Don Hewitt, 86, dies from pancreatic cancer
Don Hewitt, 86, the CBS News executive who created “60 Minutes,” transformed television journalism by showing that news programs could generate money and helped make TV an essential part of politics when he produced and directed the first televised debate between U.S. presidential candidates, died Wednesday in Bridgehampton, N.Y., a CBS spokesman said. He had pancreatic cancer.
Mr. Hewitt, who spent his career at CBS News, also directed programs of such early TV news giants Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow. He led coverage of political conventions, royal weddings and coronations, papal installations and national days of mourning for assassinated leaders including Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
He was married three times. He and his first wife, Mary Weaver, divorced in 1962. His second marriage, to Frankie Childers, who organized the revival of Ford’s Theatre into a cultural institution, also ended in divorce. Since 1979, he had been married to Marilyn Berger, a former Post and network television reporter.
He is survived by Berger, along with two sons from his first marriage, two daughters from his second marriage and three grandchildren.
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