Charlie Rose’s eponymous show, "Charlie Rose," was a nightly one-hour program that premiered in 1991 and ran until 2017, earning many of the industry's top honors along the way. Part of the secret sauce for the show was the minimal set design, which consisted of a round oak table and signature black backdrop. Next came Rose's seemingly endless intellectual curiosity, which he leveraged to foster rare in-depth conversation from guests that included international statesmen, Nobel laureates, tech multi-billionaires, award-winning entertainers, artists, athletes, newsmakers, and thought leaders representing every key industry around the globe.
Rose, who grew up in rural North Carolina, eventually found his way to Wall Street. A lawyer by training, he was working at New York-headquartered Bankers Trust when he landed a job as a weekend reporter for the television station WPIX-TV in 1972. Two years later, his big break came when pioneering journalist Bill Moyers hired him as managing editor for the PBS series "Bill Moyers' International Report," which quickly led to Rose appearing on camera. During his long and storied career, he has been the recipient of an Emmy Award, a Peabody Prize, a Walter Cronkite Award, and was recognized as one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World for 2014.
After graduating from high school as a basketball star, Rose entered Duke University in 1961. As a Blue Devil, he was a member of the Kappa Alpha Order fraternity and his extracurriculars included trying to prepare low-income children for higher educational opportunities in the Head Start program. Academically, Rose was pursuing a pre-med track until he took a summer internship in the office of Senator B. Everett Jordan. According to Rose, the fateful experience turned him into a "political junkie," and upon returning to college, he promptly changed majors. After receiving a Bachelor of Arts in History, in 1964, Rose entered the Duke University School of Law and graduated in 1968.
As one of Duke Law's most high-profile graduates, Rose has remained on the university's radar ever since he graduated. In 2011, having achieved so much professional success, Rose decided to give back to his alma mater with a significant financial donation to the establishment of the Robinson O. Everett Professorship at Duke Law School. A few years later, he returned to campus to speak to the 2016 graduating class of Duke Law. Taking the stage, the famed interviewer shared insights he gleaned from his legal education, which he claimed continued to pay dividends in his career as a broadcaster. "It is not about conflicts or contracts, constitutional law or criminal law. What I have learned is how to think,” Rose told the graduates. "This is what Duke Law School taught me: how to think, how to argue, how to analyze, and how to listen. Most importantly, how to ask questions after I listen."