The Voice has been silenced.

Veteran broadcaster Mark Dailey wasn’t merely the voice of Toronto’s Citytv. He became the voice of the city itself.

After more than 30 years as an ebullient and authoritative nightly presence, the beloved 57-year-old anchor, reporter and announcer lost his battle with recurring cancer on Monday.

“He had such an extraordinary presence, and of course that remarkable voice,” former Citytv colleague Anne Mroczkowski remembered.

“There was music in that voice,” said Mroczkowski, now a co-anchor at Global News Hour. “There was such a kindness about him, such a sweetness. I learned a lot from Mark. He had a very interesting way of looking at the world.”

CBC National news anchor Peter Mansbridge agreed: “Mark had one of the most distinctive voices and styles in Canadian broadcasting. As a journalist he was first-rate, believing that no one should be tied to the studio all the time — that stories happen on the street, not in the newsroom.

“And that's where viewers found him, that amazing voice and his gutsy ability to gather detail together, telling us exactly what happened.”

CTV National News anchor Lloyd Robertson added that Dailey “was a warm and caring broadcaster whose awesome vocal versatility helped give Citytv its strong and cheeky presence.”

A Torontonian by choice, Dailey was born in Youngstown, Ohio, where he studied law enforcement at university and briefly served as a state trooper.

He switched from crime-fighting to crime reporting, and came to Toronto in 1974.

In 1979, Dailey joined the fledgling two-year-old CityPulse news team, which was anchored then, as now, by Gord Martineau.

Martineau said he’ll remember, and miss most, Dailey’s laughs. “The guy was hilarious. He had a very dark sense of humour. We leaned on him a lot for comic relief. He had a great perspective on things.

“He is legendary in this newsroom for that. I wish I had a nickel for every time the guy cracked a joke to relieve the stress. He had this innate knowledge of how to do that. He always had a snappy comeback.”

Dailey was an engagingly idiosyncratic presence even in his early, pre-anchor days.

“He always used to wear a fedora,” Mroczkowski recalled. “Of course, everybody wears fedoras now, but in those days he was like a character from a Mickey Spillane novel.”

When Dailey was first diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2004, he was quick to share the news, and indeed the entire ordeal, with his loyal viewers.

“He became such a force for advocacy,” Mroczkowski marvelled. “He had a camera with him the whole time, documenting the journey of getting treatment.”

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The cancer returned in September, having spread to his kidney, and ultimately on from there to his lungs.

Former Citytv staffer Bob Cook worked closely with Dailey, writing and producing his distinctive voice-over promos.

“I got the chance to sit in the (sound) booth with him every single day,” said Cook. “That’s pretty rarefied air for a production guy, to get to work with a voice like that.”

Dailey was initially opposed to the idea of doubling as City’s station announcer — a job that was filled when the station first started by Dan Aykroyd, before he became a famous actor.

“Mark really didn’t want to take on the extra work,” says Cook, “but whoever was supposed to do it that day didn’t show up.

“He did it, reluctantly, but he took a lot of liberties with it, you know, all those sneaky little asides he would later become know for. And they put it on air, and people started freaking out: ‘You can’t say that kind of stuff . . . ’

“But, to his credit, Moses Znaimer (the founder of Citytv) heard it and said, ‘You know what? It’s kind of different. Let’s see where it goes.’ ”

And it went on to help define both a station and a city.

“He always used to tell me, ‘Relax, Cook. I could make blank paper sound good.’ ”

Dailey leaves his wife Kim and daughter Nicole.