Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Happy 90th Birthday Andy Rooney!

Raised in upstate New York, Rooney was a frat boy (Sigma Chi) at Colgate until he was drafted in 1941.

He wrote for the Army's Stars and Stripes newspaper during WWII, and visited German concentration camps toward the end of the war, one of the first American journalists to do so. (He covered his experience in Europe in his 1997 memoir My War.)
In 1949, Rooney joined CBS as a writer for the variety show Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts. He worked on a handful of shows at CBS during the 1950s and began collaborating with newsman Harry Reasoner in 1962, writing the TV essays for which he'd eventually be famous.

Rooney joined the cast of 60 Minutes in 1978, a decade after it was introduced by veteran producer Don Hewitt.

Rooney's been giving us "A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney" ever since, and earned a lifetime achievement Emmy in 2003.

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