Michele Marsh Cause Of Death: Emmy Award-Winning News Anchor Dies

Michele Marsh, a longtime Emmy Award-winning news anchor in local TV news in New York City, who was a newscaster on nightly programs on CBS and NBC flagship stations for over two decades, died Tuesday at her residence in South Kent, Connecticut, at the age of 63, her family confirmed.

The pioneer anchor Marsh died after a seven-year fight with breast cancer — the complications from the disease over the past few weeks led to her death, her son John Paschall, 25, told the New York Daily News.

Paschall said that his mother’s condition started to deteriorate about two weeks ago when her doctors found that the cancer had spread to her brain and the family decided to bring her home.

"She fought an incredible fight, and she beat all the odds against her," Paschall said. "The doctors thought she wouldn't see me graduate and wouldn’t see me get married, and she did both of those things."

In her last moments, Marsh had expressed her gratitude for her family and thanked them for being there for her, Paschall said. "She was just extremely grateful for everything we’ve done for her, and we would do it again in a heartbeat."

Born on March 9, 1954, in suburban Detroit, Marsh completed her graduation from Northwestern University, where she majored in television and radio production.

She began her career at CBS affiliate WABI-TV in Bangor, Maine, where she was said to run the teleprompter with her toes while she was on air. She told the Bangor Daily News in 1976 that she had gotten a fan mail "from little boys who say, 'Let’s run off together, my father owns an ice cream truck,'" the New York Times reported.

In 1979, Marsh joined another CBS affiliate WCBS-TV at the age of 25 and served as an anchor there. She spent 17 years at the station, where she alternated between stints as an anchor — with Rolland Smith, Ernie Anastos, Jim Jensen and John Johnson — and also sometimes as a correspondent, depending on the fluctuations in ratings at the news station.

Marsh was said to have become a part of a group of female anchors who challenged the all male-dominated industry around the late 1970s and in the early 1980s.

In 1996, after she and several of her colleagues were fired by WCBS, she was recruited by NBC affiliate WNBC in about a week, where she anchored with Chuck Scarborough for sometime, Paschall said. However, she left the station in 2003 after she lost her anchor slot.

"What she always prided herself on was just really going beyond the basic facts of the story and taking pride in storytelling in general," Paschall told the NY Daily News.

"I think that in today’s world, that gets lost. She loved the power of the story, and she passed that on to me," he added. Paschall currently works as a digital producer at NBC Sports.

Marsh won five Emmy Awards for her contribution as an anchor to local news channels.

She wanted to raise her son, who was 12 years at the time she parted ways with NBC in 2003. She divorced her first husband Nathaniel Price Paschall and in addition to their son John, she is survived by her second husband Paul-Henry Nargeolet.

Colleagues and admirers of the longtime newscaster also expressed their condolences on social media on Wednesday.

"My heart sank today to hear we lost a colleague at @WCBSTV in the 80s. One of biggest stars in golden era of NYC TV news," wrote CBS news anchor Anthony Mason on Twitter.