but knows it won't be easy.

"I think he's going to go crazy at first," she says. "He's very hyper. He needs action. At Channel 2, there was action."

But Richmond, who in January underwent surgery for early-stage prostate cancer ("I'm 99 percent sure I beat it."), is optimistic. "I'm slowing down anyhow," he says. "I'll be fine. I'll adjust."

Still, he has a victory lap to finish at KTVU, the place he has called home for nearly two-thirds of his life. Richmond, who grew up in tiny Rossburg, Ohio, arrived at the station in 1968, when, fresh out of the Army, he bluffed his way into a clerk's job. He boldly claimed he could type as many words per minute as they wanted. Fortunately, he wasn't asked to prove it.

A year later, KTVU invested in Richmond by sending him to a 16-week course at the Columbia Journalism School. "I liked him," says then-news director Deacon Anderson. "He had a lively mind and was just a good guy."

Upon returning, Richmond became a full-time reporter and immediately displayed some rookie jitters. "I was so terrified, I could barely breathe," he says of his first time in front of a camera. "I thought my career was going to begin and end on that day."

Richmond shed his fears to rise through the ranks, covering major stories, including the Patty Hearst kidnapping, Jonestown and the assassinations of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. In 1976, he was named anchorman — one of the few blacks in the country at the time to earn that distinction.

Richmond steadily crafted a no-nonsense, straightforward style: the steady gaze into the camera, the calm, delivery, the lack of facial expressions and/or voice inflections that would betray a bias. Occasionally, he received mail from viewers imploring him to smile — "just once in a while." He refused.

"There's nothing to smile about," he says, "when you're talking about dead people and stuff."

There were times, however, when Richmond's stoic resolve was tested. He remembers nearly "losing it" after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and early in his tenure as anchorman, he found it particularly difficult to report a story about two children who died in a mudslide just moments before the newscast started.

"Even more than 30 years later, I think about that incident and it still affects me," he says.

Richmond's desire to project an authoritative image on camera eventually fueled an obsession with weight lifting — think Walter Cronkite crossed with Apollo Creed — that continues today.

"When I started, I was a little skinny stick figure. Even I didn't believe me," he says. "I wanted to come across as someone who could handle himself — not someone who would run from a leaf."

In time, the 6-foot-2 Richmond bulked up from 165 to 230 pounds. "The Ten O'Clock News" also grew into an incredible hulk. In 1986, KTVU became an affiliate of the fledgling Fox network and Elaine Corral joined Richmond on the news desk. Their dominant late-night newscast squashed the competition.

Along the way, Richmond regularly was named the Bay Area's best anchorman in reader polls conducted by newspapers and magazines. His fan club has included local celebrities such as 49ers legend Ronnie Lott and musician Carlos Santana. When the latter learned of Richmond's cancer scare, he called his home and recited a prayer into the answering machine.

Looking back, Corral, who was succeeded by Leslie Griffith in 1998, insists the key to her partner's popularity was plain to see.

"He's just a good man," she says. "You can't fool that camera for that long. It will find you out and see right through you."

Kevin O'Brien, a former KTVU general manager, points to Richmond's steady demeanor as his primary asset.

"I'll never forget his work during the Loma Prieta earthquake." he says. "There was something about him that allowed him to deliver the news aggressively and accurately and calm you down while, at the same time, telling you your city is burning."

O'Brien and others also rave about Richmond's behind-the-scenes dedication: The way he would arrive every day in his shiny black Cadillac Escalade promptly at 3; the way he inspired others with his competitive drive and writing skills; the way he would eat his dinners at his desk while continuing to work.

"I used to sit in my office and pray: 'Oh Lord, please don't let Dennis walk out the door on my watch," O'Brien says.

But Richmond will tell you that he was and is no saint. Mistakes — especially those that make it on the air — rile him to no end, and he has been known to tear into co-workers with profanity-laced tirades. "I've tried to get better," he says. "But newsrooms are stressful places. It's not Sunday school."

Frank Somerville, the man who has the difficult task of replacing Richmond, shrugs off the outbursts by saying, "I look at that and see someone who cares. You don't do that unless you care."

And it's clear that Richmond has co-workers who care about him. Current co-anchorwoman, Julie Haener, calls him "the ultimate pro and a good friend" and promises to have a box of tissues at the ready on Wednesday.

Corral routinely called him with encouraging words during his recovery from surgery.

Even anchorman Dan Ashley, one of Richmond's longtime rivals at KGO-Channel 7, is an admirer.

"I hate to see him go in a lot of ways," he says. "He set such a high standard. He was someone to measure yourself against."

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Richmond admits to having had some second thoughts about retirement. A job like his, after all, is difficult to leave. But he looks at guys like Mike Wallace and Larry King, still clinging to the TV camera in their 70s and 80s, and he says he doesn't want to be them.

"I can't understand that," he says. "They enjoy being famous and the center of attention too much. I like that, but I don't need that. I like that people in Grass Valley don't get Channel 2."

Still, Richmond won't be leaving television altogether just yet. Deborah is involved in a pending suburban-themed reality show for the Bravo network and a film crew has shot some scenes in the couple's Bay Area home, which now has packing boxes scattered all about.

"I'm doing my best to hide whenever they come around," he says. "I've seen the husbands on some of those reality shows and they just do a lot of dorking in front of the camera. The last thing I want to be is a reality TV dork."

Reach Chuck Barney at 925-952-2685 or cbarney@bayareanewsgroup.com. Also, check out his daily blog at www.ibabuzz.com/tvfreak.