US television legend Andy Rooney, 92

Andy Rooney. AFP

WASHINGTON – Andy Rooney, a US television legend famed for his weekly rants on “60 Minutes,” who retired just a month ago, died following complications after minor surgery, his former employer said Saturday. He was 92.

CBS News said Rooney passed away late Friday at a hospital in New York City.

“Words cannot adequately express Andy’s contribution to the world of journalism and the impact he made – as a colleague and friend – upon everyone at CBS,” Leslie Moonves, president and CEO of CBS Corporation, said in tribute.

“His wry wit, his unique ability to capture the essence of any issue, and his larger-than-life personality made him an icon, not only within the industry but among readers and viewers around the globe.”

Four-time Emmy winner Rooney targeted everything from politics to pennies in curmudgeonly three-minute essays that concluded every edition of “60 Minutes,” the longest running news magazine on US television.

His 1,097th and final essay aired on October 2.

“I wish I could do this forever,” he said. “I can’t, though. But I’m not retiring. Writers don’t retire and I’ll always be a writer.”

A fixture of US television since the 1950s, Rooney has delighted and annoyed in equal measure, using the final minutes of each “60 Minutes” program to vent on everything from politics to pennies.

Couching his typically 300-word musings in the first-person – “What I just don’t understand is,” he would often say – Rooney aimed his opinions at everyday Americans.

“I consider myself to be an absolute dead-center average American,” he said in one recent essay in which he acknowledged his ignorance about the pop singer Lady Gaga, who is 67 years his junior.

His very first essay on “60 Minutes” challenged a national media obsession with July 4 highway fatalities, arguing that statistically, the Independence Day holiday was a relatively safe one.

Later essays tackled such unlikely subjects as cereal boxes, coffee cans, mixed nuts and one-cent coins: “The US Mint ought to stop making pennies… You can’t buy anything with a penny, and they’re a pain in the pocket.”

A native of Albany, the state capital of New York, Rooney embraced journalism while serving in Europe with the US army in World War II, covering the first American air raid over Nazi Germany and the liberation of Buchenwald.

He joined CBS in 1949 as a writer, first for game-show hosts such as Arthur Godfrey, and then for its pioneering television news division where, in 1968, he joined “60 Minutes” as a founding staff member.

His passion for bringing the essay – a fixture of American literature – to the small screen began in 1964 when CBS broadcast his musings on doors. He soon went on to reflect on bridges, hotels, women and chairs.

While three of his Emmys were for essays, his first was for the script of a CBS special in 1968 on African-American history, at a moment when race relations in the United States were at breaking point.

“There’s nobody like Andy and there never will be. He’ll hate hearing this, but he’s an American original,” said CBS News chairman and “60 Minutes” executive producer Jeff Fager in September ahead of his final appearance.