Obit: Mike Wallace of '60 Minutes', 1918-2012

Subject: RE: Obit: Mike Wallace of '60 Minutes', 1918-2012
From: Wesley S
Date: 11 Apr 12 - 08:04 AM

In watching tributes to Mike Wallace upon his death they pointed out that he would often use silence to his advantage. In order to get a subject to offer more information he would just stare at you and eventually the interviewee would keep on adding more to the story - because everyone hates silence. Smart man.

Subject: RE: Obit: Mike Wallace of '60 Minutes', 1918-2012
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 10 Apr 12 - 01:14 PM

Driving over to LA yesterday I heard a couple interviews with Mike Wallace from 2005, when his second memoir was published. He was 87 at the time, and sounded just as he always had.

In the current context material, it was noted that in the past few years, as his mind went, he remembered friends and family but it was as though his TV career had never happened. Very strange.

Remembering Mike Wallace, On Point, with Tom Ashbrook

Mike Wallace, Interviewer: 'You and Me', Fresh Air, with Terry Gross

The clips from interviews that he did over the years were amazing -- Margaret Sanger in 1959, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X (saying, "I'm already a dead man" a few months before he was killed)... what a stretch of history.

He was one of the early people to come out about clinical depression. He hid it for a while -- his own doctor said it would damage his reputation, but his wife urged him to get help. His first severe bout was when he and CBS were being sued for libel by General Westmoreland for the program where they showed the misrepresentations of Viet Cong numbers during the war. That interview clip was amazing.

"Between You and Me: A Memoir" comes with an 82-minute DVD that would be interesting, I'm sure (although Publisher's Weekly called the book "tepid").

For music content: he played violin.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Obit: Mike Wallace of '60 Minutes', 1918-2012
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 08 Apr 12 - 11:13 PM

I admired his work as a telejournalist.

Subject: RE: Obit: Mike Wallace of '60 Minutes', 1918-2012
From: catspaw49
Date: 08 Apr 12 - 05:14 PM

I don't remember where I was having the discussion the other day about Walter Cronkite and now we lose another.   There are almost none left now from the days when CBS ruled the news. Mikee Wallace leaves a tremendous volume of work for future generations to hopefully learn from his abilities as a newsman and an interviewer.


Spaw

Subject: RE: Obit: Mike Wallace of '60 Minutes', 1918-2012
From: Greg F.
Date: 08 Apr 12 - 02:18 PM

Another of the last of the real news men done gone.

Subject: RE: Obit: Mike Wallace of '60 Minutes', 1918-2012
From: katlaughing
Date: 08 Apr 12 - 01:56 PM

wow, i had no idea he was that old. what a great real journalist. RIP

kat

Subject: RE: Obit: Mike Wallace of '60 Minutes', 1918-2012
From: gnu
Date: 08 Apr 12 - 01:46 PM

Good man. RIP

Subject: RE: Obit: Mike Wallace of '60 Minutes', 1918-2012
From: open mike
Date: 08 Apr 12 - 01:31 PM

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57411010/60-minutes-icon-mike-wallace-dies-at-93/

Subject: RE: Obit: Mike Wallace of '60 Minutes', 1918-2012
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Apr 12 - 11:47 AM

Just heard the story on NPR. At 93 he had a good long run.

I watched him for years back when I was watching 60 Minutes, and I remember giving him a big smile as we passed him one evening on the street in New York City. I nudged my partner, Wallace saw me recognize him and seemed resolved to be confronted, but we just smiled and said "Hello" when we passed. He looked positively relieved. I wonder how that scenario usually worked out for him?

RIP.

SRS

Subject: Obit: Mike Wallace of '60 Minutes', 1918-2012
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 08 Apr 12 - 11:21 AM

Mike Wallace, '60 Minutes' Pioneer, Dies

By Brian Stelter
New York Times
April 8, 2012

Mike Wallace, a pioneer of American broadcasting who confronted leaders and liars for the newsmagazine "60 Minutes" for four decades, has died, CBS News said Sunday morning. He was 93.

His death was announced on CBS. Bob Scheiffer, the host of "Face the Nation," said that Mr. Wallace died on Saturday night at a care facility in New Haven, Connecticut. "His family was with him," Mr. Scheiffer said.

Mr. Wallace had been ill for several years.

"It is with tremendous sadness that we mark the passing of Mike Wallace," Leslie Moonves, the chief executive of CBS Corporation, said in a statement. "His extraordinary contribution as a broadcaster is immeasurable and he has been a force within the television industry throughout its existence. His loss will be felt by all of us at CBS."

As one of the original correspondents and hosts of "60 Minutes," which was started in 1968, Mr. Wallace helped to establish the television newsmagazine format. "Without him and his iconic style, there probably wouldn't be a '60 Minutes,'" said Jeff Fager, the executive producer of the program.

A staple of Sunday nights for many families, the newsmagazine is now the most popular such program on American television. CBS said that it would dedicate a special edition of "60 Minutes" to Mr. Wallace on April 15.

Mr. Wallace was perhaps best known for ambush interviews of crooks and cheats. Mr. Wallace "invented a new paradigm for television news, creating a signature technique that would become a standard in the industry," the biographer Peter Rader writes in a new book, "Mike Wallace: A Life."

In an essay for CBS News, Morley Safer, a "60 Minutes" correspondent, recounted his colleague's career thusly:

    Wallace took to heart the old reporter's pledge to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. He characterized himself as "nosy and insistent."

    So insistent, there were very few 20th century icons who didn't submit to a Mike Wallace interview. He lectured Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, on corruption. He lectured Yassir Arafat on violence.

    He asked the Ayatollah Khoumeini if he were crazy.

    He traveled with Martin Luther King (whom Wallace called his hero). He grappled with Louis Farrakhan.

    And he interviewed Malcolm X shortly before his assassination.

Mr. Wallace entered semi-retirement in 2006, but returned to "60 Minutes" for interviews with Mitt Romney, Jack Kevorkian and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He last appeared on "60 Minutes" in January 2008, when he had an exclusive interview with Roger Clemens, a baseball legend who had been accused of steroid use.

Weeks after the interview was shown, Mr. Wallace underwent a triple bypass surgery.

Mr. Wallace was noticeably absent in January when CBS held a memorial service for another legendary "60 Minutes" figure, Andy Rooney, who died in November at age 92.

In a recent interview, Mr. Wallace's son Chris, who is the anchor of "Fox News Sunday" on Fox, said that his father "is 93 and showing it for the first time."

"He's in a facility in Connecticut. Physically, he's okay. Mentally, he's not," Chris Wallace said. "He still recognizes me and knows who I am, but he's uneven. The interesting thing is, he never mentions '60 Minutes.' It's as if it didn't exist. It's as if that part of his memory is completely gone. The only thing he really talks about is family — me, my kids, my grandkids, his great-grandchildren. There's a lesson there. This is a man who had a fabulous career and for whom work always came first. Now he can't even remember it."

In interviews after he retired, Mike Wallace said he would want his epitaph to read, "Tough But Fair."