Minute by Minute

"Minute by Minute" is the fabulous story of "60 Minutes," on screen and behind the scenes, as only Don Hewitt, its creator and executive producer, can tell it. In "Minute by Minute," the most important and revealing book yet on TV and TV news, Hewitt brings the entire story to life. With characteristic candor and pungency, Hewitt puts us on the other side of the TV screen as correspondents pursue the news and conduct the interviews that make up his personal hall of fame - memorable performances by the leading lights of stage and screen and sports and politics, by con men and gunmen and just plain folks. Here’s how Harry and Dan, Ed and Diane, Mike and Morley made the show that told America "What Really Happened at the Gulf of Tonkin," exposed "The Other Face of the IRA," and helped get an innocent man named Lenell Geter out of jail in Texas. Here’s how a stellar cast and crew brought us the stars and the names in the news: Liz and Dick and LBJ, Woody Allen and the Shah of Iran, Betty Ford and Jesse Jackson, Katharine Hepburn, Sir Laurence Olivier, and half a hundred more.

YA The behind-the-scenes and on-screen story of 60 Minutes , told mostly in quotes by the creator and executive producer. Hewitt goes back 37 years to tell of the early days when he directed Douglas Edwards with the News in "living black-and-white," then later directed the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite . He later started and produced 60 Minutes. He has edited slightly the transcripts used from the show to help convey to readers the same impressions that were originally conveyed to viewers. Hewitt is a fascinating and amusing writer. Most of the interview segments are one-half page, a color still from the episode filling the other half of the page. Richard Burton, Laurence Olivier, the Duke of Windsor, Lyndon Johnson, Woody Allen, Lena Horne, Gore Vidal and Katherine Hepburn are just a few of the people interviewed. Worthwhile as a browsing item and a reference book. Mary Wadsworth Sucher, Baltimore County Reading Services
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Creator and executive producer of CBS's 60 Minutes, Hewitt here reveals that he conceived this popular program as an alternative to "boring" TV documentaries. In its 17 years, 60 Minutes has interviewed such diverse personalities as Woody Allen, Katharine Hepburn, Jesse Jackson, Richard Nixon, Eubie Blake, Jean-Pierre Rampal and the Shah of Iran. The program has caused much controversy and exercised influence, for example, in bringing about the release of Lenell Geter, falsely imprisoned, as it turned out, for armed robbery. Hewitt engagingly describes the adventures of staff members Harry Reasoner, Mike Wallace, Morley Safer, Dan Rather, Ed Bradley and Diane Sawyer in pursuit of stories, and relates amusing anecdotes about ongoing competition with NBC. Photos. 50,000 first printing; first serial to Cosmopolitan, USA Today and TV Guide; BOMC alternate. Foreign rights: ICM. November 29
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Hewitt, the man behind 60 Minutes , the first and still the highest-rated of the TV news magazines, has put together an informal chronology of the show, replete with photos and quotes of ``some of the more delicious moments'' that have occurred on camera over the past 17 years. He also peppers the text with anecdotes about his long career in broadcast journalism at CBS and many of the show's famous guests, such as Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Henry Kissinger, and Betty Ford. 60 Minutes has generated a spate of books recently, including Axel Madsen's 60 Minutes (LJ 10/1/84), Mike Wallace and Gary Paul Gates's Close Encounters ( LJ 9/1/84), and Don Kowet's A Matter of Honor ( LJ 7/84). Hewitt's entry is not as weighty as any of these, but it is more fun. The show's fans will love it; it should appeal to others interested in the media as well. BOMC alternate. Kenneth F. Kister, Tampa, Fla.
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.