YouTube A short film memorializing radio legend Barry Farber (by his daughter Celia Farber and Alex Hatch)
Click here to see the film.
Born May 5th 1930 in Baltimore, MD to Sophie and Raymond Farber. Died May 6th 2020, New York City.
In College at the University of North Carolina, Barry was a wrestler, Phi Beta Kapa, editor of the newspaper and led a successful campaign to desegregate the college stadium.
He was also a steelworker, Norwegian Merchant Marine, interpreter for the Chinese Navy and NSA translator during the Korean War.
Barry began his radio career in 1960 and broadcast continually until the last night of his life, May 5th 2020, also his 90th birthday.
Barry was married three times. With his first wife, Ulla, he had two daughters – Bibi and Celia.
Barry LOVED languages. He spoke 16 fluently and 10 more conversationally.
He interviewed a dazzling array of historic, eclectic and heroic guests over the year on WINS, WOR, WABC, WMCA and CRNTalk. He was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2015.
Perhaps the most significant event of Barry’s life, was on Christmas Eve 1956, when he met GiHong Zang, a North Korean who defected from Hungary during the crackdown of the Hungarian Revolution.
In 2008, Barry married television newscaster Sara Pentz and they remained married to the end of his life.
Special thanks to Bibi Farber, Ulla Zang and everybody here, who was such an important part of Barry’s life. He belonged to all of us and now..
We send him off to his next adventure.
As he told Celia once, about his death: “I just feel like I’m going somewhere I’ve never been before, like Finland or Estonia!”
We give thanks to God for creating Barry Farber and for letting us have him as long as we did. May his great soul rest in eternal repose, until we see him again.
As Barry always said: “To be continued.”