40 years of Chet Curtis

Longtime WCVB-TV and NECN news anchor Chet Curtis died Wednesday, Jan. 22, after battling pancreatic cancer. He was 74.

Curtis, along with his former wife and long-time local co-anchor Natalie Jacobson, were once huge news stars, whose fame seemed bigger than the TV station they worked for, WCVB-TV (Channel 5).

His trajectory from megastar anchor to Sunday host mirrors the ongoing transformation of local television news.

Here is his story.

1972: A former radio reporter, Curtis’s TV career in Boston began at a time when local TV news stations were beginning to supplant newspapers as the main source for news and information. He started as a reporter at WCVB where officials paired him and Natalie Jacobson on the midday newscasts.

1975: Curtis and Jacobson got married.

1976: Here, they are shown working at WCVB-TV Channel 5.

1979: Jacobson and Curtis at the Concert for the Maestro.

“We used to do stuff that nobody else did in television,’’ recalled Curtis, who remembers co-anchoring, with Jacobson, for seven to eight hours live coverage of Queen Elizabeth’s visit to Boston in 1976. “We always used to go to the state conventions and national conventions.’’

1981: WCVB beat WBZ-TV (Channel 4) in the ratings, the same year he and Jacobson had their first child.

1982: Curtis became the first host of the weekday newsmagazine show “Chronicle,’’ and anchored key newscasts with Jacobson throughout the 1980s and 1990s. They were paired together for the 6 and 11 p.m. newscasts and were often called “Chet-n-Nat.’’

1986: Shown is a screen shot of footage from WGBH Boston News of Jacobson and Curtis during the evening news of the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.

1993: Curtis and Jacobson began coanchoring WCVB’s 5 p.m. newscast in addition to 6 and 11 p.m.

1999: Curtis and Jacobson announced that they had separated.

Here they are shown on the Channel 5 evening news.

2001: Curtis and Jacobson filed for a divorce.

2001: Curtis joined NECN as an anchor for the 8 p.m. newscast.

He is shown here with coanchor Margie Reedy.

2011: Curtis on the set at NECN, where he has worked for the last 10 years.

At 72 years old, he served as the host of the low-rated Sunday morning public affairs shows.

Curtis relished the anchor chair but wished he had more time in it. “I still think I can contribute,’’ he said.