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Who2 Biography:

Mike Wallace

, TV Newscaster / TV Personality

  • Born: 9 May 1918
  • Birthplace: Brookline, Massachusetts
  • Best Known As: Tough interviewer and mainstay of 60 Minutes

Name at birth: Myron Leon Wallace

Mike Wallace made his mark in television journalism as an aggressive interviewer who spent 37 years as co-host of the CBS news program 60 Minutes. A 1939 graduate of the University of Michigan, Wallace worked in radio in Michigan and Chicago, then served in the United States Navy during World War II. After the war he returned to Chicago and worked a variety of radio jobs until 1951, when he moved to New York City. By the late 1950s he was on TV and nationally known for his adversarial style of interviews, thanks to programs like Night Beat (1956) and Mike Wallace Interviews (1957-58). Wallace joined CBS News in 1963 as a correspondent and was named in 1968 as one of the co-hosts for 60 Minutes, a TV news "magazine" that has been a Sunday night staple since the mid-1970s. Some critics derided Wallace's aggressive reporting techniques -- which included hidden cameras and "ambush" interviews -- but the dramatic stories he told brought big audiences to CBS and international celebrity to Mike Wallace. Over the years he has interviewed dozens of newsmakers, from Malcolm X to Ronald Reagan. He's also been in the news himself a few times, including when U.S. General William Westmoreland sued him for libel in 1984 (the case was settled in 1985), and when he was depicted as knuckling under to the tobacco industry in the 1999 Russell Crowe film The Insider. Wallace has also been open about his battle with depression (which he says was triggered by the 1984 lawsuit) and has worked to educate the public on the issue. He retired from 60 Minutes in 2005, but in 2006, at the age of 88, he signed a new four-year contract with CBS.

Other hosts of 60 Minutes have included Dan Rather and Diane Sawyer... Chris Wallace of Fox News Sunday is the son of Mike Wallace.

 
 
Actor:

Mike Wallace

  • Born: May 09, 1918 in Brookline, Massachusetts
  • Occupation: Actor
  • Active: '90s-2000s
  • Major Genres: History, Culture & Society
  • Career Highlights: 35 Years and 60 Minutes, Depression and Manic Depression, The 20th Century with Mike Wallace
  • First Major Screen Credit: The 20th Century with Mike Wallace (1994)

Biography

Forever associated with his anchorage of the 60 Minutes Sunday night news magazine on CBS - a role he held, steadily, for an astonishing 38 years (1968-2006) - Mike Wallace became synonymous with on-air trustworthiness and reliability, the nation's preeminent guide to outstanding, documentary-style probes of contemporary issues and global phenomena. Born May 9, 1918, in the posh Boston suburb of Brookline, Massachusetts, Wallace attended the University of Michigan as a young man, and later accepted a job as announcer at WOOD-AM radio in nearby Grand Rapids (c. 1939). Wallace segued from this into a stint manning radio commercials and announcing serialized radio dramas at stations in Detroit and Chicago. Within a decade, Wallace leapt into the then-nascent medium of television with full abandon, working in any and every capacity allowed him, including dramatic roles, game shows, and the occasional assignment hosting a talk show, such as the now-forgotten Mike and Buff.

In 1963, Wallace grew sick of non-news interests and reported to CBS News president Richard Salent, asserting that he had "sanitized" himself of all television matters unconnected to nonfiction reportage. Salent allegedly hired Wallace with a 65% pay deduction, but the burgeoning newsman persisted, and in time received title credit on the CBS AM news broadcasts: The CBS Morning News With Mike Wallace ran from 1963 through 1966 and garnered enormous popularity. But Wallace's greatest legacy was still at least two years away. On Tuesday evening, September 24, 1968, 60 Minutes premiered at 10:00pm, with Wallace as its chief anchor and Harry Reasoner as his co-host. According to Broadcasting magazine, the format itself developed out of Night Beat, a local talk program hosted by Wallace in 1956, where he exhibited a trademark "adversarial style" of journalism. 60 Minutes producers' strategy involved counterbalancing this aggression with Reasoner's genial "nice guy" approach. The plan worked, and the program's ratings shot up to astronomical levels, qualifying it as nothing less than a national phenomenon. As noted, Wallace remained on 60 Minutes for decades, but even after he retired, he returned from time to time, to man periodic interviews.

In addition to his role on 60 Minutes , Wallace tackled feature film work, with a cameo in Elia Kazan's shattering indictment of television, A Face in the Crowd (1957). He made a humorous 1993 guest appearance on Murphy Brown (as did a number of his colleagues), and hosted the popular documentary series The 20th Century With Mike Wallace (1994-2000), which investigated everything from the Gulf War to celebrity murders to gun control and hurricanes. Wallace also appears as an interviewee in the documentaries Vietnam: Chronicle of a War (1981) and Watergate: The Secret Story (1992). ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

 

(born May 9, 1918, Brookline, Mass., U.S.) U.S. television interviewer and reporter. After graduating from the University of Michigan (1939), he worked as an announcer and newscaster on radio, delving into various programs, including talk shows, quiz shows, serials, and the news. He served as a naval communications officer during World War II and was subsequently hired as a radio reporter in Chicago. He began to work on television in the 1950s, hosting several television quiz shows. He joined CBS as a reporter in 1963 and was coeditor of the long-running 60 Minutes from its first program in 1968. Noted for his aggressive, bruising style (which led some of his guests to experience "Mike fright"), he traveled the world interviewing some of the most famous and powerful figures, and he won numerous Emmy Awards.

For more information on Mike Wallace, visit Britannica.com.

 
Wikipedia: Mike Wallace (journalist)


Mike Wallace
Mike_Wallace.jpg
Born May 9 1918 (1918--) (age 89)
Flag of the United States Flag of Massachusetts Brookline, Massachusetts, USA

Mike Wallace (born Myron Leon Wallace on May 9, 1918) is an American journalist. Wallace has been a correspondent for CBS's 60 Minutes since its debut in 1968. During his career at 60 Minutes, he has interviewed a wide range of prominent newsmakers, including Deng Xiaoping, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, Ayatollah Khomeini, Kurt Waldheim, Malcolm X, Yasser Arafat, Menachem Begin, Anwar Sadat, Manuel Noriega, Jeffrey Wigand, Ayn Rand, John F. Nash, Vladimir Putin, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Wallace retired as a regular correspondent in 2006.

Life and career

Mike Wallace, whose family's surname was originally "Woleck", was born in the Boston suburb of Brookline, Massachusetts to Russian-Jewish parents. He went on to the University of Michigan, graduating in 1939 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. His first job in radio was as newscaster and continuity writer for WOOD Radio in Grand Rapids, Michigan. This job lasted until 1940 when he joined WXYZ Radio in Detroit, Michigan as an announcer. He then went on to became a freelance radio worker in Chicago, Illinois. Wallace joined the U.S. Navy in 1943, serving as a communications officer during World War II. After the war, he returned to Chicago.

Early in his career, Wallace announced for the radio action shows Ned Jordan, Secret Agent, and The Green Hornet. It is sometimes reported that Wallace announced for the The Lone Ranger, but Wallace says he didn't. [1].

By the late 1940s Wallace was a staff announcer for the CBS radio network. He had a rare chance to display his comic side when he appeared opposite Spike Jones in dialogue routines.

During the 1950s, Wallace hosted a number of game shows, including The Big Surprise, Who's the Boss? and Who Pays?. Early in his career Wallace was not known primarily as a news broadcaster. It was not uncommon during that period for newscasters (the term then used) to announce, do commercials and host game shows; Douglas Edwards, John Daly, John Cameron Swayze, and Walter Cronkite hosted game shows as well. Wallace also hosted the pilot episode for Nothing but the Truth, which was helmed by Bud Collyer when it aired under the title, To Tell the Truth. Wallace occasionally served as a panelist on To Tell the Truth in the 1950s. He also did commercials for a variety of products, including Fluffo (brand) shortening.

Wallace also hosted two late-night interview programs, Night Beat (broadcast in New York only on WABD) and The Mike Wallace Interview on ABC.

By the early 1960s, Wallace's primary income came from commercials for Parliament cigarettes. After his elder son's death, however, Wallace decided to get back into news, and hosted an early version of The CBS Morning News, from 1963 to 1966.

On March 14, 2006, Wallace announced his retirement from 60 Minutes after 37 years with the program. He will continue working for CBS News as a "Correspondent Emeritus" [2].

He has been married four times and has two sons and a daughter. His son Peter died in a mountain climbing accident in 1962. His other son, Chris Wallace, works as a moderator of Fox News Sunday, a syndicated television show which runs throughout Fox's network of affiliates. He has four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Awards

Wallace's professional honors include at least 20 Emmy Awards, among them a report just weeks before the 9/11 attack for an investigation on the former Soviet Union's smallpox program and concerns about terrorism. He has also won three Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards, three George Foster Peabody Awards, a Robert E. Sherwood Award, a Distinguished Achievement Award from the University of Southern California School Of Journalism and a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award in the international broadcast category. In September 2003, Wallace received a Lifetime Achievement Emmy, his 20th.

Depression

Wallace suffered from major clinical depression triggered by accusations of libel and a related lawsuit. He has been treated by a psychiatrist and has taken different medications. On his battle with depression, Wallace said:

"At first I couldn't sleep, then I couldn't eat. I felt hopeless and I just couldn't cope and then I just lost all perspective on things. You know, you become crazy. I had done a story for 60 Minutes on depression but I had no idea that I was now experiencing it. Finally, I collapsed and just went to bed" (Source: CBS Cares interview below).

He revealed on a May 21, 2006, episode of 60 Minutes that he once attempted suicide with an overdose of pills. In recent years, Wallace has gone public with his long-standing fight against depression, testifying for Senate hearings on the topic. He has also been interviewed on the illness on Larry King Live and for various documentaries. Speaking on the issue, he has urged those who suffer depression to seek treatment.

Criticism

Mike Wallace interviewed Gen. William Westmoreland for the CBS special The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception [3]. Westmoreland then sued Wallace and CBS for libel. In February 1985 , while the case was still in court, CBS offered an apology to settle with Westmoreland after their internal investigation determined that the producers of the show had not used the proper standards of fairness. Westmoreland accepted the apology to settle the case.

Jailed former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega called Wallace "the epitome of sabotage journalism". Dan Rather called him a "Michigan asshole" on Larry King Live.

Fictional portrayals

Wallace was played by actor Christopher Plummer in the 1999 feature film, The Insider. The screenplay was based on the Vanity Fair article, The Man Who Knew Too Much by Marie Brenner, which accused Wallace of capitulating to corporate pressure to kill a story about Jeffrey Wigand, a whistle-blower trying to expose the activity of "big tobacco". Wallace, for his part, disliked his on-screen portrayal and maintains he was in fact very eager to have Wigand's story aired in full.

Arrest

In 2004, Wallace made headlines following a dispute with New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission inspectors. Upon finding the two inspectors interviewing his driver, who they alleged was double-parked, Wallace allegedly lunged at one of them and was subsequently arrested. He was released after receiving a court summons to answer charges for disorderly conduct. A restaurant manager who witnessed the scene said the officers "manhandled" Wallace. Wallace has argued that this "arrogance" may be a symptom of the current political climate, in which it is allowed to go unchecked.[4]

Trivia

  • Chris Wallace interviewed his father on the November 6, 2005 edition of FOX News Sunday.
  • While still a student at the University of Michigan, Mike Wallace appeared as a guest panelist on the popular radio quiz show Information Please on February 7, 1939. He was still using the name Myron Wallace and was described as a "beardless youth" and "representing the spirit of youth." This episode is circulating today.

See also

External links



 
 

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Copyrights:

Who2 Biography. Copyright © 1998-2008 by Who2, LLC. All rights reserved. See the Mike Wallace biography from Who2.  Read more
Actor. Copyright © 2006 All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.  Read more
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Mike Wallace (journalist)" Read more

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