Biography of Andy Rooney, war correspondent, Emmy-winning TV journalist and public affairs author.
Are Those Eyebrows…or Curb Feelers?
Andrew Aitken Rooney was born on January 14, 1919, in Albany, New York. He attended the Albany academy as a young man and later matriculated at Colgate University before the U.S. Army drafted him in 1941. He married Marguerite Howard in 1942, and began his journalism career as a correspondent for Stars and Stripes, the official Army newspaper.
Rooney at War
He covered the European theatre of operations, and witnessed several of the most significant battles of the war. The Army awarded Rooney the Bronze Star for his performance.
One of his columns reported a heart wrenching accident as a battle damaged B-17 bomber returned to England, unable to lower its landing gear. The damage inside the plane prevented the escape of the ball turret gunner, who remained trapped in the bubble on the belly of the plane as it landed. Forty years later Steven Spielberg would use Rooney’s report as the basis for an episode of the “Amazing Stories” television series.
Writing in TV's Golden Age
After the war, Rooney began writing expressly for television, beginning with the Arthur Godfrey Show and later the Garry Moore show, which he helped to raise to a popular zenith. In the mid-50s, he wrote for the CBS show Good Morning! when it was hosted by Will Rogers, Jr. The 1960s saw Rooney’s attention turning to more serious subjects and hard news, as he teamed with correspondent Harry Reasoner to create an award winning series of “television essays”. In 1968, he won his first Emmy award for the special, “Black History: Lost, Stolen or Strayed”.
A Long Run Begins
In 1978, Rooney began working with 60 Minutes, the legendary Sunday evening news magazine show created by Don Hewitt. He became most noted for his brief end-of-show segment, A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney. Therein, he tackled a multitude of mundane subjects, opining in a droll but intelligent drone. No subject, from shoelaces to salad dressing, was safe from the show’s resident curmudgeon.
In 2000, a plausibly Rooney-esque piece circulated on the Internet that contained mean spirited remarks about subjects ranging from minorities, gun control, and the Boy Scouts to police shootings, immigrants and body piercings. In a written statement, Rooney emphatically denied authorship, saying, “Some of the remarks, which I will not repeat here, are viciously racist and the spirit of the whole thing is nasty, mean and totally inconsistent with my philosophy of life.”
Privately, Rooney admits to a liberal tilt in his thinking and has been labeled agnostic/atheistic in several corners. Still, neither of those traits has prevented him from infuriating a full spectrum of special interest groups over the years. In 2002, he lambasted female football sideline reporters for not knowing what they were talking about, drawing the vocal fury of women’s groups. In 2004, he took on conservative religionists by saying, “I heard from God just the other night. God always seems to call at night. ‘Andrew,’ God said to me…’Andrew, you have the eyes and ears of a lot of people. I wish you’d tell your viewers that both Pat Robertson and Mel Gibson strike Me as wackos.” Some may wonder if subsequent events haven't confirmed Rooney's judgments.
Accomplishment, Recognition, and Sorrow
Rooney lost his wife of 62 years, Marguerite, to a heart attack in 2004. The Rooney’s have four children, two of whom followed their father’s professional footsteps: Brian is a reporter for ABC News and Emily hosts the PBS/WGBH community show Greater Boston.
Andy Rooney has won three Emmy awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Emmy in 2003. He has published over 800 essays, and his twice-weekly column is syndicated in newspapers across the country. Rooney has published 13 books, including Common Nonsense (2002) and Years of Minutes (2003).
Old Writers Never Die, They Just Turn a Page
America’s most whimsical curmudgeon appears unwilling to calm himself and ride gracefully into the sunset. 60 Minutes sent him to cover Super Bowl 42 in February 2008.
Sources:
www.cbsnews.com
www.nndb.com
www.snopes.com
www.hollywood.com
