爱华网MikeWallace (journalist)
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation,search| Mike Wallace | |
|---|---|
Wallace in 1957 | |
| Born | Myron Leon Wallace (1918-05-09)May 9, 1918 Brookline,Massachusetts |
| Died | April 7, 2012(2012-04-07)(aged93) New Canaan,Connecticut |
| Education | Brookline HighSchool |
| Almamater | University ofMichigan (BA) |
| Occupation | Journalist, game show host, actor |
| Years active | 1939–2011 |
| Notable credit(s) | 60 Minutes(1968–2006; 2008) |
| Religion | Judaism |
| Spouse | Norma Kaphan (m.1940-1948; divorced) Buff Cobb (m.1949-1954; divorced) Lorraine Perigord (m.1955-1983; divorced) Mary Yates (m.1986-2012; his death) |
| Children | Peter Wallace (died 1962) ChrisWallace |
| Parents | Frank Wallace Zina Sharfman |
Myron Leon "Mike" Wallace (May 9, 1918 – April 7, 2012)was an American journalist, game show host,actor and mediapersonality. He interviewed a wide range of prominentnewsmakers during his sixty-year career. He was one of the originalcorrespondents for CBS' 60Minutes which debuted in 1968. Wallace retired as a regularfull-time correspondent in 2006, but still appeared occasionally onthe series until 2008.
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[edit]Early life
Wallace, whose family's surname was originallyWallik,[1]was born in Brookline,Massachusetts, to Russian Jewishimmigrant parents, Frank and Zina (Sharfman) Wallace. His fatherwas a grocer and insurance broker.[2]Wallace attended Brookline HighSchool, graduating in 1935.[3]He graduated from the University ofMichigan four years later with a Bachelor ofArts. While a college student he was a reporter for theMichiganDaily and belonged to the Alpha Gamma Chapter of theZeta Beta TauFraternity.[4]
[edit]Career
Wallace appeared as a guest on the popular radio quiz show InformationPlease on February 7, 1939, when he was in his last year atthe University of Michigan. His first radio job was as newscasterand continuity writer for WOOD Radio in Grand Rapids,Michigan. This lasted until 1940, when he moved to WXYZRadio in Detroit,Michigan, as an announcer. He then became a freelance radioworker in Chicago, Illinois.
Wallace enlisted in the United StatesNavy in 1943 and served as a communications officer duringWorld War II on theUSSAnthedon,a submarinetender. He saw no combat, but traveled to Hawaii, Australia,and Subic Bay in thePhilippines, then patrolling the South China Sea, the PhilippineSea and south of Japan. Wallace returned to Chicago after beingdischarged in 1946.
Wallace announced for the radio action shows NedJordan:Secret Agent[5],Sky King andThe GreenHornet early in his career. It is sometimes reportedWallace announced for The LoneRanger, but Wallace said he never did.[6]
Wallace announced wrestling in Chicago in the late 1940s andearly 1950s, sponsored by Tavern Pale beer.
In the late 1940s, Wallace was a staff announcer for theCBSradio network. He had displayed his comic skills when he appearedopposite Spike Jones indialogue routines. He was also the voice of Elgin-American in theircommercials on Groucho Marx'sYou Bet YourLife.
He starred under the name Myron Wallace in a short-lived policedrama, Stand By forCrime in 1949.[7]
Wallace hosted a number of game shows in the 1950s, includingThe BigSurprise, Who's the Boss? and Who Pays?.Early in his career Wallace was not known primarily as a newsbroadcaster. It was not uncommon during that period fornewscasters (the term then used) to announce, do commercialsand host game shows; Douglas Edwards,John Daly,John CameronSwayze and Walter Cronkitehosted game shows as well. Wallace also hosted the pilot episode forNothing but the Truth, which was helmed by BudCollyer when it aired under the title, To Tell theTruth. Wallace occasionally served as a panelist on ToTell the Truth in the 1950s. He also did commercials for avariety of products, including Procter& Gamble's Fluffo brand shortening.
Wallace also hosted two late-night interview programs, NightBeat (broadcast in New York during 1955–7,only on DuMont'sWABD)and The MikeWallace Interview on ABCin 1957–8. See also Profiles inCourage, section: Authorship controversy.
Wallace and Harry Reasoner onthe 60 Minutespremiere, 1968.In 1959, Louis Lomax toldWallace about the Nation of Islam.Lomax and Wallace produced a five-part documentary about theorganization, The HateThat Hate Produced, which aired during the week of July 13,1959. The program was the first time most white peopleheard about the Nation, its leader, ElijahMuhammad, and its charismatic spokesman, MalcolmX.[8]
By the early 1960s, Wallace's primary income came fromcommercials for Parliamentcigarettes, touting their "man's mildness" (he had a contract withPhilip Morristo pitch their cigarettes as a result of their original sponsorshipof The Mike Wallace Interview). Between June 1961 and June1962 he hosted a New York-based nightly interview program forWestinghouseBroadcasting[9]called PM East for one hour; itwas paired with PM West, 30 minutes,hosted by SanFrancisco Chronicle television critic Terrence O'Flaherty.Westinghouse syndicated the series to television stations it ownedand to a few other cities. People in southern and southwesternstates were unable to watch it. A frequent guest on the PMEast segment was BarbraStreisand. Only the audio of some of her conversations withWallace survives.[10]Westinghouse wiped the videotapes. Also in the early 1960s, Wallacewas the host of the DavidWolper-produced Biographyseries. After his elder son's death in 1962, however, Wallacedecided to get back into news, and hosted an early version ofThe CBS MorningNews, from 1963 through 1966. In 1964 he interviewedMalcolm X, who,half-jokingly, commented "I probably am a dead manalready."[11]
In 1967, Wallace anchored the documentary CBSReports: The Homosexuals. Wallace had said in 1967, "Theaverage homosexual, if there be such, is promiscuous," Wallace saidin the piece. "He is not interested or capable of a lastingrelationship like that of a heterosexual marriage. His sex life,his love life, consists of a series of one-chance encounters at theclubs and bars he inhabits. And even on the streets of the city—thepick-up, the one night stand, these are characteristics of thehomosexual relationship."[12]
His career as the lead reporter on 60 Minutes naturallyled to some run-ins with the people interviewed. While interviewingLouis Farrakhan,Wallace alleged that Nigeria is the mostcorrupt country in the world. Farrakhan immediately shot back,declaring "Nigeria didn't bomb Hiroshima or slaughtermillions of Indians!" "Can you think of a more corrupt country?" askedWallace. "I am living in one," said Farrakhan. Wallace expressedregret in regard to the one big interview he was never able tosecure: First Lady Pat Nixon.[13]Wallace interviewed Gen. WilliamWestmoreland for the CBS special TheUncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception, aired January 23,1982.[14]Westmoreland then sued Wallace andCBS for libel. The trial ended inFebruary 1985 when the case was settled out of court just before itwould have gone to the jury. Each side agreed to pay its own costsand attorney's fees and CBS issued a clarification of its intentwith respect to the original story.
In 1981, Wallace was forced to apologize for a racial slur hehad made about blacks and Hispanics. During a break while preparinga 60 Minutes report on a bank that had been accused ofduping low-income Californians, Wallace was caught on tape jokingthat "You bet your ass [the contracts are] hard to read" if you'rereading them over watermelon or tacos.[15][16]Attention was re-drawn to that incident several years later whenprotests were raised against Wallace's being selected to give auniversity commencement address at the same ceremony during whichNelson Mandela was being awarded an honorary doctorate in absentiafor his fight against racism. Wallace initially called theprotestors' complaint "absolute foolishness."[17]However, he subsequently again apologized for his earlier remark,and added that when he had been a student decades earlier on thesame university campus, "though it had never really caused me anyserious difficulty here ... I was keenly aware of being Jewish, andquick to detect slights, real or imagined.... We Jews felt a kindof kinship [with blacks]," but "Lord knows, we weren't riding thesame slave ship."[18]
On March 14, 2006, Wallace announced his retirement from 60Minutes after 37 years with the program. He continued workingfor CBS News as a "Correspondent Emeritus", albeit at a reducedpace.[19]In August 2006, Wallace interviewed Iranian President MahmoudAhmadinejad.[20]Wallace's last CBS interview was with retired baseball starRoger Clemens inJanuary 2008 on "60 Minutes."[21]Wallace's previously vigorous health (Morley Safer described him in2006 as "having the energy of a man half his age") began to failand in June 2008 his son Chrissaid that his father would not be returning totelevision.[22]
[edit]Personallife
Wallace in 2007Wallace's younger son, Chris,is also a journalist. His elder son, Peter, died at age 19 in amountain-climbing accident in Greece in1962.[23]
For many years, Mike Wallace unknowingly suffered from depression. Inan article he wrote for Guideposts,Wallace related, "I'd had days when I felt blue and it took more ofan effort than usual to get through the things I had to do." Itworsened in 1984, after GeneralWilliamWestmoreland filed a $120million libel lawsuit againstWallace and CBS over statements they made in the documentaryThe UncountedEnemy: A Vietnam Deception (1982). Westmoreland claimed thedocumentary made him appear as if he manipulated intelligence.The lawsuit, Westmoreland v.CBS, was later dropped after CBS issued a statementexplaining they never intended to portray the general as disloyalor unpatriotic. During the proceedings, Mike Wallace washospitalized with what was diagnosed as exhaustion. His wife Maryforced him to go to a doctor, who diagnosed Wallace with clinicaldepression. He was prescribed an antidepressantand underwent psychotherapy. Outof a belief that it would be perceived as a weakness, Wallace kepthis depression a secret until he revealed it in an interview withBob Costas on hislate-night talkshow.[24]In a later interview with colleague Morley Safer, herevealed he attempted suicide circa1986.[25]
Wallace received a pacemaker morethan 20 years prior to his death and underwent triple bypasssurgery in January 2008.[1]He lived in a "care facility" the last several years of hislife.[1]In 2011, CNN host Larry King visitedhim and reported that he was in good spirits, but his physicalcondition was noticeably declining.
Politically, Wallace considered himself a moderate. Wallace wasfriends with Nancy Reagan and her family for over 75years.[26]Nixon wanted him for his press secretary. Fox News said, "he didn'tfit the stereotype of the Eastern liberal journalist." Interviewedby his son on "Fox News Sunday", he was asked, Does he understandwhy people feel a disaffection from the mainstream media? "Theythink they're wide-eyed commies. Liberals," Mike Wallace replied, anotion he dismissed as "damned foolishness."[27]
[edit]Death
Mike Wallace died[28][29][30][1]at his New Canaan,Connecticut, residence, on April 7, 2012. He was 93. On April15, 2012 a full episode of 60 Minutes aired which was dedicated toremembering his life.[31][32][33]
[edit]Awards
Wallace's professional honors included 21 EmmyAwards,[1]among them a report just weeks before the 9/11terrorist attacks for an investigation on the former Soviet Union'ssmallpox program andconcerns about terrorism. He has alsowon three Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards, three GeorgeFoster Peabody Awards, a Robert E. Sherwood Award, aDistinguished Achievement Award from the Universityof Southern California School of Journalism and a RobertF. Kennedy Journalism Award in the international broadcastcategory. In September 2003, Wallace received a LifetimeAchievement Emmy, his 20th.[citationneeded] Most recently, on October 13, 2007,Wallace was awarded the University of Illinois Prize for LifetimeAchievement in Journalism.
[edit]Fictionalportrayals
Wallace was played by actor ChristopherPlummer in the 1999 feature film, TheInsider. The screenplay was based on the VanityFair article, "TheMan Who Knew Too Much" by Marie Brenner,which accused Wallace of capitulating to corporate pressure to killa story about Jeffrey Wigand, awhistle-blowertrying to expose Brown& Williamson's dangerous business practices.Wallace, for his part, disliked his on-screen portrayal andmaintained he was in fact very eager to have Wigand's story airedin full.
Wallace was played by actor Stephen Rowe in the stage version of Frost/Nixon,but he was omitted from the screenplay of the 2008 filmadaptation and thus the movie itself. In the TV movie Hefner:Unauthorized from 1999, Wallace is portrayed by Mark Harelik. Inthe film A Face inthe Crowd (1957), Wallace portrayed himself.
