CHICAGO -- Walter F. Bennett, head of an advertising agency instrumental in helping evangelist Billy Graham put his religious crusades on radio and television, died Friday. He was 65.
Bennett died of a massive heart attack at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke Medical Center where he had been undergoing dialysis.
A resident of both Chicago and Culver, Ind., Bennett was a partner with Fred Dienert at the Chicago agency of Walter F. Bennett and Co.
Bennett began his association with Graham in 1949. He helped Graham establish the radio program,'The Hour of Decision,' which is now carried worldwide on about 800 stations.
Bennett's firm later put Graham on television, producing both reruns of his evangelist crusades and special programs. The first television production for Graham was a run of 17 weeks while he was preaching in New York's Madison Square Garden in 1949.
Bennett started in the broadcasting field in Denver, where he was a musician and entertainer on KOA Radio. He later enlarged his program to several stations in Chicago.
He is survived by his wife, Charlotte, two sons William, 28, and Paul, 25, and one grandson. Funeral arrangements were pending.
