Wallace, Mike, 1918-2012

Television newscaster and newspaper columnist.

Broadcast journalist; CBS News correspondent; co-founder and correspondent on CBS 60 Minutes news program since 1968.

Broadcast journalist; CBS News correspondent; co-founder and correspondent on CBS "60 Minutes" news program since 1968.

Mike Wallace (1918-2012) was an American television interviewer, host and commentator.

Born in Brookline, Massachusetts on May 9, 1918, he received his A.B. degree from the University of Michigan after attending the University from 1935 to 1939. He started with radio in 1939, and began with television in 1946. He was a television commentator for C.B.S. - T.V. from 1951 to 1954, and in 1963 he became a C.B.S. news staff correspondent. He is president of Newsmaker Productions, Incorporated. Wallace received several awards and recognitions, including an A.T.V.A.S. Emmy Award, the George Foster Peabody Award and the Boston Press Club Headliner Award. He was the executive vice-president of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, and a member of the Overseas Press Club and The Players.

Mike Wallace was born Myron Leon Wallace on May 9, 1918 in Brookline, Massachusetts to Russian Jewish immigrants family. He graduated from Brookline High School in 1935 then attended the University of Michigan where he had opportunity to work as an announcer at the University's radio division. After graduating in 1939 with a BA degree, Wallace began his broadcasting career first at Grand Rapids, Mich. WOOD-WASH radio station, and then at Detroit's WXYZ, where his work included newscasting as well as narration on The Green Hornet .

In 1941 Wallace was hired by the Chicago Sun 's radio station as a newscaster, but soon wartime service as a naval communications officer interrupted his career. After the war, he went to work as a news reporter for radio station WMAQ Chicago. He first joined CBS in 1951 then left the network in 1955 to pursue other opportunities. He worked steadily with numerous television credits including Night Beat (1956-57) and The Mike Wallace Interview (1957-60) and the Peabody Award-winning public affairs series Biography (1959-61). He returned to CBS in 1963 where he became a staff correspondent (1963-2006) and anchored The CBS Morning News (1963-66). At CBS Wallace was political correspondent and a floor reporter at the Democratic and Republican conventions in the 1960s and 1970s.

In 1968 CBS News executive producer Don Hewitt, with co-editors Mike Wallace and Harry Reasoner, launched 60 Minutes. Premiering on September 24, the program was a weekly newsmagazine that revolutionized television news programming. In at the beginning, Wallace continued to work on the program until his retirement in 2006.

Throughout his career, Wallace has been the recipient of numerous broadcasting awards and honors. In 1996 he won the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award grand prize and television first prize for a CBS Reports broadcast "In the Killing Fields of America" ( January 1995), a three-hour report he co-anchored on violence in America. His other professional honors include 21 Emmy Awards, five Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards, five George Foster Peabody Awards, a Robert E. Sherwood Award, a Paul White Award (1991), 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.

Wallace was elected a fellow of the Society of Professional Journalists, Sigma Delta Chi ( November 1975) and was awarded a doctorate in humane letters, honoris causa, from the University of Massachusetts (1978). In May 1987 he received an honorary doctorate of laws from the University of Michigan and, in 1989 an honorary doctorate of laws from the University of Pennsylvania.

In June of 1991 he was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame. In 1993 he was named the Broadcaster of the Year by the International Radio and Television Society. Part of his rich legacy includes the Knight-Wallace Fellowship and Mike and Mary Wallace House at the University of Michigan. Wallace's donations support this in-residence study program begun in 1994 for professional journalists seeking to improve their knowledge in a desired field or issue.

Wallace was a popular speaker on the lecture circuit and author of several books. His book, Mike Wallace Asks, a compilation of interviews from "Night Beat" and "The Mike Wallace Interview," was published in 1958 and his memoir Close Encounter, co-authored with Gary Paul Gates, was published in September 1984. In 2002 his book Medal of Honor: Profiles of America's Military Heroes from the Civil War to the Present, co-authored with Allen Mikaelian, was published.

Mike Wallace died at his home in Canaan, CT on April 7, 2012 at age 93.

Mike Wallace was born May 9, 1918 in Brookline, Massachusetts the son of Russian Jewish immigrants as Myron Leon Wallace. He graduated from high school in 1935 then attended the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor where he also worked as an announcer at the university radio division. After receiving his degree in 1939 he began his broadcasting career first in Grand Rapids, Mich. at WOOD-WASH radio station, and then at Detroit's WXYZ, where his work included newscasting as well as narration on The Green Hornet . In 1941 he was hired by the Chicago Sun's radio station as a newscaster, but his career was interrupted in 1943 by wartime service in the United States Navy.

In 1946 Wallace was discharged from the service and returned to Chicago. He worked on a variety of interview, news, and entertainment programs. In 1949 he teamed up with his actress-wife, Buff Cobb, in a local radio interview program. In 1951 the pair were put under contract by CBS, moved to New York City, and began a television interview series called Mike and Buff . Marked by frequent staged disagreements between the hosts, the show was a departure from the sugary banter of other husband and wife programs. The show ended in 1954 with the Wallaces' divorce.

Late in 1955 Wallace was hired as news anchor by WABD in New York. In October, 1956 WABD news director Ted Yates replaced the 11 o'clock news with Night Beat . Hosted by Wallace, the hour-long news and interview show featured a darkened set, piercing questions, and the use of prolonged close-ups that gave the show the feel of an interrogation. The sensation created by this show led ABC to pick it up in April, 1957. Renamed The Mike Wallace Interview, it ran only once a week for one-half hour. After losing its sponsor in 1958 the controversial show was picked up for a 19-week run by the Fund for the Republic as Survival and Freedom . Also during these years, Wallace began writing a daily interview column for the New York Post called "Mike Wallace Asks."

After his series at ABC ended in September 1958 Wallace worked briefly with Ted Yates as co-producer of another ABC interview show hosted by author Ben Hecht. In February 1959 Wallace and Yates were hired by New York's WNTA to anchor News Beat, New York's first one-half hour newscast, and to revive The Mike Wallace Interview . Though it ran for two years and was nationally syndicated, it was not as successful as its predecessor.

In the summer of 1960 Wallace also did some work for the Westinghouse Network as co-anchor of its political convention coverage. When he left WNTA, he joined Westinghouse full time as co-host of P.M. East, a talk show which began in June, 1961. In February, 1963 Wallace was hired by CBS News. There he anchored the CBS Morning News, worked as a correspondent, and in 1968 began his ongoing work as one of the reporters of the popular series 60 Minutes . Wallace continued to work on the show until 2006 leading it to the unprecedented rate of 23 seasons on the Nielsen annual top 10 list -- five seasons as the number-one program.

Throughout his career, Wallace has been the recipient of numerous broadcasting awards and honors. Among his prestigious awards are twenty one Emmy Awards, including a prestigious Lifetime Achievement Emmy (2003), the 2002 Fred Friendly First Amendment Award for journalistic contributions to free speech, five DuPont-Columbia Journalism Awards, five John Foster Peabody Awards, the Paul White Award (1991), a Robert E. Sherwood Award, a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award grand prize and Television first prize (1996), among others. In June of 1991 he was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame. In 1993 he was named the Broadcaster of the Year by the International Radio and Television Society. Part of his rich legacy includes the Knight-Wallace Fellowship and Mike and Mary Wallace House at the University of Michigan. Wallace's donations support this in-residence study program begun in 1994 for professional journalists seeking to improve their knowledge in a desired field or issue.

Wallace was elected a fellow of the Society of Professional Journalists, Sigma Delta Chi (November 1975) and was awarded a doctorate in humane letters, honoris causa, from the University of Massachusetts (1978). In May 1987 he received an honorary doctorate of laws from the University of Michigan and, in 1989 an honorary doctorate of laws from the University of Pennsylvania.

Mike Wallace died at his home in Canaan, CT on April 7, 2012 at age 93.