Newsman Ed Bradley is dead
Ed Bradley, a longtime veteran of the CBS news magazine "60 Minutes," has died. He was 65 and died from complications of leukemia at New York's Mount Sinai Hospital.
The 2005-06 season of "60 Minutes" marked Bradley's 25th year with the groundbreaking, critically hailed CBS news magazine. Recently, he did an investigative piece on the Duke lacrosse team alleged rape incident.
He collected 19 Emmys, the most recent for a segment on the reopening of the racially motivated murder case of Emmett Till.
Bradley was born June 22, 1941 in Philadelphia. He grew up in a single parent household, and learned the value of hard work from his mother. He attended Cheyney State College, graduating in 1964 with a degree in Education. His first job was teaching sixth grade at the William B. Mann Elementary School in Philadelphia's Wynnefield community. While he was teaching, he moonlighted at WDAS in Philadelphia, working for free and later, minimum wage. He programmed music, read news, and covered basketball games.
His introduction to news reporting came during the riots in Philadelphia in the 1960s. In 1967, he landed a full-time job at the CBS-owned New York radio station WCBS.
In 1971, he moved to Paris, France and was living off of savings. As he ran out of money, he became a stringer for CBS News and later covered the Paris Peace Talks.
In 1972, he was transferred to Saigon, to cover the Vietnam War. He spent time in Phnom Penh covering the war in Cambodia. While covering the war, he was injured by a mortar round. He had shrapnel wounds to his back and arm.
In 1974, he moved to Washington, DC. He covered the Jimmy Carter presidential campaign in 1976 and then became CBS News' White House correspondent until 1978. From 1978 to 1981, he served as principal correspondent for CBS Reports.
In 1981, he joined the staff of 60 Minutes, when Dan Rather left to replace Walter Cronkite as the anchor of the CBS Evening News. He was the first—and to date only—male correspondent to regularly wear an earring on the show. He had his left ear pierced in 1986 and says he was inspired to do it after receiving encouragement from Liza Minnelli following an interview.
An avid jazz fan, he hosted the radio program, “Jazz at Lincoln Center.”
He was married to the artist Patricia Blanchett. He had homes in Woody Creek, Colorado and New York, New York.
In remembering his colleague, fellow "60 Minutes" commentator Andy Rooney said, "He wasn’t a television star to me. He was just my friend."
Posted by bernie at November 9, 2006 12:49 PM