Charlie Rose

From the beginning of his career, the inimitable, Emmy Award-winning broadcast journalist Charlie Rose cultivated and sustained a reputation as one of America's foremost intellectually oriented talk show interviewers. The Henderson, NC, native received his formal education at Duke University, with an AB in history and a JD from the School of Law. His eponymous talk series debuted on PBS in 1992; it employed a unique (and now famous) style and venue that found him perched in a chair to one side of a round wooden table; celebrity guests (who spanned the fields of arts, entertainment, sports, politics, and current events per se) sat across from him, one at a time, and responded to an array of incisive, cerebral questions about their lives, careers, worldviews, and hopes for the future. In terms of interviewing style, Rose utilized an approach commonly termed "disarming" for its directness and lack of pretense and manipulation, but it was nevertheless softened by a southern warmth and graciousness that set him apart from the pack, which gave him a broad following. In addition to the program, Rose launched a documentary series called Great Masters that examined the lives and works of various artists. Though Rose strictly limited his cinematic activity, he turned up as himself in Isabel Coixet's 2008 psychological drama Elegy. - Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide