LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - While a distinguished combat journalist during World War II, Rooney was best known for his hilarious essays on mundane topics.

"It's a sad day at '60 Minutes' and for everybody here at CBS News," Jeff Fager, chairman of CBS News and the executive producer of "60 Minutes" says. "It's hard to imagine not having Andy around. He loved his life and he lived it on his own terms. We will miss him very much."

Rooney made his final weekly appearance on "60 Minutes" on October 2. Longtime "60 Minutes" correspondent Morley Safer told CNN that Rooney worked to the very end and that he would not have had it any other way.

"That's the way to go," Safer said. "The only thing better than three weeks would have been three minutes."

Rooney colleague Lesley Stahl called him "our poet laureate.

"He was the Oracle of West 57th Street, an everyman if everyman wrote like a dream," she said. "He was the most popular member of our team, loved by the audience, and far more loved by all of us than he knew."

Rooney began his journalism career in the Army and went on to spend nearly six decades at CBS, half behind the camera as a writer and producer and then as an on-air commentator in 1978 when he joined "60 Minutes."

Some classic witticisms offer by Rooney --On looking for work, he said: "We need people who can actually do things. We have too many bosses and too few workers. More college graduates ought to become plumbers or electricians, then go home at night and read Shakespeare."

On his trademarked bushy eyebrows: "I try to look nice. I comb my hair, I tie my tie, I put on a jacket, but I draw the line when it comes to trimming my eyebrows. You work with what you got."

However -- Rooney could be deeply critical on the subjects that mattered. On the "shock and awe" campaign that started the Iraq war in 2003: The phrase "makes us look like foolish braggarts."

Rooney's wife of 62 years, Marguerite, died in 2004. He is survived by his four children, as well as five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Funeral services will be private and a memorial service will be announced at a future date.

It's not uncommon for a beloved media figure to exit the world stage with the cessation of their work being brought before the public. Rooney's sudden departure calls to mind the demise of "Peanuts" cartoonist Charles M. Schulz, who announced his retirement from the strip due to Parkinson's disease. Schulz passed away in his sleep, the very day his farewell comic strip was published in February of 2000.

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