The Truth About Chris Wallace’s Stepfather, Bill Leonard
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By Hanna Claeson/Sept. 29, 2020 3:43 pm EST
“I think that it’s in the Wallace DNA to come at stories and come at people straight on. Not a lot of foreplay,” Wallace reflected to Parade. Wallace’s father, 60 Minutes legend Mike Wallace, sat down with Malcolm X and Vladimir Putin (via The Washington Post). His step-father, 60 Minutes creator and CBS News president, Bill Leonard, was the only one in the industry to convince the ruthless Dominican dictator, Rafael Trujillo, to give his only full-ranging interview (via The New York Times).
Both Bill Leonard and his stepson have both made waves in election news broadcasts
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In many ways, Wallace was following in his stepfather’s groundbreaking election-reporting footsteps. As head of the CBS News election unit, Bill Leonard helped develop a new method to predict election results: the exit-poll (via The New York Times). In 1964, CBS-superstar Walter Cronkite first used the method to declare the winner in the New Hampshire Republican Presidential primary, a full 39 minutes before any other network did. A few months later, Leonard hooked Wallace up with his first internship, helping Cronkite during that year’s Democratic and Republican conventions (via Parade).
“To be able to go to the convention and see all … of the historic figures like Nixon and Eisenhower … it just struck me as, this is the greatest job in the world,” Wallace remembered. Wallace has been covering presidential conventions since. It was, for example, during the 1988 Republican Convention that Donald Trump first predicted a future presidential win to Wallace. “I think I’d have a very good chance,” Trump told Wallace in 1988, “I mean I like to win” (via Newsweek).
Wallace turned down an offer to work at his stepfather’s former network
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