Jonathan Davis’ Blog

Some might call him old. Others might call him insane. Many wonder how someone like him can still be on television. Well when you have seen and done as much as this man has, reported on a lot of it and be able no matter how many changes are made to keep up with the times, this Upstate New York native has made himself into an institution that we tune in to see at the end of the 7 p.m. hour each Sunday and just yesterday, he dropped another rock into the puddle of age.

Yesterday, CBS’ ’60 Minutes’ essayist and curmudgeon Andy Rooney, just turned 91 years old yesterday and one thing is for sure, he has not shown any signs of slowing down.

To really understand that this man has still got it, he currently has a girlfriend who he simply calls, “my friend,” according to a USA Today article. For someone who lost his wife Marguerite (Marge) Howard, who passed away six years ago to deter him. He got back out there and found someone. Not bad. On top of that, he still drives on his own and when asked about it he replied, “Yes. I drive.”

The one thing though that is very special to Rooney and his wife Marge are there four children that they had together. Daughter Emily who is a former executive producer of ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings and is the current television host, executive editor and creator of WGBH’s Greater Boston and Beat the Press.

Son Brian has worked as a correspondent for ABC News since the 1980s. Emily’s twin sister Martha is the Chief of the Public Services Division at the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, MD. The third daughter Ellen works as a photographer in London.

What we most know Rooney for is his 31 years on ’60 Minutes,’ but he is much more than that. He has a weekly syndicated newspaper column. This past November, his 16^th book Andy Rooney: 60 Years of Wisdom and Wit was published.

He is also a unique journalist in that he even said that computer is better than a typewriter even though he still has his old Underwood typewriter that he said he could never “bear to throw it away.”

In fact he is someone that does not throw away much to begin with. In his cluttered office at CBS News, he still has a barbell he has not used in years.

One of the most treasured possessions that Rooney has in his office is a framed handwritten 53-year-old note on the wall behind his hand built walnut desk that simply reads “WOW.” It’s from celebrated essayist and children’s author E.B. White about Rooney’s 1957 TV adaptation of White’s famous essay, “Here is New York.”

Rooney says that White was, “the best there was.” When he passed 25 years ago, Rooney wrote, “Seems terribly wrong, but I’m probably better known than he was. As the phrase goes in the newspaper business, I couldn’t carry his typewriter.”

When you watch and listen to Rooney each Sunday night on ‘60 Minutes’ it is part history lesson, which is a good thing and part comedy routine, which is always good because we all can use a laugh. It can also be a great deal of distain because he can also be very grumpy, which at times can be expected from someone his age. However, with someone of his greatness, there is always a method to the madness.

He says which is true that our society consists of a whole lot of “nonsense.” As we have seen during his commentary that he is not shy of saying what he feels about that so-called nonsense that happens on a daily basis. While hearing that kind of objective opinion, which we definitely get regularly from the likes of radio personality Rush Limbaugh and FOX News commentator and radio personality Glenn Beck, can be refreshing, it can also be very vindictive, arrogant and distasteful, but the one can always be said about these three in particular, they say what is on their mind and they do not care about the consequences from viewers or management.

Rooney was suspended by CBS for three months back in 1990 for his remarks to a gay newspaper were criticized as homophobic. CBS rehired Rooney four weeks later after the ratings for ’60 Minutes’ suffered a 20 percent drop.  So while the stories that are told each week by the likes of Steve Kroft, Scott Pelley, Morley Safer, Lesley Stahl and Bob Simon of today, Rooney’s end of the show words are an important part of the program.

For those of you who want to know how did he get to the point he is now. Well it all began for Rooney in 1941 when as a junior at Colgate University; he was drafted by the Army, where he was arrested in Florida for sitting in the back of an Army bus alongside African American soldiers.  

One year later he joined the Armed Forces’ newspaper staff, Stars and Stripes in London. It was also in this time where he met the three legends of CBS News, Edward R. Murrow, United Press reporter at that time Walter Cronkite and Stars and Stripes correspondent Don Hewitt, who was the creator of ’60 Minutes.’

In 1944 he flies on the U.S.’s second bombing raid on Germany; lands on Utah Beach in Normandy 72 hours after D-Day and writes his first book, “Air Gunner,” with Bud Hutton.

Five years later, he joins CBS as a writer for radio and TV personality Arthur Godfrey.

Rooney made his first appearance in our living rooms in 1968 as one of two silhouetted figures who were dubbed “Ispo” and “Facto” who would banter in a short lived segment on ‘60 Minutes.’

Rooney quit CBS in 1970 after they refused to air his piece, “An Essay on War,” but he would narrate his piece one year later on PBS, while at the same time joining ABC News along with correspondent Harry Reasoner.

He would return to CBS in 1972 as a writer, producer and narrator for stories on ‘60 Minutes’ and other broadcasts.

Rooney found his place where he know him today in 1978 when his segment “Three Minutes with Andy Rooney” aired that summer replacing “Point/Counterpoint. The segment which is the last segment of each ‘60 Minutes’ broadcast is said by each correspondent “A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney,” which was the title of his first book which became a best seller.  

For a lot of us, we will know Andy Rooney as a grumpy, unsatisfied, blunt and old man who gives his point of view on certain topics at the end of broadcast on ‘60 Minutes.’ He should be known as someone who was great at what he did. He was a wonderful father to his children and passed down some wisdom to them that have made each of them very valuable to the media world. He took part in some life changing event in American history. More than anything what Andy Rooney showed us is that it doesn’t matter how old you are, it is how you feel. He obviously feels great and that is why he is still at the top of his game as we see each week.

Information and quotes are courtesy of the Thursday, Jan. 14, 2010 edition of USA Today and en.wikipedia.org