Reagan "Morning in America" ad man Hal Riney dies

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Hal Riney, the advertising executive who created and read the script for the famous "It's morning in America" campaign advertisement for late U.S. President Ronald Reagan, has died. He was 75.

The cause was cancer, a spokeswoman for Publicis & Hal Riney, his former advertising agency, said. He died on Monday at his home in San Francisco, surrounded by his family.

In 1984, the Seattle native joined Reagan's so-called Tuesday Team, a collection of campaign professionals put together to re-elect the popular president, said Jeff Goodby of San Francisco agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners.

It was Riney's own voice heard in the Tuesday Team ad that began, "It's morning in America." Riney created a campaign that depicted a happy, safe United States, asking why the country would want to return to a time before Reagan's election.

Riney also lent his voice to other advertising spots, including one for Crocker National Bank, in California, in the mid-1960s, Goodby said in a statement. The Paul Williams tune "We've Only Just Begun," written for a commercial, was later recorded by the Carpenters and became a hit.

Riney opened the San Francisco office of Ogilvy & Mather in 1976 and went on to create three of the 100 campaigns selected by Advertising Age as the best of the 20th century, according to Goodby, a longtime friend and advertising colleague.

In 1985, Riney bought the Ogilvy & Mathers office and renamed it Hal Riney & Partners. Not long after, he introduced General Motors Saturn brand to the American public in what became the most successful new model launch in GM history.

Hal Riney & Partners was sold in 2003 to the Publicis Group and renamed Publicis & Hal Riney.

Riney was born July 17, 1932, and grew up in the shadow of Mount St. Helens, Goodby said. He is survived by his wife, Elizabeth Sutherland Riney, and two children from a previous marriage.

(Editing by Doina Chiacu)