Former WTVT-Ch. 13 anchor Hugh Smith died Sunday at the hospice unit of the Palms of  Pasadena Hospital of complications resulting from melanoma. He was 73 years old.

Over a 27-year career at WTVT, Smith served as the lead anchor and news director of the station when it dominated local ratings so decisively, its broadcasts attracted up to 40 percent of the audience.

Together with weather forecaster Roy Leep and sports director Andy Hardy (and "Salty" Sol Fleischman before Hardy), Smith formed a trusted, highly-popular anchor team at WTVT, which was then a CBS affiliate. Photos courtesy of the Big 13 tribute Web site; Smith biography/interview accessible here.

Hired at WTVT in 1963, Smith lodged many firsts, including appearing in the local TV news' first color broadcasts and delivering the area's first live report from a helicopter.

But the advent of faster-paced, more emotional news reporting edged out his Walter Cronkite-inspired, just-the-facts approach. His TV news career ended in 1991 when he resigned after pleading guilty to soliciting sex from a 15-year-old prostitute, his second prostitution-related arrest in nine years.

Friends and former colleagues preferred to remember the consummate newsman with a caring side, who worked at the TV station from 10 a.m. to midnight in his prime. Word of Smith's illness spread through the local TV news ranks over the past few weeks, as the former anchor's adopted son Ward kept friends and family updated through emails on his father's condition.

"He was at the helm during the zenith of Ch. 13's broadcast success," said Leep, who last remembered speaking with Hugh Smith in February and remained friends with the anchor after his departure from WTVT. "He was highly professional...looked at every jot and tittle of the newscast. He was a fella who stayed on a story from beginning to end, with high standards."

According to Smith's email, his father was diagnosed with stage four melanoma in February and underwent chemotherapy treatments at Moffitt Cancer Center. He entered the hospice two weeks ago, according to Ward Smith. 

Ward Smith declined to comment in detail on his father's death, beyond suggesting that those who wish to commemorate his father make a donation to the hospice of the Florida Suncoast.