July 9, 2004

WILLIAM MCCLURE, ORIGINAL "60 MINUTES" PRODUCER AND A MURROW COLLABORATOR DIES AT 81

William K. McClure, an accomplished and original producer for 60 MINUTES and an early television news cameraman who was one of the last living colleagues of Edward R. Murrow, has died. The Emmy-winning producer was 81 and died Friday (2) of a heart ailment in a hospital on the Italian island of Sardinia, where he had a summer home. He resided in London, where he was based for much of his life and work.

He began his long CBS News career in 1952 working with Murrow on the seminal news series, "See it Now," and later became a prolific producer of documentaries for "CBS Reports." He produced "D-Day Plus 20" with Walter Cronkite in 1964, the famous anniversary report in which Dwight Eisenhower returns to the beaches of Normandy. He won his first of four Emmy awards for a 1968 CBS News documentary he produced on aging, "Don't Count the Candles," filmed by the renowned English photographer, Lord Snowdon.

McClure was a former U.S. Army Signal Corps and newsreel cameraman with a wealth of global experience when he came to CBS News in the early days of television, joining a core of pioneers who formed the foundation of television news. He began with CBS News as a cameraman in New York but soon began producing reports and documentaries out of London from datelines across the globe.

McClure was something of a legend by the time he was chosen one of six people to produce stories for Mike Wallace and Harry Reasoner at the beginning of 60 MINUTES in 1968. He had filmed and produced hundreds of reports in the 1950s and '60s, most overseas, for "CBS Reports," in addition to his work on "See it Now" and another regular Murrow series, "Small World." One of the founding professionals of news documentaries, McClure brought with him the genre's best elements and style to help start the new 60 MINUTES on its way to becoming the most successful broadcast in history.

"Bill McClure was there at the creation," said Wallace, with whom McClure worked the most on 60 MINUTES. "He took the best damned pictures because he had been out in the field so much, that when he became a producer, he could feel the rhythm of a piece, the images that conveyed the heart of a story. He could be prickly, sometimes difficult, but what he put on film was worth every bit of it. He worked superbly with others who would go on to be great producers themselves because they learned from Bill," said Wallace.

He was the first European producer for 60 MINUTES, starting and shaping a staff in London. McClure's former cameraman, John Tiffin, and former assistant, Jeanne Langley, became award-winning 60 MINUTES producers alongside him.

McClure would eventually work with almost all the 60 MINUTES correspondents over his 30 years on the broadcast. After Wallace and Reasoner, Morley Safer joined the team in 1970. "Bill was a master of the carefully crafted documentary in the great tradition of the glory years of "CBS Reports" and - more -
McClure Obit/CBS News...2

the early years of 60 MINUTES," said Safer. "He was as demanding of himself as he was with all the people he worked with."

He won three Emmy awards for 60 MINUTES pieces, the last in 1990 for one of the most memorable 60 MINUTES reports - the first American television camera's look inside the still radioactive town of Chernobyl. An eerie music played on loudspeakers in the deserted town for the few technicians still there. McClure stopped the bus and began recording it, said Steve Kroft, the correspondent on the story. The music was haunting, as were many of the images. "He loved visuals and had a wonderful way of using them," said Kroft. "In the television news business he was one of the old masters, more a filmmaker than a journalist. He was great at editing pictures and he would spend days trying to get the right light and action."

His other 60 MINUTES Emmy-winning efforts were "Welcome to Palermo," a 1981 piece on the Mafia in Sicily, and "Poppy Fields of Turkey," the first part of a 1972 trilogy on how heroin makes its way to the U.S. Other important reports include, "The Shah of Iran" and "Syria: Israel's Toughest Enemy," both from 1975, and "Yassir Arafat" in 1977. He also produced many memorable profiles, mostly of European celebrities, such as Federico Fellini (1971), Placido Domingo (1982) and Yves Montand (1984).

McClure continued to work at 60 MINUTES past his official retirement in 1992, producing segments freelance. His last piece, "Botero," a profile of the Columbian painter, ran in 1998, but he was still active until his death. Several weeks ago, he was finishing a documentary on Pablo Picasso he had been working on for some time.

"Bill McClure was brilliant," said Don Hewitt, the creator of 60 MINUTES. "He was as good a cameraman, and then as good a television producer, as I've ever worked with in my life. We will not see his like again." Said Phil Scheffler, former executive editor of 60 MINUTES, "Bill was a perfectionist, often prickly, who wouldn't stop until his stories were as good as he could make them. Many of them were the best 60 MINUTES has ever done."

William Kyle McClure was born in Knoxville, Tenn., on September 8, 1922 to Helen and Wallace McClure. He grew up there and in Washington D.C., where his father, a lawyer, went to do international treaty work for the government. His first brush with journalism came in a brief job as a copyboy with the Washington Post. He attended the University of Tennessee before serving in the Army and going to Europe to film the allied advance into France and Germany. His work with the Army kept him occupied after the war ended, bringing him to the Far East where he filmed trials of Japanese war criminals.

He returned to the U.S. and married the former Jane Gittins, whom he had met before the war. He joined newsreel maker Pathe News and went overseas again. There he put his camera skills to work on big news events like the Communist blockade of Berlin and the conflict in the Middle East over Israel's independence, before coming to CBS News.

McClure is survived by his wife, Jane, and four children: David and Annie of London, Robert of Flagstaff, Ariz., and Katharine of New Jersey. His brother, Wallace, of Knoxville, also survives.

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Press Contact: Kevin Tedesco 212 975-2329