Mike Wallace, late of CBS's 60 Minutes, died last night at age 93. He perished in an assisted care facility near New Canaan, CT. From the New York Times:
A reporter with the presence of a performer, Mr. Wallace went head to head with chiefs of state, celebrities and con artists for more than 50 years, living for the moment when “you forget the lights, the cameras, everything else, and you're really talking to each other,” he said in an interview with The New York Times videotaped in July 2006 …
Mr. Wallace created enough such moments to become a paragon of television journalism in the heyday of network news. As he grilled his subjects, he said, he walked “a fine line between sadism and intellectual curiosity.”
Wallace retired from 60 Minutes in 2006, at the age of 87. He is survived by several children, the youngest of whom is Chris Wallace, the combative host of FOX News Sunday.
Thanks to Joe.My.God for unearthing the following video — an investigation into homosexuality in America hosted by Mike Wallace and aired in 1967. Given the era in which it was produced, it's admirably open-minded: gayfolk, at least male ones, are allowed to speak their pieces freely and at length. (I was especially interested in the weird hand-wringing about the possibility of a "gay mafia" ruling pop art and fashion, which seems rather incidental to the segment's central question: Is it desirable to legislate against private sexual behavior? On this question, at least, it seems Wallace wished to alight gently on the side of history.) Watch AFTER THE JUMP …
