Stay classy: Kurtis ‘interested’ in reunion with Ron Burgundy

Bill Kurtis and Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy)

As narrator of Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, television news icon Bill Kurtis lent just the right touch of gravitas mixed with irony to the story of Ron Burgundy, the swashbuckling '70s newsman played by Will Ferrell.

So now that Ferrell has announced plans for a long-awaited sequel to his 2004 hit comedy, does that mean an encore for Kurtis, too?

“I would certainly be interested in reprising the role,” Kurtis told me this week. As of Friday, he had not yet been approached.

Kurtis, 71, returned to local news in 2010 when he rejoined CBS-owned WBBM-Channel 2 to co-anchor the 6pm weekday newscast with longtime on-air partner Walter Jacobson. He’d spent most of the previous two decades as a Chicago-based independent documentary producer and the living logo of A&E, where he fronted such long-running series as Investigative Reports, American Justice and Cold Case Files.

Although Kurtis’s role in Anchorman introduced him to a new generation of fans and made him more famous than he already was, I admit it took me years before I came to appreciate his wickedly self-deprecating performance. “You are the only person in the entire country who nailed me for narrating Anchorman,” Kurtis once teased me. “Don’t you like documentaries?”

Anchorman 2 is expected to go into production later this year, with release planned for 2013.  Also signed for the sequel were original co-stars Steve Carell and Paul Rudd.