Commentator Andy Rooney of "60 Minutes," poses in his New York office. He made more than 1,000 appearances on the show
VIENNA,Va., November 5, 2011–The news this morning of the death of Andy Rooney struck hard on hearts everywhere, even those of us who live with the Civil War era. For his was a life well-lived, a life that crossed the generations and life spans, hearkening to a time when men were men regardless of age and women were still ladies.
CBS announced the death of Rooney, who launched his long career during World War II as a correspondent for the Stars and Stripes military newspaper and continued to be a fixture on "60 Minutes" for 33 years.
He died at a New York City hospital of complications following minor surgery, according to CBS.
For millions of Americans, Rooney was a welcome visitor into their homes on Sunday evenings, an old familiar face appearing for a few minutes at the tail end of one of the most highly rated programs in television history.
Somewhere there’s a battered old desk which he had lovingly made himself, piled high with papers and files and the stuff of which good writing is made, shelves of books haphazardly lined up behind it. And though in later years he modified his religious beliefs from atheist to agnostic, I like to think it’s a pretty good bet that he is now holding court somewhere behind the Pearly Gates, still trying to convince Lee and Jackson and Sherman that they COULD have done better, had they only taken his advice.
Bank names: "Trust is a word banks like in their names. There are certain names they'd never use, 'Bankorama,' for instance."
Baseball: "My own time is passing fast enough without some national game to help it along."
But Rooney didn't just spend his few minutes on seemingly trivial matters. In 2003, for example, he turned his attention to the French for failing to support the war in Iraq.
"You can't beat the French when it comes to food, fashion, wine or perfume, but they lost their license to have an opinion on world affairs years ago," he said. "The French lost World War II to the Germans in about 20 minutes."
With Rooney, as his "60 Minutes" colleague Mike Wallace once said, "What you see is what you get."
"I have never, never come across a man I admire more, respect more," Wallace said during a discussion of journalism in World War II at the Smithsonian Institution in 2004.
