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Mike Wallace (journalist)
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Mike Wallace (born Myron Leon Wallace on May 9, 1918) is an American journalist. Wallace has been a correspondent for CBS' 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, Yasser Arafat, Menachem Begin, Anwar Sadat, Manuel Noriega, Jeffrey Wigand, Ayn Rand, John F. Nash, Vladimir Putin, Salvador Dalí, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Wallace retired as a regular fulltime correspondent in 2006 but still appears frequently on the 60 Minutes series.
Wallace, whose family's surname was originally "Woleck", was born in the Boston suburb of
Brookline, Massachusetts to Russian-Jewish parents.
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Mike Wallace (born Myron Leon Wallace on May 9, 1918) is an American journalist. Wallace has been a correspondent for CBS' 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, Yasser Arafat, Menachem Begin, Anwar Sadat, Manuel Noriega, Jeffrey Wigand, Ayn Rand, John F. Nash, Vladimir Putin, Salvador Dalí, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Wallace retired as a regular fulltime correspondent in 2006 but still appears frequently on the 60 Minutes series.
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. There he attended Brookline High School, graduating in 1935. 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. He appeared as a guest on the popular radio quiz show "Information Please" on Feb. 7, 1939, while still a senior at 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, and The Green Hornet. It is sometimes reported that Wallace announced for the The Lone Ranger, but Wallace says he did not.
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.
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, touting their "man's mildness". 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. In 1964 he interviewed Malcolm X who, half jokingly commented "I'm probably am a dead man already".
His career as the lead reporter on 60 Minutes naturally led to some near 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.
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".
He has been married four times and has two sons and a daughter. His 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. He currently owns a home on Martha's Vineyard where he spends his summers.
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.
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
Wallace interviewed Gen. William Westmoreland for the CBS special The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception . 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".
The 28th Annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards, Wallace received an award for his interview with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which aired on 60 Minutes in 2006.
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.
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.
He appeared on Family Guy in an episode called "Meet The Quagmires".
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.
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
External links
- Interview with Mike Wallace about his depression]
- archives of his New York interview show from the late 1950s. Hosted by the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin.
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