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Mike Wallace

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Mike Wallace
Born
Myron Leon Wallace

(1918-05-09) May 9, 1918 (age 106)
Brookline, Massachusetts, USA
DiedApril 7, 2012(2012-04-07) (aged 93)
Other names"Mike"
EducationUniversity of Michigan
OccupationJournalist
Notable credit60 Minutes (1968-2006 & 2008)
Spouse(s)
Norma Kaphan
​
(m. 1940⁠–⁠1948)​

​
(m. 1949⁠–⁠1954)​
(died 2010)
Lorraine Perigord
​
​
(m. 1955⁠–⁠1983)​

Mary Yates
​
(m. 1986)​
ChildrenPeter Wallace (died 1962)
Chris Wallace

Myron Leon "Mike" Wallace (May 9, 1918 - April 7, 2012[1][2]) was an American journalist, former game show host, actor and media personality. During his career, which has spanned over sixty years, he has interviewed a wide range of prominent newsmakers.

He was one of the original correspondents for CBS' 60 Minutes which debuted in 1968. Wallace retired as a regular full-time correspondent in 2006, but still appeared occasionally on the series until 2008.

For many years, Mike Wallace unknowingly suffered from depression. In an article he wrote for Guideposts, Wallace related, "I'd had days when I felt blue and it took more of an effort than usual to get through the things I had to do". It worsened in 1984, after General William Westmoreland filed a $120 million libel lawsuit against Wallace and CBS over statements they made in their 1982 documentary The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception. Westmoreland claimed the documentary made him appear as if he manipulated intelligence. The lawsuit, Westmoreland v. CBS, was later dropped after CBS issued a statement explaining they never intended to portray the general as disloyal or unpatriotic. During the proceedings, Mike Wallace was hospitalized with what was diagnosed as exhaustion. But his wife, Mary, forced him to go to a doctor, who diagnosed Wallace with clinical depression. He was prescribed an antidepressant and underwent psychotherapy. Out of a belief that it would be perceived as a weakness, Wallace kept his depression a secret until he revealed it in an interview with Bob Costas on his late-night talk show.[3] In a later interview with colleague Morley Safer, he revealed he attempted suicide circa 1986.[4]

Wallace's youngest son, Chris, is also a journalist. His eldest son, Peter, died at age 19 in a mountain-climbing accident in Greece in 1962.[5]

Early life

Mike Wallace, whose family's surname was originally Wallechinsky,[6] was born in Brookline, Massachusetts,, to Russian Jewish parents Frank and Zina Wallace (neé Sharfman). Frank Wallace was a grocer and insurance broker.[7] In Brookline, Mike attended Brookline High School, graduating in 1935.[8] He went on to the University of Michigan, graduating in 1939 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. While at Michigan he reported for the Michigan Daily and was a member of the Alpha Gamma Chapter of the Zeta Beta Tau Fraternity.[9]

Career

Wallace appeared as a guest on the popular radio quiz show Information Please on February 7, 1939, while still a senior at the University of Michigan. 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 become a freelance radio worker in Chicago, Illinois.

Wallace joined the U.S. Navy in 1943, serving as a communications officer during World War II aboard the USS Anthedon, a submarine tender. He saw no live fire in almost three years, traveling to Hawaii, Australia, and Subic Bay in the Philippines and patrolling the South China Sea, the Philippine Sea and in waters south of Japan. After the war, he returned to Chicago.

Early in his career, Wallace announced for the radio action shows Ned Jordan, Secret Agent, Sky King and The Green Hornet. It is sometimes reported that Wallace announced for The Lone Ranger, but Wallace says he did not.[10]

Wallace also announced wrestling in Chicago in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The advertiser was Tavern Pale beer.

By the late 1940s Wallace was a staff announcer for the CBS radio network. He had a rare chance to display his comic skills when he appeared opposite Spike Jones in dialogue routines. He was also the voice representing Elgin-American in their commercials on Groucho Marx's You Bet Your Life during 1949.

In 1949, under his birth name Myron Wallace, he starred in the short-lived police drama Stand By for Crime.[11]

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 Procter & Gamble's Fluffo brand shortening.

Wallace also hosted two late-night interview programs, Night Beat (broadcast in New York during 1955-57, only on DuMont's WABD) and The Mike Wallace Interview on ABC in 1957-58. See also Profiles in Courage, section: Authorship controversy.

Wallace and Harry Reasoner on the 60 Minutes premiere, 1968.

In 1959, Louis Lomax told Wallace about the Nation of Islam. Lomax and Wallace produced a five-part documentary about the organization, The Hate That Hate Produced, which aired during the week of July 13, 1959. The program was the first time most white people heard about the Nation, its leader, Elijah Muhammad, and its charismatic spokesman, Malcolm X.[12]

By the early 1960s, Wallace's primary income came from commercials for Parliament cigarettes, touting their "man's mildness" (he had a contract with Philip Morris to pitch their cigarettes as a result of their original sponsorship of The Mike Wallace Interview). He hosted a New York based nightly interview program for Metropolitan Broadcasting stations (MetroMedia) called PM East one hour; it was paired with PM West, 30 minutes, hosted by San Francisco Chronicle television critic Terrence O'Flaherty. Also in the early 1960s, he was the host of the David Wolper produced Biography series. 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 through 1966. In 1964 he interviewed Malcolm X who, half jokingly commented "I probably am a dead man already".[13]

His career as the lead reporter on 60 Minutes naturally led to some run-ins with the people interviewed. While interviewing Louis Farrakhan, Wallace alleged that Nigeria is the most corrupt country in the world. Farrakhan immediately shot back, declaring "Nigeria didn't bomb Hiroshima or slaughter millions of Indians!" "Can you think of a more corrupt country?" asked Wallace. "I am living in one," said Farrakhan. Wallace expressed regret in regard to the one big interview he was never able to secure: First Lady Pat Nixon.[14]

On March 14, 2006, Wallace announced his retirement from 60 Minutes after 37 years with the program. He continued working for CBS News as a "Correspondent Emeritus", albeit at a reduced pace.[15] In August 2006 Wallace interviewed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.[16] Wallace's last CBS interview to date was with retired baseball star Roger Clemens in January 2008 on "60 Minutes." [17] Wallace has suffered from health problems more recently and in June 2008 his son Chris said that his father would not be returning to television.[18]

On April 8, 2012 CBS Sunday Morning reported that Mike Wallace had passed away. [19]

Awards

Wallace's professional honors include at least 20 Emmy Awards, among them a report just weeks before the 9/11 terrorist attacks 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. Most recently, on October 13, 2007, Wallace was awarded the University of Illinois Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism.

Criticism

File:Palestine 1976.ogv
1976 documentary about the PLO hosted by Mike Wallace

Wallace interviewed Gen. William Westmoreland for the CBS special The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception, aired January 23, 1982.[20] Westmoreland then sued Wallace and CBS for libel. In February 1985, the parties settled just before the case was to go to trial. Each side agreed to pay its own costs and attorney's fees and CBS issued a clarification of its intent with respect to the original story.

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 Brown & Williamson's dangerous business practices. 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.

Wallace was played by actor Stephen Rowe in the stage version of Frost/Nixon, but he was omitted from the screenplay of the 2008 film adaptation.

In the TV movie Hefner: Unauthorized from 1999, Wallace is portrayed by Mark Harelik. In the 1957 film A Face In The Crowd, Wallace portrays himself.

Autobiographies

  • Close Encounters: Mike Wallace's Own Story. New York: William Morrow, 1984. ISBN 0-688-01116-0 (co-written with Gary Paul Gates).
  • Between You and Me: A Memoir. New York: Hyperion, 2005 (co-written with Gary Paul Gates).

See also

Notes

  1. ^ CBS News Sunday Morning. April 8, 2012. {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Missing or empty |title= (help)
  2. ^ Face The Nation. CBS. April 8, 2012. {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Missing or empty |title= (help)
  3. ^ Mike Wallace Battles Depression - Guideposts
  4. ^ Mike Wallace Admits Suicide Attempt | Hollywood.com
  5. ^ Mike Wallace, man of the hour - Dateline NBC - msnbc.com
  6. ^ Cohon, Rabbi Baruch. How Jewish Are You
  7. ^ [1]
  8. ^ Brozan, Nadine. "Chronicle", The New York Times, March 16, 1993. Accessed February 5, 2008. "MIKE WALLACE is lending a hand to his old school, Brookline High School, at a benefit -- unusual for a Massachusetts public school -- in New York tomorrow evening. Mr. Wallace, class of '35, will interview the school's acting headmaster, Dr. ROBERT J. WEINTRAUB, at a cocktail party that is expected to draw 60 or so Brookline graduates to the University Club on West 54th Street."
  9. ^ Notable Alumni of ZBT Fraternity
  10. ^ CNN.com Transcripts - U.S. and Iraqi Forces Launch Operation Swarmer; Interview With Mike Wallace
  11. ^ The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946-Present. Ballantine Books. 2003. p. 1116. ISBN 0-345-45542-0. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: checksum (help)
  12. ^ Joseph, Peniel E. (2006). Waiting 'til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America. New York: Henry Holt and Company. pp. 21–23. ISBN 0-8050-7539-9.
  13. ^ Rebroadcast on CNN, Larry King Live during an interview with Mike Wallace.
  14. ^ "The one big interview Mike Wallace never landed". USA Today. Associated Press. March 22, 2006. Retrieved 2009-11-12.
  15. ^ Mike Wallace Retiring From 60 Minutes, Broadcasting & Cable, March 14, 2006.
  16. ^ Font size Print E-mail Share 3479 Comments Page 1 of 6 (2006-08-13). "Iranian Leader Opens Up - 60 Minutes". CBS News. Retrieved 2010-08-31.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  17. ^ "Clemens drowns in hopelessness - MLB - Yahoo! Sports". Sports.yahoo.com. Retrieved 2010-08-31.
  18. ^ "Mike Wallace, on the Comeback - Washington Whispers (usnews.com)". Politics.usnews.com. 2008-06-06. Retrieved 2010-08-31.
  19. ^ Safer, Morely. "Remembering Mike Wallace". Retrieved 4-8-2012. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  20. ^ The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception

References

  • Alwood, Edward (1996). Straight News. New York, Columbia University Press. ISBN 0231084374.
  • Kaiser, Charles (1997). The Gay Metropolis 1940–1996. New York, Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0395657814.

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