- Mike Wallace died on April 7, 2012, just five months after his former 60 Minutes (1968) co-anchor Andy Rooney.
- Longtime friend of Nancy Reagan, having known her well before she married Ronald Reagan. Their friendship was strained when Wallace conducted critical interviews of Reagan after he became President, but the two reconciled after Reagan's death.
- Before he was a successful news correspondent, he served as the announcer for ABC and Mutual Radio's "Sky King" (1946-1954).
- Met a young, unfamiliar singer, Barbra Streisand, on the set of PM East (1961). Exactly thirty years later, he would later interview her on 60 Minutes (1968).
- Used to play tennis with Johnny Carson.
- His sister, Helen, was a pianist.
- In the early days of television, Mike Wallace appeared in TV commercials for Golden Fluffo Shortening.
- He initially aspired to be a radio broadcaster and applied for a position in Muskegon, Michigan upon graduating from the University of Michigan. After being turned down, he then applied to WOOD in Grand Rapids and was hired, marking the beginning of his broadcasting career.
- Friend of Ted Yates. After he died, later married his widow, Mary Yates.
- A week after his 80th birthday, he appeared on the final episode of Murphy Brown (1988).
- In 1992, along with widow Mary Yates, he founded Wallace House at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, a place where journalists all over the world can come to study and hone their craft.
- Was associated with CBS News from 1951, and again from 1963 to 2006.
- Of Russian-Jewish descent.
- Had successful triple bypass surgery [2008].
- He was one of Don Hewitt's first choices as the news correspondent of 60 Minutes (1968).
- After his departure from 60 Minutes (1968), Wallace continued working for CBS News as a 'Correspondent Emeritus,' albeit at a reduced pace, until leaving the network for good in 2008.
- 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 (1956). Coincidentally, Wallace was the most frequent panelist on that show.
- His final 60 Minutes (1968) interview was when he talked with a disgraced baseball star Roger Clemens about his alleged steroid use.
- Was a longtime friend of Johnny Carson, who was a devout fan of Wallace's show 60 Minutes (1968).
- 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 traveled to Hawaii, Australia, and Subic Bay in the Philippines, then patrolling the South China Sea, the Philippine Sea and south of Japan. Wallace returned to Chicago after being discharged in 1946.
- Was a longtime friend of Joan Rivers.
- Childhood friend of John F. Kennedy and Nancy Reagan.
- Before he was hired as correspondent of 60 Minutes (1968), Wallace nearly quit CBS News for a job that would have landed him in the White House. He was covering the presidential election when Richard Nixon asked him to be his press secretary. Wallace was tempted.
- His favorite 60 Minutes (1968) interview was pianist Vladimir Horowitz.
- After his death, he left an impressive $21 million dollar fortune to his wife - Mary Yates, who would also die, 5 months later. His will was submitted to court.
- Originally wanted to be a lawyer.
- Had finally persuaded Dick Salant, who was the president of CBS News at the time, to hire him to work at CBS News, which revitalized Wallace's 43-year career in broadcasting.
- Was the oldest working news anchor on 60 Minutes (1968) until his retirement.
- Before he was a successful news correspondent, Wallace also announced Wrestling in Chicago in the late 1940s and early 1950s, sponsored by Tavern Pale beer.
- Once belonged to the Alpha Gamma Chapter of the Zeta Beta Tau Fraternity.
- His father, Frank Wallace, worked at a grocery store as a teenager, later becoming the manager, until losing the store at the end of World War I.
- Wrote for his high school newspaper, the Brookline Chronicle, making $2 a column.
- Release of his book, "Between You and Me - A Memoir". (2005)
- Mike Wallace died on April 7, 2012. Just 5 months after his death, his fourth wife and widow, Mary Yates, also passed away.
- In 2008, his longtime friend Andy Rooney helped him celebrated his 90th birthday, by viewing clips of him, when Wallace hosted 60 Minutes (1968).
- In his 38 year run on 60 Minutes (1968), Wallace interviewed over 100 celebrities.
- During his last years, he also suffered dementia.
- Each week, viewers of 60 Minutes (1968) could expect Wallace to ask the questions they wanted answered by the world's leaders and headliners. He did not disappoint, often revealing more than the public ever hoped to see.
- Won the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award Grand Prize and Television First Prize. [1996].
- In his 38 year tenure on 60 Minutes (1968), he won 21 Emmy Awards.
- Met a young CBS News reporter, Morley Safer, in London, England, where he was worked as the London Bureau Chief, in 1968. Wallace immediately hired him, a couple of years later.
- In 1981, Wallace was inadvertently caught on tape making a racial slur about blacks and Hispanics during a break in preparing a 60 Minutes (1968) report on a bank that had been accused of duping low-income Californians; he was forced to issue an apology. The incident was raised again several years later, when protestors argued against Wallace giving a commencement address at the University of Michigan; Nelson Mandela was being awarded an honorary doctorate in absentia at the same ceremony, for his fight against racism. Wallace initially called the protestors' complaint "absolute foolishness," but subsequently again apologized for his earlier remark, and added that when he had been a student at the campus decades earlier, "though it had never really caused me any serious difficulty here ... I was keenly aware of being Jewish, and quick to detect slights, real or imagined.... We Jews felt a kind of kinship [with blacks]," but "Lord knows, we weren't riding the same slave ship.".
- His oldest son, Peter, died in a hiking accident in Greece in 1962; his second son, Chris Wallace, is also a news broadcaster.
- In high school, the only subject he didn't like was chemistry.
- His birthplace, Brookline, Massachusetts, is about 4 miles west of Boston.
- Interred at West Chop Cemetery in Tisbury, Massachusetts, USA.
- Although he began to scale back his workload on 60 Minutes (1968) in 2003, he found it difficult to remain idle, and had 11 original reports that year, including interviews that had ranged, in typical Wallace fashion, from talking international politics with Vladimir Putin to talking steroids with Jose Canseco.
- Graduated from Brookline High School in Brookline, Massachusetts, in 1935.
- Attended Edward Devotion School in Brookline, Massachusetts.
- Was a popular student at Brookline High School, where he was the sports editor.
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