Born Israel Reuven Frank (he later dropped his first name) to a Jewish family in Montreal, Quebec, he earned a bachelor's degree in social science at City College of New York.
After completing his studies at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism,[1] he worked for three years at the Newark Evening News as a reporter, rewrite man and night city editor.
He paired Chet Huntley and David Brinkley for the first time to co-anchor NBC's coverage of the 1956 Democratic and Republican National Conventions.
[5][6] In the 1970s, he created and was executive producer of Weekend, a news magazine hosted by Lloyd Dobyns that originally aired one Saturday a month from 11:30 p.m. to 1:00 a.m.
Frank served two tenures as president of NBC News, from 1968 to 1974 and from 1982 to 1984, and mentored such journalists as Tom Brokaw, John Chancellor, Linda Ellerbee, and Andrea Mitchell.