R.I.P.
Charles Kuralt’s secret life
The "On the Road" correspondent lived a dual existence for nearly three decades.
Charles Kuralt, CBS’s folksy “On the Road” correspondent, spent years exploring America’s out-of-the-way places in search of oddball stories. But the best story may have been the one he never told.
For 29 years, until his death in 1997, he apparently kept a mistress and maintained a second family. The celebrated journalist was, in effect, husband and father to them, as well as breadwinner, friend and hero.
While his wife remained at their home in the concrete canyons of New York City, he nurtured his secret life along a rushing trout stream in Montana.
None of this would come out, however, until after his death, when his mistress, Patricia Elizabeth Shannon, sued to get a Montana retreat he promised her. Montana’s Supreme Court ruled last month that the woman is entitled to a trial on her claim.
Kuralt was TV’s rumpled Everyman, a bald, pudgy figure renowned for his sonorous voice and eloquent commentary. He died at 62 of complications from lupus on July 4, 1997.
He met the woman he once said “enriched my life beyond all my dreams” the year after he started his “On the Road” travels. At 33, he already was acclaimed for ferreting out quirky vignettes of Americana. He was also six years into his second marriage, to Suzanna “Petie” Flosom Baird, and had two daughters, both from his first marriage.
Shannon was a divorced, 34-year-old social activist and mother of three. She declined to be interviewed, but court documents tell much of their story.
They met in 1968 in Reno, Nev., where Shannon was leading an effort to build a park in a black neighborhood. Tensions were high following the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. It was a natural Kuralt story.
He did his reporting job, then asked her to dinner, showing up with three dozen long-stemmed roses. They spent the night sitting and talking in the lounge of Reno’s Holiday Motel.
She knew he was married. But with the freedom his travels gave him, Kuralt called her frequently. He visited for two or three days every few weeks. He doted on her, sending gifts and money. He was there for family gatherings, football games, holidays and graduations.
Back in New York, Kuralt’s wife was aware her husband had a fishing place in Montana. But according to court files, she had no inkling of his second family. She has declined all interview requests.
Shannon estimated Kuralt sent $600,000 during the first decade, when their romance was the most intense and they saw each other often.
“Charles always said, his refrain through all of his life, ‘Don’t worry, we’re rich,’ he would say. … He was the breadwinner of the family,” Shannon recalled. “Charles took care of all my needs.”
He provided Shannon and her children with a succession of homes in San Francisco. He spent as much as $400,000 to help her start a small business that eventually failed and paid for her to study landscaping in London.
He paid for her son, J.R., to attend college in Arizona and put Shannon’s elder daughter, Kathleen Baker, through law school.
He bought Shannon a $50,000 cottage in Ireland and purchased 20 acres along the banks of the Big Hole River in Montana. They built a cabin there.
Kuralt bought an additional 90 acres abutting the land and moved an old schoolhouse to a bluff overlooking the river. He spent $180,000 to renovate the school into an office, where he planned to write after his retirement.
The few letters from Kuralt to Shannon that are in the court file contain little romance. However, a handwritten, undated Christmas poem comes close.
Titled “What I Will Give You (A Christmas IOU),” the verse promised: “A string of pearls, a suit and sweater, a Rubens print, a holly tree, and me. A mixing bowl, a sofa and chair, a set of china, a butcher’s knife. My life.”
Kuralt also inscribed Shannon’s copy of his 1995 book “Charles Kuralt’s America” this way: “To Pat, who enriched my life beyond all my dreams. Love, Charles.”
Kuralt sometimes signed notes to Kathleen and J.R. as “Pop.” In a 1995 letter to J.R., Kuralt enclosed money and wrote: “I love you like a son, even though I have been an often-distracted father.”
“Charles was basically a father to me,” Kathleen said at a court hearing. “He gave me some of my first driving lessons. He was there at all the holidays.”
As the relationship wore on, Shannon became increasingly frustrated with Kuralt’s unwillingness to leave his wife.
“I always thought he would get a divorce at some point,” she said in a deposition. “I went through bouts of despair and there were arguments, but we never directly talked about — about his life in New York. I knew it existed. … I did not inquire into it and he didn’t discuss it with me.”
The situation worsened after Kuralt’s “On the Road” assignment ended in 1980, when he became host of CBS’s “Sunday Morning.” With his schedule less flexible, he traveled less and spent more time in New York.
Still, they would usually rendezvous for three weeks each September. They backpacked the mountains. He loved to go fly-fishing in meandering creeks; she would sit on the banks nearby and read.
Three months before he died, Kuralt orchestrated a mock sale to hide the fact he was giving Shannon the original Montana property. He sent her $80,000; she used it to buy the 20 acres and the cabin they had built.
The court fight is over the other land and schoolhouse, valued at $600,000. Kuralt’s will, written in 1994, left the property to his wife.
Shannon contends his last letter to her, two weeks before his death, conveyed their Montana home to her. It read: “I’ll have the lawyer visit the hospital to be sure you inherit the rest of the place in MT, if it comes to that.”
The death of two pop powerhouses
Jerry Leiber and Nick Ashford helped define American music -- and created the sound of strength
Jerry Leiber and Nick Ashford. In a strangely poetic bit of coincidence, the world lost two songwriting legends Monday, men whose tunes defined modern pop and whose collaborations have become classics.
In his lengthy partnership with composer Mike Stoller, lyricist Jerry Leiber helped invent the burgeoning rock ‘n’ roll sound, penning the bluesy hits “Kansas City” and “Hound Dog.” The duo went on to write exuberant smashes like “Jailhouse Rock,” “Yakety Yak” and “Love Potion #9,” among others, amassing a catalog of hits that’s still one of the recording industry’s most successful. Yet Leiber’s sound was far from brash. You can hear his style all over the achingly lovely “Stand By Me,” which he and Stoller co-wrote with Ben E. King; in the melancholy and determined collaboration “On Broadway”; and in the great Peggy Lee anthem to disillusionment, “Is That All There Is?” He and Stoller were also prolific producers, the masterminds behind the sweeping sounds of hits as diverse as the Drifters’ “There Goes My Baby” and Stealers Wheel’s “Stuck in the Middle With You.”
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Mary Elizabeth Williams is a staff writer for Salon and the author of "Gimme Shelter: My Three Years Searching for the American Dream." Follow her on Twitter: @embeedub. More Mary Elizabeth Williams.
Winehouse family, friends attend singer’s funeral
Mark Ronson and Kelly Osbourne among mourners at the Jewish service held in London
FILE - In this Oct. 25, 2007 file photo, British singer Amy Winehouse performs during her concert at the Volkshaus in Zurich, Switzerland. Winehouse was found dead Saturday, July 23, 2011, by ambulance crews who were called to her home in north London's Camden area. She was 27. (AP Photo/Keystone, Steffen Schmidt, File)(Credit: AP) Friends and family said goodbye to Amy Winehouse Tuesday with prayers, tears, laughter and song at a funeral ceremony in London.
The singer’s father, mother and brother and close friends, along with band members and celebrities — including producer Mark Ronson and media personality Kelly Osbourne, her hair piled beehive-high in an echo of the singer’s trademark style — were among several hundred mourners attending the service at Edgwarebury Cemetery in north London.
Photographers and a few fans lined the lane outside.
Continue Reading CloseCreator of “Brady Bunch,” “Gilligan’s Island” dies
Sherwood Schwartz gave up a career in medical science to write for radio and TV
FILE - In this Dec. 9, 2008 file photo, Hall of Fame inductee Sherwood Schwartz, right, and actress Florence Henderson pose together at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences 2008 Hall of Fame Ceremony in Beverly Hills, Calif. Schwartz, who created "Gilligan's Island" and "The Brady Bunch" died Tuesday, July 12, 2011. He was 94. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles, file) (Credit: AP) Sherwood Schwartz, writer-creator of two of the best-remembered TV series of the 1960s and 1970s, “Gilligan’s Island” and “The Brady Bunch,” has died at age 94.
Great niece Robin Randall said Schwartz died at 4 a.m. Tuesday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where he was being treated for an intestinal infection and underwent several surgeries. His wife, Mildred, and children had been at his side.
Sherwood Schwartz and his brother, Al, started as a writing team in TV’s famed 1950s “golden age,” said Douglas Schwartz, the late Al Schwartz’s son.
Continue Reading CloseFormer first lady Betty Ford dies at 93
The former first lady and co-founder of the Betty Ford Center passed away of unspecified causes
A family friend says former first lady Betty Ford has died at age 93.
Marty Allen says Ford, whose battles with cancer and substance abuse inspired millions to seek treatment, died Friday. Allen did not say how Betty Ford died. He says he expects the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library to release additional information.
Her husband, Gerald, died in December 2006.
The couple married in 1948, the same year he was elected to Congress. She was thrust into the spotlight in 1974 when he became president after the resignation of President Richard Nixon.
She was diagnosed with breast cancer weeks later and won acclaim for her openness and courage.
Ford lost to Jimmy Carter in the 1976. Mrs. Ford later was treated for drug and alcohol addiction and then helped found the Betty Ford Center to help others.
Celebrated American painter Cy Twombly passes away
The groundbreaking artist was 83
Celebrated American painter Cy Twombly, whose large-scale paintings featuring scribbles, graffiti and unusual materials fetched millions at auction, has died. He was 83.
Gagosian Gallery spokeswoman Virginia Coleman said Twombly, who had cancer for a number of years, died Tuesday. Eric Mezil, director of the Lambert Collection in Avignon, France, where a Twombly show opened in June, said he died in Rome.
Twombly is known for his abstract works combining painting and drawing techniques, repetitive lines and the use of graffiti, letters and words.
In 2010, he painted a ceiling of the Louvre museum, the first artist given the honor since Georges Braque in the 1950s.
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