For more than 30 years, two-and-a-half minutes of 60 Minutes were devoted to a monologue by Andy Rooney, a notoriously curmudgeonly commentator who used his platform on the CBS news show—and in syndicated newspaper columns—to discuss everyday frustrations and small absurdities. Seemingly everyone in America recognized him, many loved him, but not all knew that the Everyman on their TV screen on Sunday evenings hailed from Albany.
Now, 15 years after his death at the age of 92—which came just over a month after his final 60 Minutes segment—Rooney has been memorialized in his first full-length biography. It’s written by fellow Capital Regionite Paul Grondahl, a longtime Times Union reporter and columnist, the director of the NYS Writers Institute at the University at Albany, and author of numerous books, including biographies of Teddy Roosevelt and Albany Mayor Erastus Corning 2nd.
“I knew Andy and had access to his family, friends, and all his papers,” Paul says. “I made sure I got a lot of his cranky, inimitable curmudgeon voice in it. He was snarky before snark was invented.”
Andy Rooney: A Lucky Life was published by SUNY Press on October 1. You can pick up a copy at local bookstores, on Amazon, or on sunypress.edu. For a sneak peek from the opening pages of the book, head to CRL IRL.
