sorry for the long post, but you have to register to read, so thought I'd just put it all here. From the Aspen Daily News:
Aspen remembers its '60 Minutes' man
Troy Hooper - Aspen Daily News Staff Writer
Thu 11/09/2006 09:00PM MST
Someone will be missing when ski instructor Tommy Waltner rides the gondola up Aspen Mountain this Thanksgiving: CBS news icon Ed Bradley.
While the rest of the nation remembers the award-winning television journalist as the smooth, black anchor on "60 Minutes" who beamed into their living rooms for more than a quarter century, his closest friends in Colorado are summoning up images of a down-to-earth individual who loved to hike and ski.
"New York was his work place and Aspen was his play place," said Waltner, who called Bradley his client and comrade for 26 years.
"We used to ski 30 to 40 days a season together. To be perfectly honest, Ed was my career. He and I used to joke about it. He was my lifeline. Ed was much more than a client. He was like my best friend. It won't be the same skiing Aspen Mountain without Ed Bradley up there. He was a fixture on that mountain for so long."
Until his death on Thursday, it wasn't public knowledge that Bradley had been suffering from lymphocytic leukemia. But his confidants in Aspen knew.
"He told me he had leukemia several years ago," said Pitkin County Sheriff Bob Braudis, who received a phone call from a Bradley relative at 4 a.m. Thursday informing him that his longtime friend was clinging to life.
"He was fighting it. He never gave up," the sheriff said.
Bradley, who hours later died at the age of 65, purchased a house on the river in laid-back Woody Creek, just a short drive from Aspen, after writer Hunter S. Thompson introduced him to the area in the late 1970s. Bradley, who befriended the gonzo journalist while reporting in Vietnam, was a regular attendee at Thompson's house on Monday nights to talk and watch football games.
"He was part of the tribe here," Aspen attorney Gerry Goldstein said. "Ed was part of the old school in our community. He was righteous intellectually, he was righteous socially and he was a cornucopia of information. His lifestyle wasn't about wealth or a bunch of elitist glitterati. He was a real person who loved this community and that's what continued to bring him back here."
"The world is a sadder place with Ed gone," said firefighter Rick Balentine, one of Bradley's closest friends. The two spoke on the phone earlier this week. "He had more character than anyone I know. We lost a good man."
Woody Creek was the site of Bradley's wedding to artist Patricia Blanchet in 2004, for which his friend Jimmy Buffett sang and performed. His bachelor party was held at the Caribou Club where he and Thompson showed a short film they made of a road trip they took over Independence Pass en route to Denver.
"Ed kicks ass. He is cool," Thompson wrote in his ESPN.com column in 2002.
Down at the Woody Creek Tavern on Thursday, where Bradley and Thompson enjoyed drinks and meals, often after hours, the regulars at the bar were shaken by the news. They remarked on Bradley's modesty and how he fit in communally as "just one of the guys." The waitress recalled how Bradley would roll up in his Porsche and pick up a copy of The New York Times next door at the Woody Creek Store.
"If you wanted to talk to him about something you saw on '60 Minutes,' he let you have your say. He didn't force anything on you," neighbor Gaylord Guenin said. "He was a professional journalist who really knew how to ask questions."
Other friends joked about Bradley's alter ego, "Teddy Badly," which he assumed after a few drinks. The somber newsman, they stressed, was also fun-loving. He began sporting his earring, which came at Liza Minelli's urging, while hanging out with Thompson and his pals well before he ever wore it on air.
"He was a different guy off duty," the sheriff said. "He didn't have that star or celebrity aura about him. He just wanted to be one of us and he was."
More than anything, Bradley's work as a journalist will be his legacy.
From Bob Dylan to Timothy McVeigh, he interviewed some of the biggest names in virtually every corner of the world. In Colorado, Bradley's story on the Columbine killings for "60 Minutes II" raised questions about law enforcement response to the shootings and a lawsuit involving CBS knocked loose a draft affidavit for a search warrant for the home of Columbine shooter Eric Harris in the year before his rampage, according to Rocky Mountain News reporter Jeff Kass. His most recent segments zeroed in on the rape allegations involving Duke University lacrosse players and the probe of an oil refinery explosion in Texas.
Neighbor and friend Michael Cleverly said Bradley's death was an "absolute surprise" because Bradley looked healthier than he had after having coronary bypass surgery in 2003, after which he appeared thin and pale for almost a year.
"Every time I saw him he looked better and better," Cleverly said.
Bradley's warm eyes and contagious smile seemed even more pronounced when Waltner had him back on skis last winter. They skied 16 times after taking a couple of winters off after the heart surgery. Aspen was Bradley's getaway.
"He looked at me and said, 'If I can't do this the way I like to do it and if I'm not having fun, I might as well stop skiing and sell my house.' Eventually his confidence started coming back and he was skiing really well again," Waltner said. "I spoke to him a couple of weeks ago, and he was looking forward to coming out for Thanksgiving to go skiing. This is a shock. He will not only be missed in this valley, Ed Bradley will be missed by the world."
hoop@aspendailynews.com
