Don Bell Biography
Don Bell is an Emmy-Award-winning American journalist working as a radio broadcaster best known for his radio work broadcasting from the Philippines in the years leading up to World War II. He joined the station as the Sports Director in September 2015.
How old is Don Bell? – Age
He was born and raised in New Jersey. His date of birth is not known.
Don Bell Education
Bell earned a Bachelor of Science in Broadcast Journalism and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Boston University in 2000. In 2002, he graduated from Northwestern University’s famed Medill School of Journalism with a Master of Science in Journalism.
Who did Don Bell Marry? – Husband
He has been married twice. He first married Lilia Bell. They have two sons Clarence Bell and Richard Bell, at Santo Tomas University in Manila. He relocated to Palm Beach, Florida, in February 1954, where he met his second wife, Ginny. Don Bell was retired and living in Florida in 2000.
Don Bell Career
Bell had always aspired to be a foreign correspondent and joined the US Marines in 1926 as the shortest way to get there. He was stationed in the foreign colonies of Shanghai and Tientsin for six years. He went to work for the Shanghai Evening Post & Mercury, an American-owned English-language daily newspaper, after his discharge. Bell added broadcasting to his other journalistic responsibilities when the station purchased a radio station. Bell fled to the Philippines during the Japanese invasion in 1937.
Bell worked in Manila as a publicity director for Heacock’s, an American department store, as well as NBC’s foreign correspondent and as a news coordinator for the British Ministry of Information, the Free French Committee, and the Free Czech Committee. Bell also worked for Radio Manila, also known as Radio KZRH, and his broadcasts were one of the most important sources of news for the Far Eastern Anglophone population. Bell changed his radio name to Clarence Beliel and arranged to be kidnapped by the Japanese while working at Heacock’s Department Store during the Japanese invasion of the Philippines.
All who knew him as Bell maintained the deception; revealing that he was the guy who had made numerous anti-Japanese broadcasts would have had disastrous implications. Bell died, according to Life magazine issues dated March 30 and April 13, 1942. Bell returned to war reporting almost immediately after his release. His plane was shot down over Amoy Harbour in China on March 22, 1945, while on a bombing mission. Chinese guerilla forces hid Bell and seven other survivors from the Japanese and smuggled them to Chunking, China, and then returned to Manila. On July 1, 1945, Bell covered the Australian landings in Balikpapan, Borneo.
After the war, Bell worked for NBC and numerous radio stations in the United States, including WGAY in Silver Spring, Maryland in 1947, where he was director of news and special events, and KOME in Tulsa, Oklahoma in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
Don Bell Salary
He earns an annual salary of $290,000.
Don Bell Net Worth
He has an estimated net worth of $3 Million.
