A short biography of Andy Rooney

Hello reader(s),

Lately I've been working pretty often, like 50 hours a week often.  That, frankly, makes me pretty lazy at everything else. If only I didn't have to shave or shower regularly.

Anyway, in the spirit of laziness I am going to publish something I wrote for a class last year.  It's a biography of the late Andy Rooney, a writer famous for video commentary on just about any topic possible for 60 Minutes.

Check it out and see what you think.


Andy Rooney (1919-2011) An old man sits in his chair. Smooth, caramel colored shelves surround him. He leans foreward across a rough asymetrical desk. He's 92 years old but he sits straight up in his chair. His face looks worn, his eyebrows bushily trail to the outside of his head. Still, after all those years his eyes are focused. "People have often told me I said the things they are thinking themselves. I probably haven't said anything here that you didn't already know or have already thought," longtime CBS broadcast columnist and general ranter Andy Rooney said with precise timing and resonant clarity during his last regular show on 60 Minutes. "That's what a writer does." The final broadcast traveled through television sets on October 2, 2011. "This is a moment I've dreaded. I wish I could do this forever," Rooney said with an uncharacteristically easy tone, somberly adding, "I can't though." Just over a month later Rooney lay on his death bed after complications from a "minor surgury" according to the New York Times. On November 4, 2011, the man who spoke of the world as he saw it finally saw the ends of that world. Andrew Aitken Rooney was born in Albany New York in 1919. His parents were Walter Scott Rooney and Ellinor Reynolds Rooney. The family lived in Albany during the depression. The Rooney's, however, were a well off family and were not terribly afflicted by the depression. Rooney stated that his father made around $18,000 a year during the depression in a CBS interview. Rooney's father traveled often for work and Rooney's mother stayed home to raise the family. Rooney entered the prestigious Albany Academy when he was 15 years-old. Rooney stated that, though the school was one of the best in the country at the time, he was an underachiever. Still he made his way to Colgate University, in upstate New York. Rooney attended college there up until World War II when the Army drafted him. Rooney started his stint in the army in training at Fort Brag North Carolina. Rooney's education and a small amount of writing experience within the army lined him up for "detached service," according to military.com. Rooney was assigned to write for the Army newspaper Stars and Stripes. The newly formed publication took over the offices of the Times of London during the war, after the paper went underground. Rooney was assigned to cover a division of the Air Force and co-authored his first book, Air Gunner, while still in the service. Stars and Stripes covered all aspects of war including the gruesome. Rooney followed suit covering mundane as well as harrowing death. "I could go as far up as I dared," Rooney said speaking of the war in a CBS interview. "And I dared go pretty far up. It was dangerous." During the war Rooney made friends with some of his fellow reporters. Rooney's most noteworthy friend was Walter Cronkite. Rooney said that he and Cronkite traveled together often while covering the war. Rooney wrote that, to start, he and other reporters would each take a bomber group and then after missions the reporters would interview that group. The reporters lived in much safer and more comfortable homes than any regular enlisted person. Rooney continued, that after a while this began to bother him. He and some other reporters decided to ride along on a bombing mission which had five percent bomber loss rate. He lamented that the chances of every bomb group surviving their allotted 25 missions were low. Rooney explained that he was terrified when the plane took off. His worst fears came true when his bomber was hit in the nose over Germany. The flack punched a hole in the nose of the plane and pierced his navigator's oxygen supply tube. The navigator quickly lost consciousness and Rooney had to rig up a new oxygen tank to revive the navigator. "Well I didn't know how to do any of this and here I was, with somebody's life at stake, and I didn't know how long you lasted once you took your oxygen mask off," Rooney said in explanation of the bomber mission. Following the war Rooney went back to New York. He first attempted to work as a freelance writer in Albany. But then he found his pockets too empty to live as he desired. Thus Rooney decided to pursue a career at CBS. The Pittsburg Post-Gazette reports that Rooney was at CBS applying to write for pundit Edward R. Murrow, but he was rejected. Rooney ran into CBS show host Arthur Godfrey in the elevator on the way out and asked him for a job. Rooney got the job. Godfrey was a well established radio broadcaster known for breaking the constraints of typical radio etiquette. Instead Godfrey spoke candidly and sounded conversational. Rooney and Godfrey seem as if they would have had similar mentalities as they both spoke for citizens and both made fun of otherwise mundane details in life. Off camera though Godfrey was said to be ferocious, egotistical, controlling, womanizing person. "He was nasty sometimes," Rooney said of Godfrey. "But this was 1949,50, 51. I was making something like $500 a week. I mean a fortune." Rooney continued to say that writing for Godfrey did not bother him at the time. "I can't imagine writing something for somebody else now," Rooney said laughing "But I was perfectly happy and when he used something of mine on the air I liked it." Rooney then wrote for a more serious CBS correspondent, Harry Reasoner. He wrote on serious news topics for Reasoner. Reasoner on camera seems to be complete foil of Godfrey. He sits at a desk and speaks properly in typical broadcaster dialect. Rooney often wrote documentaries for Reasoner and wrote with Reasoner. Rooney recalled that he always thought Reasoner was a better writer than he was. But he said that Reasoner was lazy and this gave him job security. Rooney wrote and worked with several other news personalities before he found reading his own work to be more fulfilling. "For years I wrote for other people to read, and it turns out that I do it about as well as the do, and the money's better reading it so I do it myself," Rooney explained in an interview with David Letterman. Don Hewit, creator of 60 Minutes put Rooney on the air. Rooney started his appearances as a shadow silhouette debating with another correspondent's shadow. Rooney's silouheted body mouthed his nasally voice as both debaters negotiated their way through current events and issues. Then, in 1978, Rooney started what became the rest of his career, A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney. It was on this show where Rooney gained most of the fame that he both loved and loathed. It's also the place where the American public got to know the idealistic, grouchy,cynical writer. Rooney's 60 Minutes show covered many topics but he mostly focused on the every day. "I like cold better than hot,rice better than potatoes, football better than baseball, Coke better than Pepsi," Rooney wrote to introduce himself in his book And More by Andy Rooney. "I've been to Moscow three times and don't like that at all." No matter what the topic was Rooney had an opinion and it was a strong opinion. His opinion was often so strong people in opposition could easily get slighted. "It's my opinion that prejudice saves us all a great deal of time," Rooney wrote in the same opening essay. "I have a great many well founded prejudices ,and I have no intention of giving up any of them except for very good reasons." Despite the strong language many of Rooney's prejudices were simply things in daily life that he was passionate about . "The word 'pioneer' in relation to geography can be retired from the language," Rooney wrote in an essay about "Vacations in Outer Space." "Every place has been walked on and is not far from a federally funded highway." Rooney spent much of his time on air grumbling and questioning things we see in daily life. Many times he was the person to ask why things were the way they were. "Do you realize there's no longer a car called just plain Chevrolet? Why would they throw away a great old name like that?" Rooney said in one of his two minute segments featuring car names. "If you want a Chevy now, you have to buy one of these - Camaro, Citation, Chivette. Looks as if they started to give them all names beginning with 'C,' and couldn't think of any more when they got to Monte Carlo." Rooney's cynicism and strongly convicted speech occasionally got him in trouble with the public. Rooney liked to tell things as he saw them and sometimes this alienated sects of viewers. In 1989, midway through his career at 60 Minutes Rooney added homosexual activity to a list of preventable death causing habits. The gay community backlashed. According to the New York Times a gay newspaper reported that Rooney had slandered the Black community in an interview. Rooney denied the allegations but accepted a three month suspension from 60 Minutes. He came back after a month, during which 60 Minutes' ratings declined 20 percent the New York Times reported. Fame was far from Rooney's favorite part about being a broadcasting icon. "I spent my first 50 years trying to become well know as a writer and the next 30 trying to avoid being famous," Rooney said nostalgically in his final 60 Minutes segment. "I walk down the street now, or go to a football game and people shout 'hey Andy' and I hate that." Rooney even explained in several different interviews why he refused his autograph to absolutely every person who requested it. He considered the act of giving someone his signature on a piece of paper asinine. Still Rooney wanted to be liked and wanted his work to be accepted by the public. "I may have given the impression that I don't care what anyone else thinks, but I do care. I care a lot," Rooney said in his final 60 Minutes segment. "I have always hoped that people will like what I have written." The world is a confusing place. Interpreting what happens on Earth among the creatures that roam its surface is a headache. Humans, with their reason, self centeredness and conflict make the world even more complex. Its sometimes hard to see how everything ties together or even how everything simply exists on this space rock during busy daily life and survival. Too many other matters of immediate importance blind us to our surroundings. Sometimes it takes a strong opinion and fiery speech to get people to perk up their ears and look around. Maybe people won't agree, maybe they'll hate what a stongly opined person said, but they will definitely pay attention. Andy Rooney was willing to take the risk to make people pay attention to the world surrounding them. Rooney saw life in many of its vast forms as he traveled through his long life. It seems that though sometimes he was wrong, prejudice, or out of touch, he was usually spot-on as he questioned the world. Rooney looked for the trend, and the important detail within it. He usually admitted when he was wrong, though not always. All that seems to matter, though, is that sometimes right and wrong don't matter. Sometimes words just need to evoke a response. Sometimes people need to be angry and disagree. The world is not always a sunny day full of rainbows, unicorns and freedom. There's grit, hate, ignorance, crime, death, and a million other terrible things exhisting in equilibrium with a multitude of goods. The fact is someone in the media has to share the reality of bad and good. Rooney painted a real picture of the world with his segments. Rooney's official job was writing but his public obligation was exposing humanity even when people didn't want to see it. -By Austen Verrilli Sources: Web Sources Rooney Interview with David Letterman: www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MplYyNZ7Fo Rooney on being famous: http://www.emmytvlegends.org/interviews/people/ Andy Rooney and Arthur Godfrey: http://communityvoices.sites.post-gazette.com/index.php/arts-entertainment-living/get-rhythm/30671-andy-rooney-and-arthur-godfrey- Andy Rooney in the Army: http://www.military.com/Content/MoreContent/1,12044,MLrooney,00.html Rooney's Final Broadcast: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LppKo-xte4Y Rooney Biography: http://www.biography.com/people/andy-rooney-9542557 Article and Essay Sources Andy Rooney First Column: http://www.tmsfeatures.com/columns/humor/andy-rooney/25554359a.html?articleURL=http://rss.tmsfeatures.com/websvc-bin/rss_story_read.cgi?resid=201111091700TMS_____AROONEY__ctnxo-a_20111111 Rooney war Essay: http://www.pbs.org/weta/reportingamericaatwar/reporters/rooney/writing69th.html nytimes rooney memorial - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/us/andy-rooney-mainstay-on-60-minutes-dead-at-92.html?pagewanted=all cbs remembers rooney - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/tv-column/post/60-minutes-pays-tribute-to-andy-rooney/2011/11/07/gIQA1LfSvM_blog.html Rooney Obituary: People; 11/21/2011, Vol. 76 Issue 21, p91-91, 1p, 1 Color Photograph, 1 Black and White Photograph Book Sources Rooney, Andrew A. And More by Andy Rooney. Antheneum N.Y.: Essay Productions Inc., 1982. Print. Rooney, Andrew A. Years of Minutes. New York N.Y.: Public Affairs, 2003. Print.