When Wallace prefaced a question with "Forgive me for asking ..." or responded to a dubious answer with "Oh, come on," "60 Minutes" viewers knew he was about to get tough. His sometimes-abrasive manner resulted in the nickname "Mike Malice," and some viewers will always remember him as the man who made diva Barbra Streisand cry on camera. In a 2006 retrospective of his "60 Minutes" career, Wallace summed up his interviewing technique as: "Let's ask the questions that might be on the minds of the people looking in ... 'If I were there in that chair where Wallace is, here's what I would want to know.' Myron Leon Wallace was born in Brookline, Mass., on May 9, 1918. He began calling himself Mike because he thought it was more manly than Myron. After graduating from the University of Michigan in 1939, he worked as a radio newswriter in Chicago and also on radio quiz shows, talk shows, a soap opera and serials like "The Green Hornet." He also acted on television and Broadway before joining CBS's radio department. In 1955 Wallace found his calling with a television show called "Nightbeat," which featured Wallace asking pointed questions of writers, gangsters, artists and movie stars in front of a stark black backdrop. "We were doing the kind of show that had never been done before," Wallace said. Nasty questions, abrasive questions, confrontational questions. He returned to CBS in the early 1960s and was onboard "60 Minutes" for its September 24, 1968, debut. The show broke new ground in broadcast journalism with its surprise interviews, undercover reporters, hidden cameras and one-way mirrors. One report for CBS sent Wallace into a personal tailspin. He worked on a 1982 CBS documentary that claimed the U.S. military conspired to misstate the strength of the enemy during the Vietnam War, which led to a $120 million libel suit from Gen. William Westmoreland. The suit was dropped during the trial, CBS apologized and no money changed hands, but Wallace was traumatized by the accusations, which contributed to his depression. Wallace's depression grew so severe he tried to kill himself with a drug overdose in 1984. He was saved by his wife, Mary. Wallace often spoke about his recovery from depression and said the years after his suicide attempt were some of the most productive of his life. A special "60 Minutes" program dedicated to Wallace will be aired April 15. Wallace, who was married four times, had a daughter, Pauline, and son, Chris, also a television journalist. Another son, Peter, died in a mountain-climbing accident in 1962.