Here’s the text of what was spoken on-air that night:
Gifford: “And I don’t care what’s on the line, Howard, you have got to say what we know in the booth.”
Cosell: “Yes, we have to say it. Remember this is just a football game, no matter who wins or loses. An unspeakable tragedy confirmed to us by ABC News in New York City: John Lennon, outside of his apartment building on the West Side of New York City, the most famous, perhaps, of all of The Beatles, shot twice in the back, rushed to Roosevelt Hospital, dead on arrival. Hard to go back to the game after that news flash, which in duty bound, we have to take.”
It should probably be noted that yesterday was also the 6th anniversary of the onstage murder of Dimebag Darrell Abbot (by another nutso fan who also killed 3 others). I don’t think it’s ever been really determined what the shooter’s motive was (though he was a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic), so it’s hard to know whether he was aware of the Lennon anniversary. It could have been intentional or it could have just been a bizarre coincidence.
There was a TV movie called John and Yoko: A Love Story in the 1980s. They cast an actor named Brett Lomax as John and by all accounts he was great, but he was fired shortly after shooting started and recast the role because producers learned his birth name was Mark Lindsey Chapman. I understand their reasoning I suppose, but terrible break for the actor (who has since resumed use of his real name). The movie’s not terrible but because it was sanctioned by Yoko there’s a lot of whitewashing.
Reagan’s comments on Lennon’s murder. Funny to hear what he says about gun control, having no idea what was going to happen to him just a few weeks later. ETA: And see, he really did have it together before he was shot.
John Lennon’s death is the first news story I ever understood. Of course, I wasn’t quite four yet, so my understanding was that a singer that Mommy and Daddy liked a lot had been killed by a confused man who really like his songs. Somehow I’d gotten the idea that he’d been stabbed instead of shot, and I didn’t realize the mistake until I was in middle school.