On this day in 1934, TV journalist Charles Kuralt was born. He is best remembered for the "On the Road with Charles Kuralt" feature pieces for CBS-TV. He died on July 4, 1997. He was most widely known for his long career with CBS, first for his "On the Road" segments on The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, and later as the first anchor of CBS News Sunday Morning, a position he held for fifteen years. Kuralt's "On the Road" segments were recognized twice with personal Peabody Awards. The first, awarded in 1968, cited those segments as heartwarming and "nostalgic vignettes"; in 1975, the award was for his work as a U.S. "bicentennial historian"... his work captured the individuality of the people, the dynamic growth inherent in the area, and ...the rich heritage of this great nation. He shared in a third Peabody awarded to CBS News Sunday Morning. Two years after his death, Kuralt's personal reputation came under scrutiny when a decades-long companionship with a Montana woman named Pat Baker was made public. Kuralt apparently had a second, "shadow" family with Baker while his wife lived in New York City and his daughters from a previous marriage lived on the eastern seaboard. Baker asserted that the house in Montana had been willed to her, a position upheld by the Montana Supreme Court. According to court testimony, Kuralt had met Baker while doing a story on "Pat Baker Park" in Reno, Nevada that Baker had promoted and volunteered to build in 1968. The park was in a low-income area of Reno that had no parks until Baker (née Shannon) promoted her plan. Kuralt mentions Pat Baker and the building of the park — but not the affair — in his autobiography... Wikipedia | Search Amazon.com for Charles Kuralt
No comments:
Post a Comment