By Cassidy Lee · Republished 2026-05-16 · Originally reported by Richard Horgan on FishbowlLA, June 2012
In early June 2012, Dorothy Lucey appeared on KTLA’s Morning News alongside longtime entertainment reporter Sam Rubin — about a week after she had been let go from Good Day LA after 17 years. The reunion was at Sunset Bronson Studios; archive footage of Rubin and Lucey rehearsing for an earlier KTLA program was rolled during the conversation. The original FishbowlLA framing, by Richard Horgan, treated the encounter as a warm cross-station LA-local-TV moment.
Then
Dorothy Lucey had spent 17 years on KTTV’s Good Day LA — making her one of the longest-tenured LA-local-TV morning-show personalities of the post-1990s era. Her May 25, 2012 dismissal from the show had been part of the broader KTTV management’s revamp of Good Day LA; the broader morning-show reshuffling was the kind of programming decision that periodically reshapes LA-local-TV-news lineups.
Sam Rubin had been KTLA’s entertainment reporter and anchor since 1991. His longevity at the station — and his broader institutional position as one of LA-local-TV’s most-recognized faces — had made him a natural cross-station LA-media community figure. The reunion with Lucey on the KTLA Morning News was the kind of professional courtesy gesture that the LA-local-TV community periodically extends across stations.
The Sunset Bronson Studios setting — KTLA’s longtime home — was substantively important. The archive-footage rehearsal segment captured a small piece of LA-local-TV institutional memory: Lucey and Rubin had previously worked together at KTLA before Lucey moved to KTTV. The 2012 reunion was structurally a return to the original collaborative-pairing context.
Richard Horgan’s FishbowlLA framing was warmly anecdotal. The piece treated the reunion as the kind of in-the-community LA-local-TV moment that FBLA periodically captured — a recognition that the working LA-media community was small enough that career-arc reunions across decades were possible.
Now
Dorothy Lucey continued in occasional broadcasting and writing work after the 2012 KTTV exit. Her blog launch shortly after the Good Day LA dismissal (covered in batch 6’s Columbia Square / Tritia Toyota piece) was part of her post-on-camera-career media transition. She has continued in selective broadcasting and writing across the years.
Sam Rubin died unexpectedly on May 10, 2024, at 64 — sending substantial mourning across the LA-local-TV community. His 33-year KTLA run was one of the longest-tenured single-station American entertainment-reporter careers; his death produced substantial subsequent retrospective coverage across LA-local-TV news, the entertainment trade press, and the broader American entertainment-journalism community. The 2012 piece’s casual celebration of Rubin’s longevity has aged into being one of the small documented moments of his career’s mid-period.
Sunset Bronson Studios has continued as KTLA’s headquarters across the post-2012 interval. The 25-acre Sunset Boulevard complex has continued to be the LA-region’s most-active independent-television-production facility; subsequent tenants have included Netflix’s Hollywood operations and various other major productions.
KTLA itself has continued as one of LA’s anchor independent television stations across the years since 2012. The station’s morning-news brand has continued through multiple subsequent anchor and reporter rotations; the post-Sam-Rubin entertainment-reporter slot has been one of the most substantial subsequent institutional questions for the station.
The 2012 piece reads now as a documented warm-moment captured in the middle of two long LA-local-TV careers — Lucey’s 17-year Good Day LA run completed, Sam Rubin’s 33-year KTLA run still continuing for another dozen years. The 2024 Sam Rubin death has substantially elevated retrospective attention to small moments like the 2012 reunion across his broader career arc.
Original report archived on the Wayback Machine.