You know, I hate it when I see that someone has died and I have thought they have been dead for a few years already. So, tonight when I read that Tom Snyder had just recently died. I had to pause. I just HAD to. See, I watched the Charles Manson Tom Snyder Interviews - he did more than one.  I thought he had a delightful Chuckle and a Great Smile.

Tom Snyder, who pioneered the late-late network TV talk show with a personal yet abrasive style and his robust, trademark laugh, has died from complications associated with leukemia. He was 71.

Mr. Snyder died Sunday in San Francisco, his longtime producer and friend Mike Horowicz told the Associated Press on Monday.

"Tom was a fighter," Horowicz said. "I know he had tried many different treatments."

Prickly and ego-driven, Mr. Snyder conducted several memorable interviews as host of NBC's "Tomorrow," which followed Johnny Carson's "Tonight" show from 1973 to '82. A signature was the constant billowing of cigarette smoke around his head.

In his heyday, Mr. Snyder gained notoriety when Dan Aykroyd spoofed him in the early days of "Saturday Night Live." His chain-smoking, black beetle brows (contrasting with his mostly gray hair), mercurial manner and self-indulgent, digressive way of asking questions as well as his clipped speech pattern made for a distinctive sendup.

That style, as well his show's set and the show itself, marked an abrupt change at 1 a.m. from Carson's program. Mr. Snyder might joke with the crew in the sparsely appointed studio, but he was more likely to joust with guests such as the irascible science fiction writer Harlan Ellison.

Mr. Snyder had John Lennon's final televised interview (April 1975) and U2's first U.S. television appearance in June 1981.

One of his most riveting interviews was with Charles

Manson, whose demeanor would veer from calm to wild-eyed and back again.

A wacky moment came when Plasmatics lead singer Wendy O. Williams blew up a TV in the studio; in another appearance she demolished a car. Yet another time, Johnny Rotten decided he really wasn't in the mood to be on a talk show and acted indifferent for an excruciating 12 minutes.

In 1982, the show was canceled after a messy attempt to make it into a talk-variety show called "Tomorrow Coast to Coast." It added a live audience and co-hostess Rona Barrett - all of which Mr. Snyder clearly disdained.

The time slot was taken over by a hot young comedian named David Letterman.

Born in Milwaukee, Mr. Snyder began his career as a radio reporter in his hometown in the 1960s, then moved into local television news, anchoring newscasts in Philadelphia, New York and Los Angeles before moving to late night.

He returned to local anchoring in New York after "Tomorrow" left the air. He eventually hosted an ABC radio talk show before easing back into television on CNBC.

His catch phrase: "Fire up a colortini, sit back, relax, and watch the pictures, now, as they fly through the air."

Letterman, a longtime Mr. Snyder admirer, brought him back to network television, creating "The Late Late Show" on CBS to follow his own program.

Mr. Snyder announced on his Web site in 2005 that he had chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

"When I was a kid leukemia was a death sentence," he wrote then. "Now, my doctors say it's treatable!"

Associated Press writer Brooke Donald in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

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