Chris Wallace? which airs on CNN and HBO Max. Early life and education Wallace was born in Chicago, Illinois, to longtime CBS 60 Minutes reporter Mike Wallace and Norma Kaphan. Wallace is Jewish; both his parents were Jewish. He was named Christopher because he was born on Columbus Day. He has an elder brother, Peter (1942-1962), who died at the age of 19 after a mountain climbing accident. His parents divorced when he was one year old; he grew up with his mother and stepfather Bill Leonard, President of CBS News. Leonard gave him early exposure to political journalism, hiring him as an assistant to Walter Cronkite at the 1964 Republican National Convention. Wallace did not develop a relationship with his father Mike until the age of 14. Wallace attended the Hotchkiss School and Harvard College. He first reported news on-air for WHRB, the student radio station at Harvard. He memorably covered the 1969 student occupation of University Hall and was detained by Cambridge policemen, using his one phone call to sign off a report from Cambridge City Jail with "This is Chris Wallace from WHRB News reporting from Middlesex County Jail in custody." Career Early career: The Boston Globe Although accepted at Yale Law School, he decided to work for The Boston Globe where he was described by his boss as an "aggressive and ambitious reporter". He first covered City Hall, during the time Kevin White was mayor of Boston and later became a roving national reporter. Wallace soon focused his attention towards broadcast television news as an assistant to Walter Cronkite at the 1964 Republican National Convention. Wallace noticed the power of television when he saw all the reporters at the 1972 political conventions were watching the proceedings on televisions instead of in person. For a time in the early 1970s, he worked for the Chicago station WBBM-TV, which was owned and operated by CBS. 1975–1988: NBC News Nightly News, Meet the Press Wallace began his network journalism career with NBC in 1975, where he stayed for 14 years, as a reporter with WNBC-TV in New York City. Wallace then transferred to NBC's Washington bureau as a political correspondent for NBC News and later served as Washington co-anchor and news reader for the Today show with Bryant Gumbel and Jane Pauley in 1982. That same year, he also served as chief White House correspondent (1982–1989), anchor of the