Venerable broadcast journalist Lesley Stahl ascended to her best-known position -- that of correspondent for the institutional CBS news magazine 60 Minutes -- in early 1991. Stahl replaced Meredith Vieira, when the latter allegedly left the show in the midst of a dispute with the network. Dedicated TV news adherents will doubtless realize that Stahl's 60 Minutes tenure represented only the cap on an astounding career, and that she -- like her colleagues -- sustained a decades-long resumé of prestigious assignments prior to her arrival on the CBS Sunday-night telecasts.
Born December 16, 1941, in Swampscott, MA, Stahl attended and graduated from Wheaton College, and first made her mark reporting, for CBS, on the Watergate scandal of the early '70s. Additional key assignments for Stahl during that decade included coverage of the U.S.-Russian summit meetings and of each U.S. presidential election. In the late '70s, Stahl graduated from regular CBS news correspondent to the network's chief White House correspondent during the Carter presidency, the Reagan era, and part of the term of George H.W. Bush. During this time period, Stahl also served as chief commentator on Face the Nation. Stahl's memorable 60 Minutes pieces included reports on David Kessler's feud with tobacco manufacturers, a business profile of Google, and legendary interviews with Richard Clarke and Paul O'Neill of the George W. Bush administration.
Stahl made a humorous guest appearance alongside her colleagues on a 1993 episode of the situation comedy Murphy Brown. She carried her involvement in that program one step further than the rest, however, by also returning to host a best-of retrospective of clips at the end of the 1994-1995 season. Stahl is married to journalist and author Aaron Latham, best known to cinephiles for authoring the Esquire articles that inspired the enjoyable Urban Cowboy (1980) and the subpar Perfect (1985), and for penning the screenplay of the 1993 James Caan sports drama The Program.