60 Minutes: A Dozen Iconic Moments
Looking back at stories that gave the show its charm, reputation and bite
By David Bianculli -- Broadcasting & Cable, 9/21/2008 8:00:00 PM
Here's what I love about 60 Minutes.
I love that this CBS series is such a grand old grandpa of TV newsmagazines—as important as See It Now, and infinitely more popular and durable. I love that its excellence has been emulated but never duplicated, not even by the same network and division's 60 Minutes II.
I love that it's not only survived, but thrived, in many different decades under markedly different conditions. I love that it's one of the only places on primetime TV where age and experience are treasured, and where viewers are given due credit for both intelligence and curiosity.
I love that, in a medium so obsessed with the visual, 60 Minutes, from the start, has been all about the sound. About getting the script right, about making points clearly, about telling wonderful stories, and telling stories wonderfully, which was how founding executive producer Don Hewitt used to describe the program's success: “Tell me a story.” By performing that seemingly simple task, the show has more Emmys than John McCain has birthdays, and then some.
I love that 60 Minutes, like the old Ed Sullivan Show, understands the strength of variety and trust. Don't like this foreign policy story? Stay tuned for a profile of Arthur Ashe. Never heard of this musician, or that foreign country? Trust us. We wouldn't be telling the story on 60 Minutes unless it was worth telling.
That's the sort of credibility that comes only with time, and a long string of excellent correspondents, contributors and moments. Over the years, partly because of the years, that's why I love 60 Minutes in general.
Here are a dozen reasons, over those years, why I've loved 60 Minutes in particular.
1975: Mike Wallace, interview with Secret Service agent Clint Hill. I saw it then, and haven't forgotten it since: Hill, who was among the detail protecting President John F. Kennedy the day he was assassinated in 1963, wishing with crushing honesty he'd moved just a bit faster a dozen years before, and sacrificed his life instead.
1976: Wallace, “Clinic on Morse Avenue.” One of the show's all-time classic journalistic ambushes. Working with the local Better Government Association, 60 Minutes set up a fake storefront clinic on the South Side of Chicago. Sure enough, unscrupulous blood-work laboratory representatives offered the undercover BGA employee kickbacks in exchange for sending the lab work their way—at which point Wallace emerged from behind a one-way mirror and pounced.
1977: Wallace, profile of Vladimir Horowitz.Who else but Wallace could browbeat the aging, resistant maestro to sit at the piano and play a song he hadn't performed in decades? It was a particularly rousing rendition of Stars and Stripes Forever—and was an amazing moment, almost as brilliant as the proud twinkle in Horowitz's eyes afterward.
1979: Wallace, interview with Ayatollah Khomeini. While American hostages continued to be held in Iran, Wallace went face-to-face with the Ayatollah. Even with strict preconditions on what could and couldn't be asked during the interview, Wallace hit hard and cut deep—even having the guts to quote Anwar Sadat calling Khomeini “a lunatic.” Wow.
Watch the clip below. To watch clips of other memorable 60 Minutes moments, click here:
1979: Wallace, profile of Johnny Carson. Johnny, we hardly knew ye—you were that private and quiet a celebrity. But Wallace got deep enough to let us see some glimpses of what really made Johnny run, including the revelation that he sobbed uncontrollably for hours after the death of his friend and idol, Jack Benny.
1980: Dan Rather, reporting from Afghanistan. The turban disguise gave him the derisive nickname “Gunga Dan,” but look past the turban and see what Rather was doing here: Risking his life to visit the front lines in the Afghan rebels' fight against the Soviet invasion. Look at today's headlines, and tell me that wasn't the right place to be, and the right story to tell.
Watch the clip below. To watch clips of other memorable 60 Minutes moments, click here:
1981: Wallace, interviewing Jimmy Fratianno. Something about this interview was memorably chilling. Wallace asking questions matter-of-factly to the mobster-turned-informant nicknamed “The Weasel,” and Fratianno answering just as directly and unemotionally. “Jimmy, who was the first person you killed?” “Frankie Nicoli.” “Where did you kill him?” “In my house. We strangled him…”
1981: Ed Bradley, profile of Lena Horne. Nobody could have gotten Horne, then 64, to open up and sparkle like Bradley did. By the end, she was joking about her active sex life—and the way I saw it, it was hard to decide which of them enjoyed the interview more.
1984: Morley Safer, profile of Jackie Gleason. As with Wallace and Carson, it was a masterful usage of the TV medium, picking the right place and time to ask just the right questions. In Safer's case, he took Gleason where The Great One felt most comfortable—to a pool table, cue stick in hand—and fired off queries as Gleason sank one sweet shot after another. Safer was focusing on the questions, Gleason on the balls, and they both pretty much ran the table.
1992: Steve Kroft, interview with Bill and Hillary Clinton. Politically, it was as high stakes as it got: at a crucial point in the 1992 presidential campaign, with Clinton dodging charges of infidelity, and with a massive post-Super Bowl audience tuning in. The Clintons handled it well, but so did Kroft. Decades after its launch, 60 Minutes was still the place to be.
Watch the clip below. To watch clips of other memorable 60 Minutes moments, click here:
1998: Wallace, story on Jack Kevorkian. As part of this story, Wallace presented a video, shot by the doctor and his associates, chronicling an actual case in which he helped end the life of a patient seeking euthanasia. Kevorkian went to prison, in part, for the evidence he demonstrated here, but the demonstration, and a discussion of the issue, was precisely the point.
2003: Rather, interview with Saddam Hussein. Just as Wallace with the Ayatollah, this was a 60 Minutes correspondent speaking directly to power—foreign, antagonistic power—when our own government no longer was doing so. Again, look at what happened since, and try to argue that this interview wasn't important, meaningful and more than a little brave.
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The Rather interview with Saddam Hussein was on 60 Minutes II
k - 9/22/2008 1:48:00 PM EDT
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