He was a familiar presence on Canadian tv screens for years.

 Former CBC television host and journalist  Roy Bonisteel has died at the age of 83.

Bonisteel hosted the current affairs program Man Alive from 1967 to 1989 and became a public speaker, writer and citizenship judge.

Bonisteel died of cancer  Friday  morning at his home north of Trenton.

Bonisteel began his journalism career at newspapers in Belleville and Trenton and went on to become a radio announcer working in  Belleville, St. Catharines and Vancouver.

He turned  his experiences as the host of Man Alive into two books that  focused on interviews with figures such as Mother Teresa and the Dalai Lama.