Radio personality Dark Star dies at age 66

Home
Local

Radio personality Dark Star dies at age 66

Article by: BILL MCAULIFFE and VINCE TUSS , Star Tribune
Updated: June 2, 2012 - 6:45 AM

hide

Dark Star

Photo: File photo,

Camera Star Tribune photo galleries

Camera view larger

resize text
print
buy reprints

Tweet
share

email
Email share

your name

your email

recipients email

+ add a comment add a comment

Twin Cities radio personality Dark Star, whose real name was George Chapple, was found dead at his home in Minnetonka Friday. He was 66.

He worked at WCCO-AM for 25 years before accepting a buyout offer in 2010. He had been working recently with KFAN Sports Radio.

Dark Star broke into the Twin Cities media in 1985 and rose quickly, combining an everywhere-all-the-time work ethic with an ability to schmooze with state leaders, big- and small-business people, professional coaches and athletes and anonymous telephone callers.

Dark Star is the name of the 1953 Kentucky Derby winner. In a 1993 Star Tribune profile, Chapple said he took the horse's name as a pseudonym while moonlighting as a handicapper for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner and working for a very conservative brokerage house.

Chapple moved to the Twin Cities with his parents in 1979 to work for an auto leasing company. In 1985, he overheard a prediction of Vikings coach Bud Grant's resignation and called it in to Patrick Reusse and Joe Soucheray on their KSTP-AM radio show, "Monday Night Sports Talk." When the prediction proved credible, Reusse and Soucheray started touting Dark Star -- and they helped him get on the payroll at the St. Paul Pioneer Press as a handicapper, according the profile.

He did horse-racing updates for WCCO, then and in 1991 began doing his "Night Talk" show overnight. In 1993 he moved to a more prominent slot, 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. In 1995 he became a talk radio fixture with "Sports Night with Dark Star." According to WCCO, he grew up in Ohio and Long Island, N.Y. He was a Vietnam veteran.

related content
May 27, 2012 'Sports Show' with Dark Star

Friday June 1, 2012

The Sports Show as aired on May 27, 2012, in the Twin Cities on the CW.
Reusse: Dark Star leaves us, but stories never will (June 2)

Saturday June 2, 2012

Dark Star, the Twin Cities radio personality found dead at home Friday, had a first-name buddy for every task.
March 21, 1993: Fans and foes alike notice it's Dark at the top of the heap

Friday June 1, 2012

Dark Star's star has risen fast - and seemingly from out of nowhere.
WCCO's Dark Star (George Chapple) in March 1993

Tom Sweeney, Star Tribune