He was on television for more than 60 years. He won 21 Emmy awards. His hard-hitting reporting was legendary, particularly on the hugely popular “60 Minutes” news program.
But Mike Wallace, who died Saturday at the age of 93 and had admitted to suffering from bouts of depression, also seemed to have many regrets during his career.
That was clearly evident in a six-year-old interview that aired on WCTV that he did with his grandson, Eames Yates, who is a reporter with the Tallahassee station.
Yates asked Wallace if he felt the same as he did when he was 20-years-old.
“I used to have a very bad case of acne,” related Wallace. “As a result of which I grew up with kind of a chip on my shoulder and a sense of inferiority. And I think to a certain degree I tried to make up for that. Some of that good, I knew that I was going to have to work harder and pay perhaps more attention to my responsibilities.
“This is not an easy answer really. But that marked me,” he added.
Yates asked his famous grandfather, “What do you feel you’ve sacrificed to get here?”
“I was more interested in my work than in my family,” said Wallace.
Yates asked him if he derived more happiness from work than from family.
“Apparently I did yeah because I… I’ve been married 4 times. Those marriages, those divorces I should say were, ah, casualties of preoccupation with work and insufficient attention to family relationships.”