Charles Kuralt (September 10 1934 – July 4 1997) was an award-winning
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
journalist. He was most widely known for his long career with
CBSCBS Broadcasting Inc. is an American television network, one of television's original "big three", which also include NBC and ABC. Like NBC, CBS started out as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System...
, first for his "On the Road" segments on
The CBS Evening News with Walter CronkiteCBS Evening News is the flagship nightly television news program of the American television network CBS. The network has broadcast this program since 1948, and has used the CBS Evening News title since 1963....
, and later as the first anchor of
CBS News Sunday MorningCBS News Sunday Morning is an American television news magazine program created by Robert Northshield and original presenter Charles Kuralt, and appearing continuously since January 28, 1979 on the CBS Television Network, airing in the Eastern US on Sunday from 9:00 to 10:30 am...
, a position he held for fifteen years.
Kuralt's "On the Road" segments were recognized twice with personal Peabody Awards. The first, awarded in 1968, cited those segments as heartwarming and "nostalgic vignettes"; in 1975, the award was for his work as a
U.S. "bicentennialThe United States Bicentennial was celebrated on Sunday, July 4, 1976, the 200th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.-Coins:...
historian"; his work "capture[d] the individuality of the people, the dynamic growth inherent in the area, and ...the rich heritage of this great nation." He shared in a third Peabody awarded to
CBS News Sunday Morning.
Born in
Wilmington, North CarolinaWilmington is a city in and the county seat of New Hanover County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 75,838 at the 2000 Census. A July 1, 2008 United States Census Bureau estimate places the population at 100,192...
, as a boy Kuralt won a children's sports writing contest for a local newspaper by writing about a dog that got loose on the field during a baseball game.
Charles Kuralt (September 10 1934 – July 4 1997) was an award-winning
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
journalist. He was most widely known for his long career with
CBSCBS Broadcasting Inc. is an American television network, one of television's original "big three", which also include NBC and ABC. Like NBC, CBS started out as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System...
, first for his "On the Road" segments on
The CBS Evening News with Walter CronkiteCBS Evening News is the flagship nightly television news program of the American television network CBS. The network has broadcast this program since 1948, and has used the CBS Evening News title since 1963....
, and later as the first anchor of
CBS News Sunday MorningCBS News Sunday Morning is an American television news magazine program created by Robert Northshield and original presenter Charles Kuralt, and appearing continuously since January 28, 1979 on the CBS Television Network, airing in the Eastern US on Sunday from 9:00 to 10:30 am...
, a position he held for fifteen years.
Kuralt's "On the Road" segments were recognized twice with personal Peabody Awards. The first, awarded in 1968, cited those segments as heartwarming and "nostalgic vignettes"; in 1975, the award was for his work as a
U.S. "bicentennialThe United States Bicentennial was celebrated on Sunday, July 4, 1976, the 200th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.-Coins:...
historian"; his work "capture[d] the individuality of the people, the dynamic growth inherent in the area, and ...the rich heritage of this great nation." He shared in a third Peabody awarded to
CBS News Sunday Morning.
Early life and career
Born in
Wilmington, North CarolinaWilmington is a city in and the county seat of New Hanover County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 75,838 at the 2000 Census. A July 1, 2008 United States Census Bureau estimate places the population at 100,192...
, as a boy Kuralt won a children's sports writing contest for a local newspaper by writing about a dog that got loose on the field during a baseball game. He later attended the
University of North Carolina at Chapel HillThe University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a public research university located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States. The university is the oldest in, and flagship of, the University of North Carolina system...
where he became editor of
The Daily Tar HeelThe Daily Tar Heel is the independent student newspaper of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It was founded on February 23, 1893, and became a daily newspaper in 1929. The paper places a focus on university news and sports, but it also includes heavy coverage of Orange County and...
and was a Brother of St Anthony Hall (Delta Psi Fraternity). He worked as a reporter for the
Charlotte News in his home state, where he wrote "Charles Kuralt's People," a column that won him an Ernie Pyle Award.
He moved to
CBSCBS Broadcasting Inc. is an American television network, one of television's original "big three", which also include NBC and ABC. Like NBC, CBS started out as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System...
as a writer, where he became well-known as the host of the
Eyewitness to HistoryEyewitness to History was a CBS Friday night public affairs program which was initially hosted by veteran broadcaster Charles Kuralt , followed by Walter Cronkite , and Charles Collingwood . It aired from September 30, 1960 through July 26, 1963, sponsored by Firestone Tire and Rubber Company...
series. He traveled around the world as a journalist for the network, including stints as CBS's Chief Latin American Correspondent and then as Chief West Coast Correspondent.
In 1967, Kuralt and a CBS camera crew accompanied
Ralph PlaistedRalph Plaisted and his three companions, Walt Pederson, Gerry Pitzl and Jean-Luc Bombardier, are regarded by most polar authorities to be the first to succeed in a surface traverse across the ice to the North Pole on 19 April 1968, making the first confirmed surface conquest of the Pole.Plaisted...
in his attempt to reach the North Pole by snowmobile, which resulted in the documentary
To the Top of the World and his book of the same name.
"On the Road"
Kuralt was said to have tired of what he considered the excessive rivalry between reporters on the hard news beats:
- "I didn't like the competitiveness or the deadline pressure," he told the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, upon his induction to their Hall of Fame. "I was sure that Dick Valeriani of NBC was sneaking around behind my back — and of course, he was! — getting stories that would make me look bad the next day. Even though I covered news for a long time, I was always hoping I could get back to something like my little column on the Charlotte News."
When he persuaded CBS to let him try out just such an idea for three months, it turned into a quarter-century project. "On the Road" became a regular feature on
The CBS Evening News with Walter CronkiteCBS Evening News is the flagship nightly television news program of the American television network CBS. The network has broadcast this program since 1948, and has used the CBS Evening News title since 1963....
in 1967. Kuralt hit the road in a motor home (he wore out six before he was through) with a small crew and avoided the interstates in favor of the nation's back roads in search of America's people and their doings. He said, "Interstate highways allow you to drive coast to coast, without seeing anything".
According to Thomas Steinbeck, the older son of
John SteinbeckJohn Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. was an American writer. He wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath and the novella Of Mice and Men . He wrote a total of twenty-seven books, including sixteen novels, six non-fiction books and five collections of short stories...
, the inspiration for "On the Road" was the success of Steinbeck's
Travels with Charley (whose title was initially considered as the name of Kuralt's feature). John Steinbeck and Kuralt were said to be good friends.
Anything from unusual hobbyists to unusual families to the simple pleasures of unknown places was considered worthy of Kuralt's attention, and part of "On the Road"'s appeal may also have been that Kuralt was never known to have set a specific itinerary for himself. No matter whatever else he did for CBS — hosting
CBS News Sunday MorningCBS News Sunday Morning is an American television news magazine program created by Robert Northshield and original presenter Charles Kuralt, and appearing continuously since January 28, 1979 on the CBS Television Network, airing in the Eastern US on Sunday from 9:00 to 10:30 am...
program from 1979 to 1994, contributing to other CBS News projects — "On the Road" became Kuralt's legacy. His features often captured the beauty of the American countryside, sometimes using images and sounds with no voice-overs to effectively capture the scene. During his career, he won three
Peabody awardsThe George Foster Peabody Awards are annual, international awards for excellence in radio and television broadcasting. First awarded in 1941 for programs from the previous year, they are one of the oldest honors in electronic media...
and ten
Emmy awardsThe Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards , Grammy Awards and Tony Awards .They are presented in various...
for journalism. He also won a George Polk Award in 1980 for National Television Reporting.
Kuralt often reveled in his image as the anti-muckraker. "You know, most reporters can't go back to the towns they wrote stories about," he told a biographer in 1994. "I never wrote that kind of story."
Retirement and death
At age 60, Kuralt surprised many by retiring from CBS News. At the time, he was the longest tenured on-air personality in the News division. Yet he hinted that his retirement might not be complete — in 1995 he narrated the TLC documentary
The Revolutionary War and in early 1997 he signed on to host a syndicated, three-times-a-week, ninety-second broadcast, "An American Moment," presenting what CNN called "slices of Americana." At that time, Kuralt also agreed to host a CBS cable broadcast show,
I Remember, designed as a weekly, hourlong review of significant news from the three previous decades. However, Kuralt barely got the chance to make those projects last. He was hospitalized in spring 1997 and died of complications from
lupusLupus erythematosus is a connective tissue disease. Lupus is a chronic inflammatory disease that occurs when the body's immune system attacks its own tissues and organs. Inflammation caused by lupus can affect many different body systems, including joints, skin, kidneys, blood cells, heart, and lungs...
on the Fourth of July that year.
Kuralt never forgot his roots, as one of his books was titled
North Carolina Is My Home. Kuralt's younger brother Wallace, who died in December 2003, was also well-known in his home state, having been the owner of The Intimate Bookshop on Franklin Street in
Chapel HillChapel Hill is a town in Orange County, North Carolina, United States and the home of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill , the oldest state-supported university in the U.S...
for many years. Kuralt himself was a proud alumnus of UNC and outspoken in his lifelong fondness for both the university and Chapel Hill. In addition, a portion of land along the Roanoke, Tar, Neuse, Cape Fear Ecosystem — so named for the rivers which flow into the Albemarle, Currituck, and Pamlico Sounds — has been named for Kuralt, honoring his having given as much time to nature and wildlife as to people in his "On the Road" and
Sunday Morning stories.
Posthumous controversy
By request in his will, Kuralt was buried on the UNC grounds in
Old Chapel Hill CemeteryOld Chapel Hill Cemetery is a graveyard located on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.-History:...
. The University uses a Kuralt speech in its television commercials and displays many of his awards and a re-creation of his office in its Journalism School.
But two years after his death, Kuralt's personal reputation came under scrutiny when a decades-long companionship with a Montana woman named Pat Baker was made public. Kuralt apparently had a second, "shadow" family with Baker while his wife lived in New York City and his daughters from a previous marriage lived on the eastern seaboard. Baker asserted that the house in Montana had been willed to her, a position upheld by the
Montana Supreme CourtThe Montana Supreme Court is the highest court of the Montana state court system in the U.S. state of Montana. It is established and its powers defined by Article VII of the 1972 Montana Constitution...
. According to court testimony, Kuralt had met Baker while doing a story on "Pat Baker Park" in
Reno, NevadaReno is a city in and the county seat of Washoe County, Nevada, United States. The population was 180,480 at the 2000 census; in 2008, its population was estimated at 217,016, making it the fourth-largest city in the state after Las Vegas, Henderson and North Las Vegas, and the largest outside of...
that Baker had promoted and volunteered to build in 1968. The park was in a low-income area of Reno that had no parks until Baker (née Shannon) promoted her plan. Kuralt mentions Pat Baker and the building of the park — but not the affair — in his autobiography.
The revelation of the long-term relationship exacted a toll on Kuralt's image and reputation. But his biographer, Ralph Grizzle, who sometimes faced hostility and even boycott threats when trying to promote
Remembering Charles Kuralt, attempted to rehabilitate Kuralt's image in a
USA Today column called "Forgiving Charles Kuralt":
- Each Sunday morning as Charles spoke to us seated on a stool, he was perched, in our minds, on a pedestal. Well aware of his own flaws, he never aspired to such lofty heights. He drank too much, he smoked too much, he ate too much and, now, it seems, he loved too much. May we forgive his excesses as readily as we embraced, unknowingly, of course, the emotional deficits that drove him to seek out the people and places that so enthralled him, and through him, us.
- All Kuralt really intended to be was someone who did the world a little good. "If I do any good," he told a Chapel Hill newspaper reporter in 1965, "it's just the same thing all journalists hope they do — maybe some good by enlightening people about the times they live in."
- Kuralt enlightened by seeing the good in us – not because that was all there was to see but because he chose to. We praised him for his good-news approach, even bestowing him with 13 Emmy and three Peabody awards. It is unfortunate that when we discovered that all the news about his own life was not good, we chose to lash out at his memory. What does that say — not about Charles Kuralt, but about us? http://www.rememberingcharleskuralt.com/editorial.htm
Quotes
- “America is a great story and there is a river on every page of it.”
- "For 25 or 30 years I never had an assignment. These were all stories I wanted to do myself. So they were always about somebody I like, 'cause if I didn't like him, I just didn't do the story. And to have somebody else paying the bills for this tourism, to every corner of every stage, over and over again– why, who wouldn't want a job like that?"
- "It's that enthusiasm, that passion for what you're doing, that is most important."
- "Time for us to part, you and I. Saying goodbye to the viewers of Sunday Morning is like saying goodbye to old friends. That’s the way I feel. Thank you for making me feel that way. I aim to do some traveling and reading and writing, and to watch this program the civilized way for a change: in my bathrobe, while having breakfast. Charles Osgood
Charles Osgood is a radio and television commentator in the United States. His daily program, The Osgood File, has been broadcast on the CBS Radio Network since 1971. He is also famous for giving the voice of the narrator of Horton Hears a Who!, an animated film released in 2008, based on the book...
appreciates poems and often commits poetry, himself. There is a rhyme by Clarence DayClarence Shepard Day, Jr. was an American author. Born in New York City, he graduated from St. Paul's School and Yale University in 1896. The following year, he joined the New York Stock Exchange, and became a partner in his father's Wall Street brokerage firm...
which says what I want to say: 'Farewell, my friends-farewell, and hail/I'm off to seek the Holy Grail/I cannot tell you why. Remember, please, when I am gone/'twas aspiration led me on./Tiddly, widdly, toodle-oo/All I want is to stay with you.' But...here I go. Goodbye." — Kuralt's final words as host of Sunday Morning with Charles Kuralt aired in April 3, 1994.
- "What is it that binds us to this place as to no other? It is not the well or the bell or the stone walls. Or the crisp October nights or the memory of dogwoods blooming. Our loyalty is not only to William Richardson Davie
William Richardson Davie was the Governor of North Carolina from 1798 to 1799. He was a Federalist and may be considered a "Founding Father of the United States."-Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary eEra:...
, though we are proud of what he did 200 years ago today. Nor even to Dean SmithDean Edwards Smith is a retired head coach of men’s college basketball. Originally from Emporia, Kansas, Smith has been called a “coaching legend” by the Basketball Hall of Fame. Smith is best known for his successful coaching tenure at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for 36 years...
, though we are proud of what he did last March. No, our love for this place is based on the fact that it is, as it was meant to be, the University of the people." — Kuralt, at the UNC Bicentennial in 1993.
- "The greatest thing you can do in life is to tell a young boy or girl that they're 'the very best' at something - baseball, reading, art. That gives them the wonderful feeling that they can do anything – which they can!"
- "Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel from coast to coast without seeing anything."
- "I think liberalism lives – the notion that we don't have to stay where we are as a society, we have promises to keep, and it is liberalism, whether people like it or not, which has animated all the years of my life. What on Earth did conservatism ever accomplish for our country? It was people who wanted to change things for the better." — Kuralt to Morley Safer
Morley Safer is a Canadian reporter and correspondent for CBS News. He is best known for his long tenure on the newsmagazine 60 Minutes, which began in December 1970.Safer was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada...
in the May 5, 1994 CBSCBS Broadcasting Inc. is an American television network, one of television's original "big three", which also include NBC and ABC. Like NBC, CBS started out as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System...
special, "One for the Road with Charles Kuralt"
General references
- Charles Kuralt Collection, 1935-1997 in the Southern Historical Collection
The Southern Historical Collection is a repository of distinct archival collections at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill which document the culture and history of the American South...
at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
- Ralph Grizzle, Remembering Charles Kuralt. Asheville, North Carolina: Kenilworth Media, 2000. (ISBN 0967909600)
- Charles Kuralt's People. Asheville, North Carolina: Kenilworth Media, 2005. A collection of his award winning Charlotte News columns.
- CNN, "Charles Kuralt, CBS's Poet of Small-Town America, Dies at 62, a CNN
Cable News Network, almost always referred to by its initialism CNN, is an U.S. cable news network founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first network to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television network in the United States...
obituary
External links