Louis Rukeyser was America's most popular economic commentator--and much more: its best-loved and most-respected adviser on the entire political-economic-financial scene. His exciting new TV program, Louis Rukeyser's Wall Street (8:30 P.M., 11:30 P.M. and 4:30 A.M. Eastern time every Friday night on CNBC, and then rebroadcast on 175 public-television stations over the weekend) is an unprecedented bridging of cable and public television--and follows directly in the tradition of the smash-hit PBS program he hosted for 32 years, drawing millions more viewers every week than any other financial program in history. Louis Rukeyser's Wall Street, the world's new favorite money program, quickly became by far the most-watched program on CNBC, and adds hundreds of thousands of additional viewers in the rebroadcasts on public television. His two monthly newsletters have by far the biggest circulation in their field. And his annual investment conferences and cruises attract, by a wide margin, the largest crowds in the history of such "live" events. The New York Times calls him "legendary," the San Francisco Examiner says he has consistently been "one of the most accurate economic forecasters in the country," and the Washington Post gives him the ultimate accolade: "everyone's favorite economic commentator."

Louis Rukeyser brings to his role as America's top financial expert more than four decades of globe-ranging experience as an award-winning television, radio and newspaper correspondent. His remarkable career has straddled three distinct areas of the news--political analysis, foreign correspondence and economic interpretation--and he has won unusual honors in all three. Mr. Rukeyser's ability to clarify passing events in a lively and insightful fashion, calling on all these areas of expertise, has made him an internationally celebrated broadcaster, lecturer, editor and author. His flagship monthly newsletter, also called Louis Rukeyser's Wall Street, was launched in 1992 and has by far the largest circulation in the field. It was joined in 1994 by a companion publication, Louis Rukeyser's Mutual Funds, which quickly became the best-selling mutual-fund newsletter, further expanding his impact as the country's most trusted economic and financial adviser. (Noting that the newsletters consistently offer "sound advice, without condescension or fluff," Worth magazine reported that its readers had overwhelmingly voted them the "best" and "most helpful" in the business.)

Long known for his ability to combine wit with wisdom, Louis Rukeyser has gained both the allegiance of viewers and the admiration of critics. As TV Guide put it in an article terming his previous TV show, Wall $treet Week With Louis Rukeyser, one of the best programs of any kind on American television, "Louis Rukeyser's opening remarks on the week's business events are crafted gems of wry commentary; his airy and adroit handling of his big-shot guests is a pleasure to watch." The New Yorker's John Brooks lauded him both for his unique professional competence and for "a knack for providing entertainment unrivaled by any other television commentator on economic matters, past or present." And New York Daily News columnist Kay Gardella wrote of him: "Rukeyser, a warm, caring man with lots of charm and a direct, confident style, has popularized a subject once considered too dull to print, let alone broadcast. He gives you just enough, gets to the heart of the matter quickly and keeps your interest at a peak. He's a broadcasting dynamo and has become the economic guru of the industry."

As the host of Wall $treet Week With Louis Rukeyser, a post he held from the debut of that nationally acclaimed public-TV show in 1970 until it went off the air in 2002, Mr. Rukeyser each week drew the largest audience in the history of financial journalism--and delighted millions of television viewers looking for economic and financial information delivered in a clear, believable and appealing style. Now he is bringing that same incomparable blend of entertainment, experience, information and insight to his new CNBC program, Louis Rukeyser's Wall Street. "He brings to the tube a blend of warmth, wit, irreverence, thrusting intellect and large doses of charm, plus the credibility of a Walter Cronkite," marveled Money magazine in a cover story. Brill's Content observed that Mr. Rukeyser and his programs "consistently trounce their flashier competitors" with an unbeatable combination of "entertaining banter and clear analysis" that "manages to make the dismal science seem less so." (In a lighter vein, People magazine termed him "the dismal science's only sex symbol"--and Modern Maturity magazine listed him as one of the world's "50 Sexiest People Over 50.")

Mr. Rukeyser has written best-selling books on both economics and investing. His classic, What's Ahead for the Economy: The Challenge and the Chance (published by Simon & Schuster, with a revised and updated paperback edition from Touchstone Books), quickly became a top nationwide best-seller and was a selection of the Literary Guild. It has been acclaimed as "the best book on economics"; Nobel laureate Milton Friedman hailed it as "exciting and important"; and former Treasury Secretary William E. Simon said it "tells where the economy is really going, and what you can do about it." Mr. Rukeyser's earlier Doubleday book, How to Make Money in Wall Street, has long been a classic in the field--twice a selection of the Literary Guild and a best-seller in both hardback and paperback. Before he ended it in 1993 to devote more time to his newsletters, his widely respected and influential syndicated column of economic commentary, distributed weekly by Tribune Media Services, appeared in hundreds of newspapers coast to coast for 17 years. And he has for decades been one of the world's most eagerly sought-after headline speakers, honored by Toastmasters International as one of the five Outstanding Speakers of 1998 and named by California's prestigious Celebrity Forum as "The Greatest Speaker of Them All."

In 1987 Louis Rukeyser was selected as "Free Enterprise Man of the Year" by the Center for Research and Education in Free Enterprise at Texas A&M University; dignitaries saluting him included President Reagan, who said: "Louis Rukeyser deserves high honors for his devotion to free enterprise, his ability to distill complex business issues and trends, and his skill in passing along his insights to an eager and affectionate audience of Americans." Two years later, hailing Mr. Rukeyser's unique expertise and credibility, economist John Kenneth Galbraith commented that there was still "only one TV program on business and economics [that] is worth watching."

Louis Rukeyser has collected hatfuls of major awards throughout his career. After graduating in 1954 from Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, where he specialized in Public Aspects of Business, Mr. Rukeyser spent eleven distinguished years as a political and foreign correspondent for the Baltimore Sun papers. His positions included Chief Political Correspondent for the Evening Sun, Chief of the Sun's London Bureau and Chief Asian Correspondent for the Sun. His keen ability to call the turn on developing events in Vietnam and throughout Asia won for him two top Overseas Press Club prizes for news interpretation. Mr. Rukeyser's next stop was ABC News, where he again won a pile of awards during eight years as a senior correspondent and commentator. He joined the network as Paris correspondent, shortly afterward was named Chief of the London Bureau and in 1968 returned to New York to begin five pioneering years as television's first national economic commentator--the job he invented, and still fills with such unmatched skills. In addition to serving as Economic Editor, Mr. Rukeyser conducted a regular series of ABC television and radio commentaries that brought his unique experience and talents to bear on the full range of world and national affairs; among the many recognitions of his special knack for humanizing complex events was the George Washington Honor Medal of the Freedoms Foundation (presented to his popular radio commentary program, "Rukeyser's World," which he ended when he left ABC in 1973) for "an outstanding accomplishment in helping to achieve a better understanding of America and Americans." Mr. Rukeyser won a second Freedoms Foundation award in 1978 for his newspaper column, begun just two years earlier. In 1980 the New York Financial Writers Association honored his "significant long-term contribution to the advancement of financial journalism." And in 2000 he received the Financial Planning Association of New York's Malcolm S. Forbes Award for Excellence in Advancing Financial Understanding.

Louis Rukeyser's current independent position as the nation's foremost economic commentator enables him to employ on a broad canvas not just his no-punches-pulled expertise, but also what Variety has called "his unusual virtuosity at the typewriter" and "his inimitable and always delightful style." His innumerable awards over the years for his television programs include the G. M. Loeb Award, the most prestigious in financial journalism; it was the first Loeb Award ever given to a broadcaster. He has received nine honorary doctorates for his trailblazing work as the nation's No. 1 economic educator: from Johns Hopkins University, American University, Loyola College, Western Maryland College, Mercy College, Moravian College, Southeastern Massachusetts University, New Hampshire College and Roger Williams University. Typical was the citation of Moravian College, which praised his "singular contribution to the economic education of the American public." (In 1990 he became the first man to receive the Women's Economic Round Table award "for outstanding service in educating the public about business, financial and economic policy.")

But not all Louis Rukeyser's awards have been on the serious side: The Fashion Foundation of America has named him both the best-dressed man in finance and the most sartorially elegant host in America. And Playboy magazine, acclaiming him in its own best-dressed list, said he was a "rakish raconteur" and a "personal-style knockout."

Mr. Rukeyser lived iat his Round Hill estate in Greenwich, Connecticut until his death from bone marrow cancer on May 2nd, 2006 at the age of 73. He and his wife Gloria had three daughters and two grandchildren.