Walter Leland Cronkite Walter Leland Cronkite Jr.
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Awards
Walter Cronkite anchored CBS Evening News from 1962 to 1981 and was called the most trusted man in America. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1981. During his coverage of the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969, he was briefly speechless.
Names, aliases, and relatives of Walter Cronkite — birth name, kin, and personal ties.
Walter Cronkite by the numbers — life, work, and family.
Walter Cronkite — early life, career, personal life, and legacy.
Walter Cronkite moved to Houston, Texas, at age ten. He was born on November 4, 1916, in St. Joseph, Missouri, the only child of Helen and Dr. Walter Leland Cronkite. At San Jacinto High School and later the University of Texas at Austin, he acted in student plays with Eli Wallach before dropping out to pursue journalism. His first job was as a cub reporter for the Kansas City Times.
Cronkite worked as a newspaper reporter and covered World War II as a news correspondent. After joining CBS News in 1950, he became the anchor of the CBS Evening News on April 16, 1962, a role he held until March 6, 1981. His coverage of the Kennedy assassination in 1963 set a standard for live news. In 1969, during the Apollo 11 moon landing, he spent 27 of the 30 hours of the flight on air. At the moment Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface, he was speechless, uttering only Wow! and Oh Boy!. He reported on the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi war criminals in 1945 and covered both Republican and Democratic National Conventions.
Cronkite married Mary Elizabeth Betsy Maxwell on March 27, 1940, after meeting her while working at a Kansas City radio station. They had two children, Kathy and Chip. Betsy died on March 15, 2005, three weeks before their 65th anniversary. After her death, he had a longtime relationship with singer Joanna Simon until his own death. He was a licensed amateur radio operator with call sign KB2GSD and enjoyed sailing his yacht named Assignment.
Cronkite used the nightly sign-off And that’s the way it is, which became an American catchphrase. The International Space Hall of Fame and the Hall of Famous Missourians inducted him in 1999. Sesame Street named the grouch journalist muppet Walter Cranky after him. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1981, the highest civilian honor. He published his autobiography A Reporter’s Life in 1997. He remains the benchmark for television journalism, called the most trusted man in America.
Browse the complete filmography of Walter Cronkite — every film, TV show, and documentary credit, ranked by popularity.
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Every award, honor, and recognition received by Walter Cronkite — Grammys, hall-of-fame inductions, civic honors, lifetime achievements.
A wall of memorable lines from Walter Cronkite — lyrics, interviews, and off-the-cuff remarks captured over a lifetime.
The Great Sadness of My Life Is That I Never Achieved the Hour Newscast, Which Would Not Have Been Twice as Good as the Half Hour Newscast, but Many Times as Good.
I Only Met Martin Luther King on a Few Occasions but I Was Always Struck by the Obvious Force, the Power of His Character Which Is Clearly What the Civil Rights Movement Needed at That Point.
I Got Along Pretty Well with Nixon. Whenever He Promised Me an Interview He Delivered and I Didn’t Make His Famed Enemies List. I’m Still Sort of Ambivalent About That.
I Firmly Believe in the Necessity of Military Censorship but There Is Considerable Danger to the Democracy When in the Guise of Military Censorship Our Government Engages in Political Censorship.
I Am Probably Not That Different from Most Reporters, Highly Competitive, Always Determined to Get That Big Story. the Big Story Is Always the One That’s Just a Little Bit Out of Reach.
In Broadcasting, I Learned the Hard Way How Prepared You Need to Be to Be Spontaneous.
I Learned at an Early Age How to Pontificate Even When Wrong.
Twenty Four Hours After I Told CBS News That I Was Stepping Down at My 65Th Birthday I Was Already Regretting It and I’ve Regretted It Every Day Since. It’s Too Good a Job for Me to Have Given It up the Way That I Did.
Little-known facts about Walter Cronkite — origins, oddities, and behind-the-scenes details from a public life.
During the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969, Cronkite was on the air for 27 of the 30 hours of the flight, and at the moment Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface, he was speechless for the first time in his career, saying only Wow! and Oh Boy!.
According to Cronkite’s autobiography, his mother Helen dated General Douglas MacArthur as a teenager, but her father disapproved because MacArthur was too old.
On the day of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Cronkite interrupted the soap opera As the World Turns to make an audio announcement because the cameras needed time to warm up.
Cronkite was outspoken in his criticism of Oliver Stone’s film JFK 1991, calling it Oliver Stone junk and a dangerous work of fiction.
When CBS asked Cronkite for a signature closing line, he suggested ‘And that’s the way it is, which CBS worried implied infallibility, but Cronkite argued it suited any story.
Cronkite was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1981, the highest honor a U.S. civilian can receive.
He was a licensed amateur radio operator with call sign KB2GSD.
Cronkite reported on the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi war criminals in 1945.
At the 1933 World’s Fair, Cronkite volunteered for an early television demonstration and did an impromptu impression of a man playing two flutes, jokingly claiming he was on television decades before his contemporaries.
On the day he was born, his father voted for President Woodrow Wilson immediately after leaving the hospital.
Cronkite provided the voice-over introduction This is the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric.
He attended both the Republican and Democratic National Conventions in 1928, first on a Boy Scout field trip and later visiting his grandparents in Kansas City.
While at the University of Texas, Cronkite acted in student plays with Eli Wallach before dropping out to become a journalist.
The grouch journalist muppet on Sesame Street named Walter Cranky was based on him.
At the birth of television, Cronkite helped invent the evening news format, sitting at a desk and talking to the camera as if conversing with another person, organizing stories like a newspaper.
In 1964, Cronkite was fired from his anchor duties at the Democratic National Convention due to a new CBS president’s failed tactics, but he was offered a job at NBC and subsequently reinstated for the Republican Convention.
He met his wife Betsy when they were paired to do a cosmetics commercial at a Kansas City radio station; they married a year later.
Cronkite’s mother Helen died in 1993 at age 101.
On March 15, 2005, Cronkite lost his wife Betsy of 64 years, three weeks before their 65th anniversary.
At age 16, Cronkite attended the 1933 World’s Fair in Chicago and volunteered to help demonstrate an experimental television.
His first journalism job was as a cub reporter for the Kansas City Times.
In 1997, Cronkite released his autobiography A Reporter’s Life which coincided with a two-hour TV special Cronkite Remembers.
Cronkite’s ancestors settled in New Amsterdam, the Dutch colony that became New York.
He attended Lanier Junior High School in Houston, Texas, another famous alumnus being Linda Ellerbee.
Cronkite moved to Houston, Texas at age 10 and worked at the Houston Post as a copy boy, cub reporter, and had a paper route.
He was inducted into the International Mustache Hall of Fame in 2015 in the Film & Television category.
Cronkite used the stage name Walter Wilcox during his radio days.
His mother was of German descent, and his father had German, Scottish, English, and distant Frisian and Dutch ancestry.
Cronkite’s father was a dentist named Walter Cronkite Sr.
Cronkite underwent quadruple bypass surgery in a New York hospital.
He signed off his final news broadcast on March 6, 1981 with ‘And that’s the way it is, Friday, March 6, 1981. I’ll be away on Assignment and Dan Rather will be sitting in here for the next few years. Good night, referencing his yacht named Assignment.
Quick answers to the questions readers ask most about Walter Cronkite.
Celebrities similar to Walter Cronkite — same craft, ranked by reach.
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