From 1978 until last month, Andy Rooney, who has died aged 92, regularly occupied the last minutes of the CBS Sunday evening show 60 Minutes. Wry, often tart, sometimes combative and always beguiling, he presented a miniature essay on a topic of his choice. The programme's phenomenal audience figures in the US and around the world made him one of the best known news commentators, even though his segment was only – to borrow its name – A Few Minutes With Andy Rooney.
Staring out from under a wiry thicket of eyebrows, he would rummage in his desk drawer and comment caustically on its contents, compare the shrinking quantities of coffee tins, ruminate on the existence of God – he was an agnostic – or mock the absurdities of the politically correct. His liberal tendencies brought enmity from the right, but his stalwart, old-fashioned values sometimes irked those who called themselves "progressives". Rooney thought that was about right.
A few minutes once a week hardly made him a television celebrity and that suited Rooney. He did not hobnob and would not sign autographs, except on his books, of which he produced more than a dozen. He also wrote for more than 200 newspapers.
Rooney was born in Albany, New York, and grew up in a middle-class family. He attended Colgate University in New York until he was drafted into the US army in 1941. As a reporter for Stars and Stripes, he was based in London and, with a handful of other American journalists, interviewed returning US bomber crews. The group of reporters requested – and were granted permission – to take to the air themselves, and on his first flight over Germany in February 1943, Rooney's bomber was hit and damaged. His story about the incident ended with a quote from the pilot about the "quiet trip". Rooney wryly wrote: "I don't want to go on a noisy one." His memorable book My War, published in 1995, recalled this period.
After a Hollywood stint writing the script for a never-made film based on one of his other war books, he freelanced as a writer until 1949, when he confronted, in the CBS lift, Arthur Godfrey, the biggest radio star of the day. Rooney told him he needed better writing and Godfrey, intrigued, took him on for a show, Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts, which moved to television and became a hit. Over the next decade, Rooney wrote for the pianist-humorist Victor Borge, the comedians Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding, and the crooner Perry Como. He simultaneously contributed to current affairs broadcasts and the big magazines of the day.
He wrote his first television essay in 1964 – on the subject of doors. Its success convinced CBS that he could make anything interesting. With the correspondent Harry Reasoner narrating, and Rooney writing and producing, the pair created praised essays on subjects such as bridges, hotels and chairs, ending with The Strange Case of the English Language, in 1968. That year Rooney wrote the Emmy-winning documentary Black History: Lost, Stolen or Strayed.
When CBS refused to air his essay on the Vietnam war, he left the network and presented it on the Public Broadcasting Service instead, appearing on screen for the first time. He returned to CBS in 1973. He wrote, produced and narrated a series on aspects of American life, including Mr Rooney Goes to Washington (1975), Mr Rooney Goes to Dinner (1976) and Mr Rooney Goes to Work (1977). He presented his first regular slot on 60 Minutes in 1978. His unexpected but painfully honest opinions often got him into trouble, and he was briefly suspended by CBS in 1990 for an alleged racist remark in a magazine interview, which he denied.
Rooney was never afraid to attack his bosses. When the Writers Guild of America took strike action against CBS in 1987, Rooney – who was not a union member – embraced solidarity and delivered no commentaries until a settlement. He blamed CBS's troubles on the chairman Laurence Tisch's cutbacks, publicly daring Tisch to fire him. Rooney stayed on. In 2004, he enraged the religious right by saying that God had spoken to him about Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ, and that the Almighty had declared Gibson "a real nut case".
Rooney's wife of 62 years, Marguerite, died in 2004. He is survived by his children, Ellen, Martha, Emily and Brian.