Walter Cronkite

Attended both the Republican and Democratic National Conventions in 1928. The former was on a boy scout field trip and the latter was during a visit to his grandparents in Kansas City.

Makes a unique claim about his television career. When he attended 1933 World's Fair, he was present at an exhibit displaying an early example of television. At the exhibit, the attendees were allowed to sit in front of the camera and watch themselves on the screen. When Cronkite sat in front of the camera he did an improptu impression of a man he had seen playing two flutes at once. Therefore, he jokingly claims that he was definitely on television decades before his contemporaries.

Journalist since 1937; with CBS television since 1950.

Reported on the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi war criminals in 1945.

Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr. was born in Saint Joseph, Missouri, the only child of Helen Lena (Fritsche) and Walter Leland Cronkite, a doctor. Throughout his early career, Cronkite worked with newspapers. During World War II, he served as a news reporter. In 1950, Cronkite became a journalist.

At the birth of television, he and his team at CBS practically invented the institution of the evening news program. In 1951, one of the stage managers at CBS told him to sit at the desk and do the news. Cronkite asked what he meant and the managers simply said "I don't know just do it". His idea was to first just talk to the camera like another person and organize the news stories in the same vein as the newspaper beginning with the top story and working his way down to human interest stories.

On the day of the Kennedy assassination, he said the he had just come back from lunch and was standing at the teletype machine when rang a rare five bells - a bulletin. He shouted "Let's get on the air!" but getting on the air wasn't possible because the cameras had to be placed and then warmed up (after this, the networks always had a camera ready in the newsroom). He went to an audio booth just off the newsroom floor and, interrupting As the World Turns (1956), made an audio announcement over a CBS logo. It took another 20 minutes to get on camera.

He signed up with CBS News in 1962 and retired in 1981. Cronkite remained active throughout retirement.

In 1964 he was fired from his anchorman duties at the Democratic National Convention. CBS had gotten a new president who had never worked on a presidential campaign and had definate ideas about how CBS would be covering it. It turned out to be a mess and as a result Cronkite got some of the blame so the network executives removed him from the coverage but kept him as the anchorman of the evening news. Jokingly Cronkite became buddies with the president of NBC and the people at CBS were horrified that he was being offered a job in the rival network. So when the Republican Convention rolled around Cronkite got to cover it without using the new president's tactics.

Is the 1966 recipient of the prestigious Connor Award given by the brothers of the Phi Alpha Tau fraternity based out of Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. He is also an honorary brother of the fraternity.

Has a Muppet on Song of the Cloud Forest (1969) named after him, The Grouch journalist "Walter Cranky".

Satirized by Ray Goulding as "Walter Chronic" in Cold Turkey (1971).

He is outspoken in his distaste for Oliver Stone's film JFK (1991). Calling the film "Oliver Stone junk" and "A dangerous work of fiction that seriously mid-leads a whole generation of Americans who were not alive at that time".

Father was Walter Cronkite Sr., a dentist. Mother was Helen Cronkite who died in 1993 at the age of 101.

In 1997, released his autobiography, "A Reporter's Life", which coincided with a two-hour TV special, Cronkite Remembers (1997), in which he reminisced about his years as a reporter. A week later, an eight-hour version aired on The Discovery Channel.

Inducted into the Hall of Famous Missourians in 1999.

Release of his audiobook, "Cronkite Remembers". [2000]

Release of his book, "Around America: A Tour of Our Magnificent Coastline". [2001]

December 2003 - Underwent surgery to repair a previously injured achilles tendon.

On March 15, 2005 he lost his wife of 64 years, Betsy, three weeks before their 65th anniversary.

Longtime boyfriend of Joanna Simon until his death in August, 2009.

Inducted into the International Mustache Hall of Fame in 2015 (inaugural class) in the category Film & Television.