What Was Andy Rooney's Net Worth and Salary?
Andy Rooney was an American radio and television writer, producer, director, and author who had a net worth of $15 million at the time of his death in 2011. Andy Rooney was best known for his weekly segment "A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney," which aired on the CBS News program "60 Minutes" from 1978 to 2011. Andy began his career as a writer for the "Stars and Stripes" newspaper while he was in the U.S. Army. Rooney joined CBS in the late 1940s when he was hired to write for "Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts." He was a writer and producer on the 1968 docuseries "Of Black America" and the 1976 special "Mr. Rooney Goes to Dinner," and he also directed "Mr. Rooney Goes to Dinner" and the 1974 "CBS News Special Report" segment "In Praise of New York City." Andy wrote numerous books, including "A Few Minutes With Andy Rooney" (1981), "Word for Word" (1988), "Not That You Asked …" (1989), "My War" (1995), "Sincerely, Andy Rooney" (1999), "Out of My Mind" (2006), and "60 Years of Wisdom and Wit" (2009). Andy's final regular "60 Minutes" appearance aired in October 2011. He died a month later on November 4, 2011, at the age of 92.
60 Minutes Salary
In April 1987 Andy publicly complained about CBS' cost-cutting efforts which resulted in 215 people being laid off. Publicly complaining, Andy stated: "CBS News has been turned into primarily a business enterprise and the moral enterprise has been lost." He then refused to appear on an upcoming episode of "60 Minutes," to show solidarity with his striking and laid-off colleagues. As a result, CBS suspended Andy's pay, which was revealed to be $7,700 per week. That worked out to around $400,000 per year in 1987, which is the same as around $1.1 million in today's dollars. His salary was actually revealed in a statement made by Rooney's CBS producer Don Hewitt, who in reaction said:
"You don't move across the street to another CBS building that for a technical reason is not struck, and sit in an office and draw almost $8,000 a week for doing nothing while his fellow writers are out in picket lines in the cold and wind and rain and snow. 'I would respect Andy a lot more had he gone out there and walked out on the picket line, and if he'd turned those checks back."
Andy's salary at the end of his career before he retired in 2011, is not officially known, but was likely in the $1-2 million per year range.
Early Life
Andy Rooney was born Andrew Aitken Rooney on January 14, 1919, in Albany, New York. He was the son of Ellinor and Walter Rooney, and he had a sister named Nancy. Andy graduated from The Albany Academy in 1937, then he attended Colgate University, where he joined the Sigma Chi fraternity. In August 1941, Rooney was drafted into the U.S. Army during World War II, and the following year, he began writing for the military newspaper "Stars and Stripes" in London. Andy and five other correspondents flew with the Eighth Air Force on a February 1943 U.S. bombing raid over Germany. After the 9th Armored Division captured Germany's Ludendorff Bridge in March 1945, Andy was the first journalist to reach the bridge. Rooney was one of the first journalists from the U.S. to visit and write about Nazi concentration camps near the end of the war. Andy earned an Air Medal and a Bronze Star Medal for serving in combat zones as a war correspondent.
(Photo by Brownie Harris/Corbis via Getty Images)
Career
In 1949, Rooney began working as a writer on the CBS series "Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts," which reached #1 in the ratings during his time on the show. Andy later wrote for Godfrey's television and radio show "Arthur Godfrey Time." He then wrote for "The Garry Moore Show" on CBS and for CBS News. His first television essay was 1964's "An Essay on Doors," which the CBS News website called "a longer-length precursor of the type" he became known for on "60 Minutes." From 1962 to 1968, Rooney wrote and produced specials that were narrated by CBS News correspondent Harry Reasoner, such as "An Essay on Hotels" and "An Essay on Women." Andy wrote two 1968 episodes of the CBS News docuseries "Of Black America," and he won an Emmy for his script for the episode "Black History: Lost, Stolen, or Strayed." After the network refused to air Rooney's "An Essay on War" in 1970, he quit CBS and read the essay on PBS, making his first TV appearance and earning a Writers Guild Award. In 1973, he returned to CBS to write and produce specials. He wrote the script for the documentary "FDR: The Man Who Changed America" (1975) as well. Andy wrote and appeared in many CBS primetime specials, including 1975's "Mr. Rooney Goes to Washington," which won a Peabody Award.
In 1978, "A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney" (originally called "Three Minutes or So With Andy Rooney") began airing during "60 Minutes." In 1981, he published a book titled after the popular segment, which featured over 50 of his essays about "the current American political, economic, and social scene." In 1990, Andy was suspended for three months after he said in one of his essays that Black people "have watered down their genes because the less intelligent ones are the ones that have the most children." That year he was also suspended after stating that "too much alcohol, too much food, drugs, homosexual unions, cigarettes [are] all known to lead to premature death." In his 2003 book "Years of Minutes," Rooney wrote, "There was never a writer who didn't hope that in some small way he was doing good with the words he put down on paper, and while I know it's presumptuous, I've always had in my mind that I was doing some little bit of good. Now, I was to be known for having done, not good, but bad. I'd be known for the rest of my life as a racist bigot and as someone who had made life a little more difficult for homosexuals. I felt terrible about that and I've learned a lot."
Personal Life
Andy married Marguerite Howard on March 22, 1942, and they remained together until her death from heart failure in April 2004. The couple had four children, daughter Ellen, son Brian, and identical twins Emily and Martha. Emily grew up to be a talk show host and ABC news producer, and she hosted the WGBH public affairs program "Greater Boston." Martha became the chief of the National Library of Medicine's Public Services Division, and her son Justin has served as a producer at ABC News. Ellen worked for ABC News as a film editor before becoming a garden and travel photographer. Brian began working as a correspondent for ABC in the '80s. Andy lived in Rensselaerville, New York, and Norwalk, Connecticut, and he was a fan of the New York Giants.
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Death
On October 25, 2011, Andy was hospitalized in New York City due to complications that developed after a undergoing "minor surgery." He passed away at the age of 92 on November 4, 2011. CBS News chairman / "60 Minutes" executive producer Jeff Fager said of Rooney's death, "It's a sad day at '60 Minutes' and for everybody here at CBS News. It's hard to imagine not having Andy around. He loved his life and he lived it on his own terms. We will miss him very much." Rooney was laid to rest at Rensselaerville Cemetery in Albany County, New York.
Awards and Nominations
In 2003, Rooney received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the News & Documentary Emmy Awards, and in 2007, he earned a nomination for Outstanding Arts & Culture Programming for the "60 Minutes" episode "I'm Mike Wallace: A 60 Minutes Tribute." According to the CBS News website, he "won three Emmy Awards for his essays" as well as six Writers Guild Awards for Best Script of the Year. In 2001, the Freedom From Religion Foundation honored Andy with its Emperor Has No Clothes Award, which celebrates "'plain speaking' on the shortcomings of religion by public figures." In 2003, Rooney received the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism.
Real Estate
In 2012, Rooney's 2,474 square foot Connecticut home went on the market for $749,500. Andy and Marguerite bought the home in 1950. In 2015, Rooney's Manhattan apartment sold for $2.225 million.
