GOODBYE, '60 MINUTES': MIKE WALLACE SPEAKS HIS MIND, TELLING HIS COLLEAGUES THINGS HE?S NEVER SAID
THINGS HE?S NEVER SAID
Thu May 18 2006 12:43:26 ET
Mike Wallace was too rough? He?s sorry? An actress flirted with him
off and on camera? His depression was worse than he?s ever admitted?
The grand inquisitor himself fesses up when his own colleagues ask him
the questions in a special edition of 60 MINUTES dedicated entirely to
the program?s legendary correspondent. These personal revelations
and many of Wallace?s most controversial and engaging interviews can
be seen and heard when Morley Safer, Ed Bradley, Steve Kroft and
Lesley Stahl interview Wallace in ?I?m Mike Wallace: A 60 MINUTES
Tribute.? The special edition of 60 MINUTES will be broadcast Sunday,
May 21 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.
Among the more surprising admissions is this one: some prodding from
fellow Correspondent Lesley Stahl and 15 years of a guilty conscience
finally make Wallace admit he was rough on Barbra Streisand. ?That
was mean. It was mean,? a stern Stahl charges. ?Yes it was [rough].
But [Streisand] needed to have control,? says Wallace. But in the
end, a repentant Wallace makes a sincere on-camera apology to
Streisand.
Wallace doesn?t apologize to Shirley MacLaine, with whom he was just
as rough about her belief in reincarnation and in life on other
planets. ?I adore her, and she was interested in me, too,? Wallace
says of MacLaine. The actress openly flirts with Wallace in her
response to his question about aliens ?visiting you on your porch.?
?You don?t have to be that unpleasant. It doesn?t become you,? the
actress practically purrs. Wallace tells Stahl that MacLaine had a
thing for him back then and that he and his wife, Mary Yates, before
they married more than 20 years ago, ?triple dated? with her. ?You
mean a threesome,? says Stahl. ?Yes, but only at dinner,? says an
amused Wallace.
Not so surprising -- because he has openly and readily discussed his
depression for years, but shocking for its candidness -- is Wallace?s
story of attempted suicide. Safer asks the question that he says he
and others had suspected all along. ?Did you try to commit suicide at
one point?? asks Safer. Wallace answers yes and says, ?I don?t know
why the hell you asked me that question, because other people
have?it?s the first time I have answered it honestly.? After the
story of the attempt to take his own life, Wallace says that the years
since that time 20 years ago ?have been the best in my life.?
Other Mike Wallace moments include: his testy exchanges with world
leaders like Vladimir Putin of Russia, Zhang Zemin of China and Iran?s
Ayatollah Khomeini; and his extraordinary interviews with news figures
like Paul Meadlo, who recounts shooting women and babies at the My Lai
massacre, mobster Jimmy Fratianno, who calmly recalls murdering a man
in his living room, and John Ehrlichman of Watergate infamy.
Wallace, 88, announced in March that he would retire from regularly
scheduled appearances on 60 MINUTES. He becomes a CBS News
correspondent emeritus at season?s end, appearing occasionally on CBS
News programs.
END
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