I am persuaded that luck and timing have, in my case, been very important.Mike Wallace died yesterday at the age of 93. He was born Myron Leon Wallace on May 9, 1918 in Brookline, Massachusetts. He was one of the original correspondents for CBS' 60 Minutes which debuted in 1968. Wallace worked as a journalist, game show host, actor, and media personality.
His first radio job was as newscaster and continuity writer for WOOD Radio in Grand Rapids, Michigan. This lasted until 1940, when he moved to WXYZ Radio in Detroit, Michigan, as an announcer. He then became a freelance radio worker in Chicago, Illinois.
Wallace enlisted in the United States Navy in 1943, and served as a communications officer during World War II on the USS Anthedon, a submarine tender. He saw no combat, but travelled to Hawaii, Australia, and Subic Bay in the Philippines, then patrolling the South China Sea, the Philippine Sea and south of Japan. Discharged in 1946, 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. Wallace announced wrestling in Chicago in the late 1940s and early 1950s, sponsored by Tavern Pale beer.
In the late 1940s, Wallace was a staff announcer for the CBS radio network. He had displayed his comic skills when he appeared opposite Spike Jones in dialogue routines. He was also the voice of Elgin-American in their commercials on Groucho Marx's You Bet Your Life. In 1949, he starred under the name Myron Wallace in a short-lived police drama, Stand By for Crime.
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 1955–7, only on DuMont's 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" (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".
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.
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. In August 2006, Wallace interviewed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Wallace's last CBS interview was with retired baseball star Roger Clemens in January 2008 on "60 Minutes." Wallace suffered from health problems afterward, and in June 2008 his son Chris said that his father would not be returning to television.
Wallace's younger son, Chris, is also a journalist. His elder son, Peter, died at age 19 in a mountain-climbing accident in Greece in 1962.
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 the documentary The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception (1982). 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. In a later interview with colleague Morley Safer, he revealed he attempted suicide circa 1986.
Wallace received a pacemaker more than 20 years prior to his death and underwent triple bypass surgery in January 2008.
To quote Mike Wallace, "I determined that if I was to carve out a piece of reportorial territory for myself it would be doing the hard interview, irreverent if necessary, the facade-piercing interview"
Good Night Mr. Wallace
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