New York--A memorial service for Richard Clark, 45, a producer for ABC television’s 20/20 and formerly of Norwood, will be held at noon on Saturday (Aug. 20, 1983) at the United Methodist Church of Norwood.

The Tuthill Funeral Home in Long Island is in charge of the arrangements.

Mr. Clark died as the result of a heart attack on Aug. 8, 1983 while he was vacationing in Long Island.

Surviving are a daughter, Michelle Clark of Greenwich, Conn.; a son, Richard Clark Jr., of Greenwich; his former wife, Patricia Clark, also of Greenwich; his parents, Jean and Hubert Clark of Norwood; a brother, Robert of Syracuse; and a sister, Caroline Williams, also of Syracuse.

He had been residing in New York City with Dorothy Kellett.

Mr. Clark began his television career as a reporter for WHEN in Syracuse. He became a news writer for WCBS in New York City in 1964.

In 1971, he became a executive producer of the CBS Morning News. He later became a producer for CBS’s 60 Minutes, where he produced stories for Harry Reasoner, Dan Rather, Mike Wallace, and Morley Safer.

He joined ABC’s 20/20 in 1981, where he produced stories exclusively for Geraldo Rivera.

A memorial fund has been established in his name for Project Orbis, a medical program for teaching eye surgeons’ techniques to doctors in underdeveloped countries.

Editor’s note: The statement which follows was made on ABC’s 20/20 last week by Geraldo Rivera, after a program segment on Alaska produced by the late Dick Clark. The statement was provided to the Courier and Freeman by 20/20.

"The news profession can be a hard-hearted business. With so much misery and so many misdeeds around from which to choose the stories that actually get on the air, a hard crust often forms on our professional souls.

"It all can get very impersonal. Driven by the pressures of deadline and competition, many just stop caring about the people they are reporting about. But not the producer of the report you have just seen. Not Dick Clark.

"The most honest, talented, dependable and caring producer I have ever had the honor of working with, Dick Clark passed away on Monday. The victim of a massive heart attack, he was just 45 years old.

"An award-winning producer with 21 years experience here, and at CBS, his reports were often like the one you saw tonight; tributes to the best aspects of the human spirit. A wise man with impeccable taste and judgment, Dick was especially scornful of pretentious snobs; those in the news business who behave as if they are self-anointed messengers of the gods. And he taught us all those lessons; come down to earth; humanize our stories; give them feelings; make them real. He was my friend as well as my colleague, and all of our sympathies go out to his family and to the people he loved."

(From the Tuesday, August 166, 1983 edition of the Courier & Freeman, page 12).