Roger Field, Former CBS 2 Health And Science Editor, Dies

(CBS) -- Former CBS 2 Health and Science Editor Roger Field—an acclaimed journalist known for his quirky and engaging approach to his subject—has died.

Mr. Field, most recently of New York, died Nov. 12, according to his daughter, Tiffany Field Fitzgerald. He was 74.

In his professional career, Roger Field became known in both New York and Chicago as an expert on medical and scientific inquiry.

From the late 1970s until 1986, Mr. Field served as health and science editor for CBS 2, joining the celebrated team that included news anchors Bill Kurtis and Walter Jacobson, sports anchor Johnny Morris and movie critic Gene Siskel.

"What I try to do is tell people how the advances of civilization are going to affect their lives, and tell it to them as clearly as I can," Mr. Field said in a 1979 promo for WBBM-TV.

On the air, Mr. Field's delivery involved live demonstrations and diagrams with moving parts to explain such intellectual topics as how gasohol works in an internal combustion engine.

Mr. Field also hosted a series of family-oriented science specials at CBS 2 and other CBS stations titled "Inside Out." Mr. Field also served as a fill-in weatherman for CBS 2 for a time, Fitzgerald said.

Mr. Field was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1985, and his first response was to learn all about the disease from a scientific perspective, Fitzgerald said.

"At first, he approached it from a scientist's point of view and a researcher's point view, so he sort of dove in head-first and learned all about it," she said.

In recent years, Mr. Field was still able to enjoy some of his passions. He was also an accomplished musician – playing trombone, piano and bass fiddle – and he was still able to sit down at the piano and pound out a tune even as he struggled in other ways, Fitzgerald said.

"That gift didn't really leave him until pretty recently," she said.

In addition to Fitzgerald, Mr. Field is also survived by his wife, Alice; son-in-law, Neil Fitzgerald; and 9-year-old granddaughter, Sydney.

--Adam Harrington, CBSNewYork.com