'60 Minutes' Pays Tribute to Wallace

Zap2It.com | April 27, 2006

Mike Wallace

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Long-time correspondent ending regular role on show

Mike Wallace will have the tables turned on him in his final regular appearance on "60 Minutes."

Wallace, a notoriously tough interviewer, will have to answer questions for a change on Sunday, May 21, in a special called "I'm Mike Wallace: A 60 Minutes Tribute." The show will look back on Wallace's career, which spans practically the entire history of broadcast TV, and allow his colleagues to ask him some questions.

The 87-year-old is going into semi-retirement at the end of this season. He'll still contribute to CBS News programs occasionally under the title of "correspondent emeritus."

CBS promises that Wallace's fellow correspondents at "60 Minutes" -- which he's been part of since its beginnings in 1968 -- will "expose the inner Wallace few have ever seen, asking him the impertinent, the probing questions -- the kinds of questions he has used to make interview subjects squirm for decades."

The special will also feature clips from some of the memorable interviews Wallace has conducted over the years -- ranging from Ayatollah Khomeini to Johnny Carson -- and footage from other aspects of his career, which stretches back to the late 1940s.

Wallace has won 19 Emmy awards over the course of his career and received a lifetime achievement award from the National Television Academy in 2003.