George Page, creator and host of PBS series "Nature," dies at 71

<p>George Page, the creator and host of the long-running PBS series "Nature," has died at 71.</p><p>Page died Wednesday from cancer at his home in Equinunk, Pa., according to a memorial posted on the WNET Web site.</p><p>Page was a journalist and broadcaster for more than 50 years, and was best known as the voice of the PBS wildlife series.</p><p>"Nature" debuted in 1982 and has consistently been one of public television's highest-rated shows. The Emmy and Peabody Award-winning series, produced for public broadcasting by Thirteen/WNET in New York, will begin its 25th season this fall.</p><p>Page narrated every episode of "Nature," nearly 300 overall, until retiring from television because of illness in 1998.</p><p>He went on to write the book "Inside the Animal Mind," which was made into a three-part series by the same name and broadcast on "Nature" in January 2000.</p><p>"The world has lost a great storyteller," Paula A. Kerger, president and chief executive officer of PBS and formerly chief operating officer at Thirteen/WNET, said in a statement on the WNET Web site. "George Page took his skills as a journalist and applied them to subjects that our society often overlooks: science, nature and the animal kingdom.</p><p>"Perhaps no one else in the United States has done more to increase our appreciation and understanding of the world and its inherent splendor and majesty."</p><p>Page was born in Hartwell, Ga., and one of his first broadcasting duties as a teenager at a local station was host of a show called "Obituary Column of the Air."</p><p>A graduate of Emory University, Page went on to work for an NBC affiliate in Atlanta before joining NBC News, where he became a foreign correspondent and covered the Vietnam War.</p><p>He joined PBS in Washington in 1972 and was the director of science and natural history programming.</p><p>Page is survived by his lifelong partner, Dennis De Stefano.</p>