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Charlie Rose

Charlie Rose (born Charles Peete Rose, Jr., on January 5, 1942) is an American TV interviewer and journalist.

Since 1991, he has hosted Charlie Rose, an interview show produced by the New York metropolitan area public television station WNET. It has been distributed nationally by PBS, starting in 1993 and continuing as of 2008.

He was concurrently a correspondent for 60 Minutes II from its inception in January 1999 until its cancellation in September 2005.

Early life

Rose was born in Henderson, North Carolina, as a son of Margaret and Charles Peete Rose, Sr., tobacco farmers who owned a country store. As a child, Rose lived above his parents' store in Henderson and helped out with the family business from age seven. A high school basketball star, Rose entered Duke University planning on majoring in pre-med, but an internship in the office of Democratic North Carolina Senator B. Everett Jordan got him interested in politics. Rose graduated in 1964 with a bachelor's degree in history. He earned a Juris Doctor from the Duke University School of Law in 1968. Rose also attended New York University Stern School of Business.

Career

After his wife was hired by the BBC (in New York), Rose handled some assignments for the BBC on a freelance basis. In 1972, while continuing to work at Bankers Trust, he landed a job as a weekend reporter for WPIX-TV. His break came in 1974, after Bill Moyers hired Rose as managing editor for the PBS series Bill Moyers' International Report. In 1975, Moyers named Rose executive producer of Bill Moyers' Journal. Rose soon began appearing on camera. "A Conversation with Jimmy Carter," one installment of Moyers' series U.S.A.: People and Politics, won a 1976 Peabody Award. Rose worked at several networks honing his interview skills until KXAS-TV in Dallas-Fort Worth hired him as program manager and gave him the late-night time slot that would become the Charlie Rose show.

Rose worked for CBS News (1984–1990) as the anchor of CBS News Nightwatch, the network's first late-night news broadcast. The Nightwatch broadcast of Rose's interview with Charles Manson won an Emmy Award in 1987. In 1990, Rose left CBS to serve as anchor of Personalities, a syndicated program produced by Fox Broadcasting Company, but he got out of his contract after six weeks because of the tabloid-style content of the show. Charlie Rose premiered on PBS station Thirteen/WNET on September 30, 1991, and has been nationally syndicated since January 1993. In 1994, Rose moved the show to a studio owned by Bloomberg Television, which allowed for improved satellite interviewing.

Since 2003, Rose has sat on the board of directors of Citadel Broadcasting Corporation.

As of May 27, 2008, his PBS show has over 4,000 videos on Google Video and YouTube including hundreds of full length episodes making it one of the most accessible television shows available.

Rose appears as himself in the 2008 movie Elegy. Rose had also appeared as himself in the 1998 film Primary Colors and in an episode of The Simpsons.

Personal life

Rose's twelve-year marriage to Mary Rose (née King) ended in divorce in 1980. From 1993 until 2005, his companion was socialite and city-planning advocate Amanda Burden, a stepdaughter of CBS founder William S. Paley.

On March 29, 2006, after experiencing shortness of breath in Syria, Rose was flown to Paris and underwent surgery for mitral valve repair in the Georges-Pompidou European Hospital. His surgery was performed under the supervision of Dr. Alain Carpentier, a pioneer of the procedure. Rose returned to the air on June 12, 2006, with Bill Moyers and Yvette Vega (the show's executive producer), to discuss his surgery and recuperation.

Criticism

Rose is sometimes criticized for going too easy on his guests, with the suggestion that this is how he gets them to appear on the show. In the June 24, 2001, New York Times Magazine, Fox News Channel executive Roger Ailes claimed to have received Rose's word that he would not be asked political questions during his interview. The Charlie Rose Show's executive producer, Yvette Vega, responded that she was unaware of any such deal.