Andy Rooney

At 92 years old, Andy Rooney has this physical status:

Andrew Aitken Rooney (January 14, 1919 – November 4, 2011) was an American radio and television writer best known for his weekly radio show "A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney," a feature of CBS News' 60 Minutes from 1978 to 2011.

On October 2, 2011, his last regular appearance on 60 Minutes aired.

He died at the age of 92 on November 4, 2011.

Early life and education

Andrew Aitken Rooney was born in Albany, New York, the son of Walter Scott Rooney (1888-1991), and Ellinor (Reynolds) Rooney (1886-1980). He attended The Albany Academy and then transferred to Colgate University in Hamilton, central New York, where he was introduced to the Sigma Chi fraternity right away before being drafted into the United States Army in August 1941.

Personal life

Rooney was married to Marguerite "Margie" Rooney (née Howard) for 62 years before she died of heart disease in 2004. "She name does not appear as often as it did in my papers] because it hurts too much to write it," he later wrote. Ellen, Emily, Martha, and Brian were among their four children. Emily Rooney, a former ABC News reporter and former anchor, who went on to host a nightly Boston public affairs show called Greater Boston on WGBH, is his daughter. Martha Fishel, Emily's identical twin, joined the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland, as the head of the Public Services Division; her son Justin works as a producer for ABC News. Ellen Rooney, his first daughter, is a former film editor at ABC News and now lives in London and is a travel and garden photographer. Brian Rooney, his son, has been a reporter for ABC since the 1980s and lives in Los Angeles.

Nancy Reynolds Rooney, Rooney's niece (1915–2007), was also a student.

Rooney spent time in Norwalk, Connecticut, and Rensselaerville, New York, as a long-serving season ticket holder for the New York Giants.

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Career

Rooney joined CBS in 1949 as a writer for Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts, when Godfrey was at his peak on CBS radio and TV. It opened the show up to a variety of viewers. The program was a hit, reaching number one in 1952 during Rooney's tenure. It was the beginning of a close lifelong friendship between Rooney and Godfrey. He wrote for Godfrey's daytime radio and TV show Arthur Godfrey Time. He later moved on to The Garry Moore Show which became a hit program. During the same period, he wrote public affairs programs for CBS News, such as The Twentieth Century.

Rooney wrote his first television essay in 1964 called "An Essay on Doors", "a longer-length precursor of the type" that he did on 60 Minutes, according to CBS News's biography of him. From 1962 to 1968, he collaborated with CBS News correspondent Harry Reasoner, Rooney writing and producing and Reasoner narrating. They wrote on CBS News specials such as "An Essay on Bridges" (1965), "An Essay on Hotels" (1966), "An Essay on Women" (1967), and "The Strange Case of the English Language" (1968). In 1968, he wrote two episodes of the CBS News documentary series Of Black America, and his script for "Black History: Lost, Stolen, or Strayed" won him his first Emmy.

CBS refused to broadcast his World War II memoir titled "An Essay on War" in 1970, so Rooney quit CBS and read the opinion himself on PBS, which was his first appearance on television. That show in 1971 won him his third Writers Guild Award. He rejoined CBS in 1973 to write and produce special programs. He also wrote the script for the 1975 documentary FDR: The Man Who Changed America.

After his return to the network, Rooney wrote and appeared in several primetime specials for CBS, including In Praise of New York City (1974), the Peabody Award-winning Mr. Rooney Goes to Washington (1975), Mr. Rooney Goes to Dinner (1978), and Mr. Rooney Goes to Work (1977). Transcripts of these specials are contained in the book A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney, as well as of some of the earlier collaborations with Reasoner.

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Awards

• 2001 – Emperor Has No Clothes Award from the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
• 2003 – Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism.