![]() ![]() He also wrote, produced and narrated a CBS series on American life for which he won a prestigious Peabody Award. Rooney joined “60 Minutes” during its first season in 1968, again working as producer with Reasoner, and 10 years later his commentaries became a regular feature. Reuters notes some of his awards and controversies:īeginning in 1962 he teamed with correspondent Harry Reasoner for CBS News, producing a series of specials with titles like “An Essay on Chairs” and “The Strange Case of the English Language.” In 1968 Rooney won his first Emmy for his script for “Black History: Lost, Stolen or Strayed.” Over the next few years, it found its way into the e-mail boxes of untold thousands, causing Rooney to refute it in a 2005 “60 Minutes” essay, and again, as it continued to proliferate, in a Associated Press article a year later. Rooney was also mistakenly connected to racism when a politically charged essay highly insensitive to minorities was written in his style and passed off as his on the internet in 2003. ![]() Comedian Joe Piscopo used it in a 1981 impersonation of him on “Saturday Night Live” and, from then on, it was erroneously linked to Rooney. Rooney asked thousands of questions in his essays over the years, none, however, began with “Did you ever…?” a phrase often associated with him. In typical themes, Rooney questioned labels on packages, products that didn’t seem to work and why people didn’t talk in elevators. “I obviously have a knack for getting on paper what a lot of people have thought and didn’t realize they thought,” Rooney told the Associated Press in 1998. ![]() Mainly, his essays struck a cord in viewers by pointing out life’s unspoken truths or more often complaining about its subtle lies, earning him the “curmudgeon” status he wore like a uniform. “Are they going to take us seriously as an enemy if they think we eat Cap’n Crunch for breakfast?” deadpanned Rooney. In an early “60 Minutes” essay that won him the third of his four Emmy Awards, his compromise to the grain embargo against the Soviet Union was to sell them cereal. He often weighed in on major news topics. The topics ranged from the contents of that desk’s drawer to whether God existed. Ratings for the broadcast rose steadily over its time period, peaking at a few minutes before the end of the hour, precisely when he delivered his essays – which could generate thousands of response letters.Įach Sunday, Rooney delivered one of his “60 Minutes” essays from behind a desk that he, an expert woodworker, hewed himself. For over 30 years, Rooney had the last word on the most watched television program in history. He preferred to be known as a writer and was the author of best-selling books and a national newspaper column, in addition to his “60 Minutes” essays.īut it is his television role as the inquisitive and cranky commentator on “60 Minutes” that made him a cultural icon. Rooney wrote for television since its birth, spending more than 60 years at CBS, 30 of them behind the camera as a writer and producer, first for entertainment and then news programming, before becoming a television personality – a role he said he was never comfortable in. Rooney joins the ranks of icons in several professions who retired at ripe, old ages and passed away very soon after leaving their life-long passions: cartoonist Charles Schultz and ventriloquist Edgar Bergen, among others. 2, 2011 in his 1,097th essay for “60 Minutes” that he would no longer appear regularly. He loved his life and he lived it on his own terms. “It’s a sad day at ’60 Minutes’ and for everybody here at CBS News,” said Jeff Fager, chairman of CBS News and the executive producer of “60 Minutes.” “It’s hard to imagine not having Andy around. He was 92, and had homes in New York City, Rensselaerville, N.Y. He had just retired last month:Īndy Rooney, the “60 Minutes” commentator known to generations for his wry, humorous and contentious television essays – a unique genre he is credited with inventing – died Friday night in a hospital in New York City of complications following minor surgery. Andy Rooney, a former war correspondent, CBS’s longtime icon, a favorite of viewers, and a role model to those who aspired to broadcast and/or print commentary - someone who could write his copy as well as read it and communicate to viewers - is dead at 92.
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