Mike (Myron) Wallace, 1918-2012
As the day unfolds you will get to know more about someone you already thought you knew. If you are under 60 you will remember Mike Wallace the journalist. If you are older you might remember Mike Wallace as someone who did just about everything that there is to do in broadcasting.
This crusading journalist that took on tobacco companies also took their money as a paid spokesman for Parliament Cigarettes. He hawked Coca-Cola while bantering with Spike Jones. He announced professional wrestling in Chicago. He acted in live television dramas and hosted game shows.
He had a long association with CBS but his career turn came on ABC when that network picked up NightBeat, a local talk show based on DuMont's affiliate in New York. That turned into the Mike Wallace Interview which blazed the way for him to join 60 Minutes in 1968.
The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas has put the Mike Wallace Interview online. You can watch the likes of Malcolm Muggeridge, eugenicist and Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger and a young Henry Kissinger ruminate on the state of US-Soviet relations. It is a fascinating window both into the late 1950's and a career in transition.
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Jul '10
Re: Mike (Myron) Wallace, 1918-2012
Interesting time capsule.
Jan '11
Re: Mike (Myron) Wallace, 1918-2012
I watched him. Didn't always agree, and sometimes I yelled at the screen. But I watched him. That means that he had the unusual quality of being actually interesting.
Re: Mike (Myron) Wallace, 1918-2012
In High School we had a social studies teacher who referred to himself as a socialist.
Every Monday, our class was nothing more than him throwing in a tape of the previous night's 60 Minutes show.
Since high school, with very limited exception, I have avoided the show.
Jun '10
Re: Mike (Myron) Wallace, 1918-2012
I couldn't get the UT videos to play, but this one is on YouTube as well:
Mike Wallace interviewing Margaret Sanger (9/21/57)
(1/3): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=in7IUzjN3pY
(2/3): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3U3NcCD1lg
(3/3): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZdwpjArFjg
Feb '12
Re: Mike (Myron) Wallace, 1918-2012
Mike Wallace ushered in the era of sensationalistic, agenda-driven, smug tele-"journalism". I'd like to line up the multitude of victims of his slanderous brand of muckraking for him to pass by on his walk to the judgment throne. Hopefully he gained some humility before he passed away or it won't go well for him. If you've ever talked with someone involved in a story covered by 60 Minutes, you know what I'm taking about.I heard him interviewed years after he retired. I have never heard a man so in love with his own voice before. I'm sorry for his family and hope my impression is wrong, but I see his body of work as a corrosive agent on our culture.
Oct '10
Re: Mike (Myron) Wallace, 1918-2012
Not to jump on a man on the occasion of his death, but I have to agree with Tommy and Polyphemus. Wallace might have done some wonderful interviews and some honest reporting in his long career, but I'm not sure he advanced the cause of truth much. He seemed to be in the service of the juggernaut of leftist media. And yeah, I know, that was about the only game going, but I don't feel compelled to celebrate a man that went-along-to-get-along or worse, was a true believer in the cause.
May '10
Re: Mike (Myron) Wallace, 1918-2012
Mmmm... the crowd is in a Dorothy Parker bent this morning...
Apr '11
Re: Mike (Myron) Wallace, 1918-2012
I wasn't gonna, but ...
Is there a particular reason you put Myron in parentheses, but not Wallenchinsky?
May '10
Re: Mike (Myron) Wallace, 1918-2012
Glenn - Yes, there is a very good reason. Wallace was his birth name. The family name was Wallick and his father changed it before Myron was born.
The "Wallenchinsky" you are thinking about is the author Irving Wallace. His daughter Amy also writes under the name of Wallace while brother David, the Olympic historian goes by the family name Wallechinsky.
The family produced some best sellers in the late 70's and early 80's with The Book of Lists and The People's Almanac.
Edited on April 9, 2012 at 6:41pmRe: Mike (Myron) Wallace, 1918-2012
Thanks for the link, EJ. As a showman (if not as a thinker), Wallace was, simply, the best.
May '10
Re: Mike (Myron) Wallace, 1918-2012
The amazing thing is that he (and John Daly) could stride journalism and entertainment so effortlessly.