Longtime WCBM-AM conservative talk radio host Les Kinsolving dies at 90
The Baltimore Sun
By Colin Campbell
December 5, 2018
Charles Lester “Les” Kinsolving, a retired WCBM-AM conservative talk radio personality who hosted the show “Uninhibited Radio” for 28 years, has died at 90, the station announced Tuesday.
Kinsolving, whose bright red blazer and outrageous talk show earned him national renown, was a “throwback to radio yesteryear [who] tries to shock, outrage and prod the world around him with his commentary,” according to a 1998 Baltimore Sun profile.
“From the loud red jacket to his blustery delivery,” The Sun reported, “Kinsolving guarantees a scene every time he walks into the room.”
The radio station did not give a cause of his death. A message left Wednesday at his Northern Virginia home was not returned.
Kinsolving had a heart attack at his Virginia home and underwent triple bypass surgery at Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church, Va., in January 2005, but returned to the air until a few months ago.
Sean Casey, who hosts the conservative “Sean and Frank in the Morning” program with Frank Luber on WCBM, called Kinsolving “a fearless reporter/broadcaster who confronted the Jim Jones cult, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and covered the White House in his signature red jacket.”
On Kinsolving’s show, Casey said in a statement, “no sacred cows went unmilked.”
Casey said he hired Kinsolving at the station in 1990 at the urging of Tom Marr. Kinsolving was a “true patriot and a great American” whose retirement followed a decline in health, Casey said.
“It is so ironic that Les would pass the same week that [George H.W. Bush] left us, a [president] that he covered, and just days away from the annual Army-Navy game that he loved and would attend almost every year when health permitted,” Casey said in his statement. “Rest in peace, ‘my dear friend.’”
KINSOLVING, Charles Lester
Born: 12/18/1927, New York City, New York, U.S.A.
Died: 12/4/2018, Vienna, Virginia, U.S.A.
Charles Lester Kinsolving’s westerns – actor:
Gettysburg – 1993 (Brigadier General William Barksdale)
Gods and Generals – 2003 (General William Barksdale)