Viewing page 113 of 123

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

Only once that I can remember did my father and I discuss the influence of his fame on his children. He and I were dining together in a small New York restaurant when a couple came over to the table requesting his autograph. Dad put down his knife and fork, swallowed and accepted the pieces of paper thrust toward him. He signed them, chatted a bit with the strangers and dismissed them with a handshake.
    "Has all this been very hard on you growing up?" my father asked me quietly after the couple had left. I assured him it hadn't.
    Growing up as the child of a celebrity provided both privileges and problems for me, but I felt justified telling my father that I had come through it okay. Many others born into similar situations have become drug users or teenage alcoholics, and there are those who never use their last names to avoid that awful question, "Are you any relation to...?" At one time or another, I have had some of these same problems, but to a lesser degree. I think I'm one of the lucky ones.
    It wasn't until I went out into the world to make my own life that it became important for me to sort out what it means to sort out what it means to be Walter Cronkite's daughter. Once I had put several thousand miles between myself and my family and spent several years in Los Angeles pursuing my own career as an actress, I began to put my father's fame and its impact on me in the proper perspective...
    I've gotten used to my father being omnipresent -- not only on television every night, but also on magazing cover in the supermarket, being imitated in comedy skits, mentioned in passing in novels -- but once in a while it still takes me by surprise.
    For example, one evening I was at my boyfriend's house. We were draped across the couch drinking wine and nuzzling each other, lighted only by the flickering blue haze from the TV set, when suddenly I heard the rumbling tones of my father's voice!
    But there have been times, too, when it has provided me with a sense of security to know that

[[image of man holding baby in bottom left corner]]

almost any evening I can turn on the television and see my father's friendly face, hear his deep, reassuring voice, feel that I have some kind of contact with those I love.
    When I was a child, Mom would line Nancy, Chip and me up in front of the TV every evening to wait for Dad to come on. Just about the time the pretaped newscast was over, we would hear his key in the front door and his special "Hello, I'm home" whistle, and we'd race down the stairs to greet him.
    After I left home, I stopped watching the news every night, but when I do, I watch him. Exclusively.
    I have always appreciated my father's devotion to the family. Even though he is often out of town on business, we see more of him when he is home than many families of men with less peripatetic jobs. He does not spend all weekend playing golf or go out drinking with the guys after work -- he comes home to be with us. In fact, one of the reasons he gave up race-car driving in favor of sailing was / turn to page 129

[[image of man and child on beach]]

Left: 1951, Kathy has not yet revealed her plans to become an actress, but her winning smile should have given her proud Dad a clue. Above: 1954, braving the Long Island surf together. Right: Kathy and Walker Cronkite on a recent family vacation.

[[image of women's hair]]