As a child, Bell experienced a gypsy lifestyle since his dad was a marine colonel and his mom was a drill sergeant. Following their footsteps, he pursued a career in the military that allowed him the opportunity to create an on-base pirate radio station.

After the military, he worked as a rock jock and chief engineer at 25 different radio stations around the world. KSBK/Okinawa, the only English-language station in Asia, was where he earned a Guinness World Record for staying on air for 116 hours and 15 minutes. And while at KENI/Anchorage, he organized a fundraiser and chartered a DC-8 to rescue 130 Vietnamese orphans stranded in Saigon at the end of the war. American families eventually adopted each child.

Bell then moved on to television in the early 1980s where in Las Vegas he helped build “Time Mirror Cable” which is now “Cox Cable.” However, his passion for radio eventually lead him to KDWN/Las Vegas in 1985 where he hosted an overnight talk program that could be heard in 13 western states. In 1993, Coast to Coast AM was born and the Chancellor Broadcasting Company began syndicating the show out of KDWN. About a year later, a home studio was built in Pahrump, Nevada where the show originated.

In 1998, Premiere Radio Networks purchased the Chancellor Broadcasting Company with Bell’s show on about 400 stations.Plagued with ongoing back problems, Bell decided to retire and named George Noory as his successor who took over in January 2003. But by September of that same year, Bell’s long-standing bond with his audience and his undying passion for radio became evident when he returned to the air waves as the weekend host of Coast to Coast AM.Bell has been profiled on Today and Larry King Live and has also been featured in Time Newsweek, People, Maxim, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and Washington Post. In addition, he made a guest appearance on NBC’s Millennium.

In 1997 and 1999, Bell’s peers at the National Association of Broadcasters nominated him for the Marconi Radio Award in the “Network/Syndicated Personality of the Year” category. In 2007, Bell was honored with the “2007 R&R; News/Talk Radio Lifetime Achievement Award.”