Steve Lasker, renowned photojournalist who worked for decades with CBS Chicago, dies at 94
Steve Lasker, an award-winning newspaper and television photojournalist who spent 25 years with CBS Chicago, died last week.
Lasker passed away on Thursday, May 1. He was 94.
Lasker was just 13 years old when he began photographing World War II aircraft at Midway Airport, according to a bio from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Lasker went on to shoot photos for the student newspaper at Hyde Park High School and for the Hyde Park Herald neighborhood paper. As a young man, he also hung out at Chicago firehouses and rode with fire crews on emergency calls, where he took photos and sometimes sold them to insurance companies, his bio noted.
On May 25, 1950, Lasker was hanging around at a firehouse when a horrible accident happened on the city's South Side. A Green Hornet Streetcar collided with a gasoline truck at 63rd and State streets, causing a horrific fire that killed 34 people.
Lasker was the first photographer on the scene of the accident, and he sold his photos to Life Magazine and WNBQ-TV (now WMAQ-TV), NBC 5, where he was hired to shoot still photos for television newscasts, his bio noted.
After five years with NBC 5, Lasker was hired as a press photographer at the Chicago American newspaper. In this role, Lasker was the first photographer on the scene for the tragic fire at Our Lady of Angels Catholic School in the Humboldt Park neighborhood on Dec. 1, 1958.
The fire claimed the lives of 92 students and three nuns. As noted in his bio, Lasker documented tragedy with several heartbreaking images — including one showing firefighter Richard Scheidt carrying the body of a 10-year-old boy, John Jajkowski, from the scene.
Steve Lasker
Scott Lasker
In 1969, Lasker joined CBS Chicago, WBBM-TV, Channel 2, as a news and documentary cameraman. At Channel 2, Lasker worked in the field for many years on a two-man electronic news gathering team with sound man Bob Gadbois, and his assignments took him around the city, country, and beyond.
Lasker spent 27 years at CBS Chicago. His assignments, to name just a very few, included a trip to Poland with Walter Jacobson in the late 70s, a trip to New York with reporter Phil Walters to cover the murder of John Lennon in 1980, and a variety of assignments with Bill Kurtis and covering organized crime and society's seedy underbelly with John Drummond.
Lasker also worked at CBS Chicago with the late producer Scott Craig on several award-winning documentary projects. They included, "Oscar Brown is Back in Town," featuring singer and activist Oscar Brown; "No Place Like Home," which tracked the plight of the unhoused in Chicago; and "The Trial of Shoeless Joe Jackson," a dramatic reenactment that brought viewers to the courtroom after the 1919 scandal in which members of the White Sox conspired to throw the World Series.
Lasker won several awards for his work with CBS Chicago.
Steve Lasker
National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences
After retiring from CBS Chicago in 1995, Lasker shot photos part-time for the Chicago Tribune and later shot commercial photography. He was inducted into the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Silver Circle in 2012.
Lasker is survived by his wife of 60 years, Frances; daughters Wendy and Stacy; sons David and Scott, who both followed him into photojournalism; and grandson Jack. A memorial service is planned for Monday.
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