Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 24, 1994 TAG: 9408240028
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BY GAIL SHISTER KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
``I've just retired from CBS,'' the avuncular Sir Charles said recently in L.A. ``I expect people think I've died. The hardest thing is when I call somebody, I can't say, `This is Charles Kuralt from CBS News' anymore. I'm not with anybody. I've lost my status. I have to explain myself now.''
Charles Kuralt explain himself? Not to any American who's had a TV since the late '50s.
Kuralt, who turns 60 on Sept. 10, ended his distinguished 37-year career at CBS News May 1. About a month before that, he said goodbye to his beloved ``Sunday Morning'' after 15 years. Now he's back on the road for a year, alone, writing a book about his favorite American places.
Alaska in July. Maine in August. Montana in September. Vermont in October. New Mexico in November. Home to New York for December, ``for the lights and music and Christmas shopping.'' (Color him sentimental.)
Unlike most TV types, who experience withdrawal when the red light is off for 30 seconds, Kuralt says that life after television ``is quite satisfying. I expected to have some wistful, regretful moments. I haven't had any yet.
``I miss my old pals. I don't see anybody. But the purpose of this year is to be out there alone, wandering around. I like it. It's like old times. There's something quite liberating about going out with a notebook in your hip pocket and a camera on your shoulder and coming home at night and typing up your notes.''
Make no mistake. When Kuralt left CBS, he really left.
He turned down the offer of an office at CBS from network honcho Howard Stringer ``because I thought it would be unwise. I think if you're going to leave, you should leave.''
Instead, Kuralt is building an office uptown in a building not far from CBS News' headquarters. (``It just happened to be where I found an office,'' he says sheepishly.)
Having mulled over his impending retirement for so long, Kuralt says the real thing ``didn't take a day'' to sink in.
As for the tube, Kuralt is ``pretty confident'' he'll never return ``unless desperation sets in. I really like the idea of being a writer. The biggest change now is that I don't have a paycheck at the end of the week for the first time in 40 years.''
Get out your pencils, boys and girls. It's schedule-changing time at CBS.
Fran Drescher's hit ``The Nanny,'' now seen at 8 p.m. Wednesdays, will swap time slots with the new Hal Linden-Suzanne Pleshette sitcom, ``The Boys Are Back'' (8 p.m. Mondays). The fun begins Sept. 12.
And in the war of new hospital dramas, CBS will preview David E. Kelley's ``Chicago Hope'' Sept. 18 before moving it to its regular Thursday slot Sept. 22. NBC's ``E.R.,'' which will go scalpel-to-scalpel against ``Chicago'' at 10 p.m. Thursdays, will preview Sept. 19.
Washington's WETA-TV has begun production on ``Politics in America'' (working title), a multi-part series to air on PBS in 1996. ``Politics'' will be produced by the award-winning troika of Louis Alvarez, Andrew Kolker and Paul Stekler, who did episodes of PBS's ``Eyes on the Prize'' series.
by CNB