Born September 10, 1934, in Wilmington, NC; died of complications from lupus,July 4, 1997, in New York, NY. Television news reporter, producer, writer. Kuralt is remembered as the television anchor who shunpiked his way across thebackroads of the United States, searching for unique stories about ordinarypeople. His "On the Road" segments for the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, aired from 1967 to 1980, and eventually led to a position as anchor forCBS News Sunday Morning. Broadcasting and reporting were a way of life for Kuralt. At the age of fourteen he announced minor- league baseball games and edited the student newspaper while in college. In 1955 he joined the staff of the Charlotte News as a reporter. In 1957 he went to work for the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) in New York as a writer; by 1959 he was the host of Eyewitness to History. For the next eight years Kuralt covered hard news stories in Latin America and Vietnam. His career changed in 1967 when he began covering human interest stories. Traveling more than 50,000 miles each year in amotorhome from 1967 to 1980, Kuralt and his camera crew set off in search ofthe real America. According to Arthur Unger of the Christian Science Monitor,Kuralt convinced CBS into sponsoring his "On the Road" segment by explaining: "I got the idea ... one night in an airplane as I looked down at the lightsin the countryside and wondered ... what was going on down there. There area lot of Americans who don't live in cities and don't make headlines. I was interested in finding out about them."
His forty-year career afforded Kuralt three George Foster Peabody Awards, thirteen Emmy Awards, and a 1985 broadcaster of the year award from the International Radio and Television Society. His television credits are numerous and include Dateline America, America Tonight, 60 Minutes ... 25 Years (also knownas 60 Minutes Turns 25), On the Road with Charles Kuralt, and An American Moment. His written works include Charles Kuralt's America, To the Top of the World: The Adventures and Misadventures of the Plaisted Polar Expedition, March 28-May 4, 1967, Southerners: Portrait of a People, and A Life on the Road.He also wrote two companion pieces for his television shows: Dateline Americaand On the Road with Charles Kuralt.
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