The Personal Side Of Ed Bradley

Friends Share Personal Memories Of Ed Bradley

(CBS)  Eventually Ed was able to do pretty much anything he wanted at 60 Minutes. When he needed peace and quiet, he disappeared to his home in Woody Creek, Colo., for some skiing, hiking or talking basketball and politics with friends like Hunter Thompson and Loren Jenkins, a reporter and good friend of Ed’s since their days together in Vietnam.

Asked what his favorite Ed story his, Jenkins says, "I think my favorite story was when Ed all of a sudden decided he wanted to be bald. We sat there all laughing and watching television. And Hunter got out his straight razor and shaved Ed's hair. And made him as bald as could be. And they both laughed and loved it. And I thought, 'My God, you know, he trust – he trust — trusting.' You know, to have a straight razor on anyone's head was dangerous."

Asked what kind of shape Hunter was in at the time of the shave, Jenkins says, "Well, Hunter was Hunter, I mean Hunter was never stone sober."

But that haircut wasn’t the only thing in Ed’s life that was about to change. He had met an attractive young woman in New York, an artist by the name of Patricia Blanchet, who he discovered conducting a museum tour. And according to Ron and Charlayne Hunter-Gault, who had known Ed since the 1960’s, he was immediately smitten.

"She had her hair up, very dignified outfit on. And he says, he says to me, 'Man, oh, man.' And he says, 'Look at that.' I say, 'what?' He says, 'Look man.' And I said, 'Come here.' He says, 'No, no, no … let's go get the tour,'" Ron Gault remembers. "And they became acquaintances and dated and that went on and on and on. And then they became Mr. and Mrs."

"He made it a project," Gault says.

"He's very focused," Charlayne Hunter-Gault. "But also, Ed had been alone a long time. And he had established his world around himself. His furniture, his art, his clothes, his closets, his soap, his kitchen, and he had his own, that was Edward's world. And suddenly he had to share that world with somebody who had her own ideas about what that world should be like. So that took a lot of negotiating."

The courtship lasted almost ten years before Ed finally convinced Patricia to marry him, in a lavish but very private ceremony in Woody Creek. She had nursed him through a difficult heart bypass surgery, but there were other health issues almost no one knew about. Ed had been diagnosed years earlier with a leukemia that for the most part had remained dormant. But it eventually came back with a vengeance.

Buffett thinks Ed knew how sick he was. "I’m just glad I got here, my wife called me and said – I was in Hawaii – and said, 'You need to get back here and see Ed.' And I'm glad I made it," he says.

After a year of ups and downs he made what would be his last appearance at Jazz Fest in May and the "60 Minute Man" ended with a flourish.

"But I think, you know, with Ed, he wouldn't be too much as far as crying over him, you know?" Marsalis says. "Me and him actually have talked about that. He loved that funeral. They play a little something sad. Give me a tambourine."