Ed Bradley

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Ed Bradley bigraphy, stories - News correspondent

Ed Bradley : biography

June 22, 1941 – November 9, 2006

Edward Rudolph "Ed" Bradley, Jr. (June 22, 1941 – November 9, 2006) was an American journalist, best known for twenty-six years of award-winning work on the CBS News television program 60 Minutes. During his earlier career he also covered the fall of Saigon, was the first black television correspondent to cover the White House, and anchored his own news broadcast, CBS Sunday Night with Ed Bradley. He received several awards for his work including the Peabody, the National Association of Black Journalists Lifetime Achievement Award, and nineteen Emmy Awards.

Legacy

Bradley was honored in the state 2007 with a traditional jazz funeral procession at the New Orleans Jazzfest, of which he was a large supporter. The parade, which took place on the first day of the six-day festival, circled the fairgrounds and included two brass bands.

Columnist Clarence Page wrote:

Bradley had been a season ticket holder to the New York Knicks for over 20 years. On November 13, 2006, they honored him with a moment of silence. On the 60 Minutes program after Bradley’s death, his longtime friend Wynton Marsalis closed the show with a solo trumpet performance, playing some of the music Bradley loved best.

Biography

Early life

Bradley was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His parents divorced when he was two, after which he was raised by his mother Gladys, who worked two jobs to make ends meet. Bradley, who was referred to with the childhood name of "Butch Bradley" was able to see his father, who was in the vending machine business and owned a restaurant in Detroit, in the summertime. When he was 9, his mother enrolled him in the Holy Providence School, an all-black Catholic boarding school run by the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament at Cornwells Heights, Pennsylvania. He attended Mount Saint Charles Academy, in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, and then another historically black school, Cheyney State College (now Cheyney University of Pennsylvania) in Cheyney, Pennsylvania, graduating in 1964 with a degree in Education. His first job was teaching sixth grade at the William B. Mann Elementary School in Philadelphia’s Wynnefield community. While he was teaching, he moonlighted at the old WDAS studios on Edgley Drive in Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park, working for free and later, for minimum wage. He programmed music, read news, and covered basketball games and other sports.

Career

Bradley’s introduction to news reporting came at WDAS-FM during the riots in Philadelphia in the 1960s. In 1967, he landed a full-time job at the CBS-owned New York radio station WCBS. In 1971, he moved to Paris, France. Initially living off his savings, he eventually ran out of money, and began working as a stringer for CBS News, covering the Paris Peace Talks. In 1972, he volunteered to be transferred to Saigon to cover the Vietnam War, as well as spending time in Phnom Penh covering the war in Cambodia. It was there that he was injured by a mortar round, receiving shrapnel wounds to his back and arm.

In 1974, he moved to Washington, D.C., and was promoted to covering the Carter campaign in 1976. He then became CBS News’ White House correspondent (the first black White House television correspondent) until 1978, when he was invited to move to CBS Reports, where he served as principal correspondent until 1981. In that year, Walter Cronkite departed as anchor of the CBS Evening News, and was replaced by the 60 Minutes correspondent Dan Rather, leaving an opening on the program which was filled by Bradley.

Over the course of Bradley’s twenty-six years on 60 Minutes, he did over 500 stories, covering nearly every possible type of news, from "heavy" segments on war, politics, poverty and corruption, to lighter biographical pieces, or stories on sports, music, and cuisine. Among others, he interviewed Howard Stern, Laurence Olivier, Subcomandante Marcos, Timothy McVeigh, Michael Jackson, Mick Jagger, Bill Bradley, the 92-year-old George Burns, and Michael Jordan, as well as conducting the first television interview of Bob Dylan in 20 years. Some of his quirkier moments included playing blackjack with the blind Ray Charles, interviewing a Soviet general in a Russian sauna, and having a practical joke played on him by Muhammad Ali. Bradley’s favorite segment on 60 Minutes was when as a 40-year-old correspondent, he interviewed 64-year-old singer Lena Horne. He said, "If I arrived at the pearly gates and Saint Peter said, ‘What have you done to deserve entry?’ I’d just say, ‘Did you see my Lena Horne story?’"