Andy Rooney: A Lucky Life

A hilarious and heartbreaking biography of one of America's most popular commentators and beloved curmudgeons, whose biting wit and homespun humor earned him comparisons to Mark Twain and Will Rogers.

Andy Rooney carries readers through the arc of a true American original and one of the country's most popular television and newspaper commentators. Award-winning journalist and biographer Paul Grondahl's comprehensive biography traces Rooney's early transformation from smart-aleck prankster to World War II correspondent for Stars and Stripes, whose first-person wartime dispatches rivaled the reportage of Ernie Pyle, Edward R. Murrow, and Walter Cronkite. After narrowly avoiding death in the war, Rooney's early success as author and Hollywood screenwriter turned to years of rejection as a freelancer, with unfulfilled literary aspirations and financial struggles. Eventually, he found his niche as a gag writer with Arthur Godfrey, as an essayist for Harry Reasoner's CBS News specials and, in a stroke of luck, as writer and deliverer of the wildly popular 60 Minutes segment "A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney."

The book draws on interviews with Rooney and his family members, childhood friends, and 60 Minutes colleagues, as well as archival research and abundant quotations of Rooney's own words through unpublished writings, personal letters, and pieces beloved by his legion of fans. Along the way, Grondahl uncovers new truths about Rooney's long-term extramarital affair, the extent of his academic failure, and how his boorish behavior alienated him from close friends. This dark side of Rooney's personality, however, is balanced by examples of deep loyalty, acts of kindness, and encouragement of young journalists. Here is the extraordinary life story of a man who contained multitudes.

Paul Grondahl is Opalka Endowed Director of the New York State Writers Institute at the University at Albany, State University of New York. He is the author of Mayor Corning: Albany Icon, Albany Enigma and coeditor, with Suzanne Lance, of Bootlegger of the Soul: The Literary Legacy of William Kennedy, both published by SUNY Press, and I Rose Like a Rocket: The Political Education of Theodore Roosevelt. As a staff writer at the Albany Times Union from 1984 to 2017, he won numerous local, state, and national writing prizes. He lives in Guilderland, New York.