Charles Kuralt, the CBS newsman who chronicled the offbeat and endearing as he traveled America's highways and byways for his "On The Road" reports, died on the Fourth of July. He was 62.
Kuralt died at New York Hospital from complications from lupus, said Rich Diefenbach, a CBS spokesman. Kuralt had been suffering from the progressive disease for some time.Kuralt joined CBS News in 1957 as a writer after working as a reporter and columnist for the Charlotte (N.C.) News. He became a correspondent in 1959, and became host of "CBS News Sunday Morning" and his acclaimed "On the Road with Charles Kuralt."
During his travels, Kuralt did pieces on a school for unicyclists, horse-trading and a gas station/poetry factory. He interviewed professional wrestlers, a 104-year-old entertainer who performed in nursing homes, lumberjacks, whittlers and farmers.
He retired from the Sunday program three years ago, telling his audience, "I aim to do some traveling and reading and writing."
"People really loved Charles Kuralt," said Charles Osgood, who succeeded him as host of "Sunday Morning."
"He came across as a real human being. He was kind and thoughtful who was a little quirky but whose interest in people were the same as yours and mine or anybody else's would be. He never put himself on some kind of platform or presented himself as some kind of authority. He was just a decent, beautiful man. And all of us who worked with him knew that and I think the audience came to know it, too."
Winner of the Peabody award as well as 10 Emmys, Kuralt also wrote several books: "To The Top of the World," "Dateline America," "On the Road with Charles Kuralt," "Southerners," "North Carolina Is My Home," and "A Life on the Road."
Kuralt was born in Wilmington, N.C., on Sept. 10, 1934, the son of a social worker and a teacher. His skills as a writer became evident early, when he won a trip to Washington and a meeting with President Truman in an American Legion essay contest.
But it was Edward R. Murrow, the legendary CBS reporter, whose voice on the radio inspired Kuralt to try journalism.
After joining CBS in the late 1950s, he moved quickly from rewrite to on-air correspondent.
"He had just touched something that audiences responded to," Osgood told WCBS radio in New York. "If we could think of something better to do, we'd do it but nobody can."