GERALDO RIVERA Biography - People in the News and Media

 
 

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GERALDO RIVERA

Name: Geraldo Rivera                                                                   
Born: 4 July 1943 Brooklyn, New York                                                   
                                                                                       
Gerald Michael Rivera (born July 4, 1943), known by his television name of             
Geraldo Rivera or simply Geraldo, is an American television journalist, attorney,       
and former talk show host. He is known to have an affinity for dramatic, high-profile   
stories, and issues that are divisive in nature. Rivera hosts the newsmagazine         
program Geraldo at Large, and appears regularly on Fox News Channel.                   
                                                                                       
Rivera was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Lillian (nee Friedman), a             
waitress, and Cruz "Allen" Rivera, a restaurant worker and cab driver.                 
Rivera's father was Puerto Rican and his mother was Jewish, and he was raised "mostly   
Jewish" and had a Bar Mitzvah. He grew up in Brooklyn and West Babylon,                 
New York. He is an alumnus of University of Arizona, where he played varsity           
lacrosse as goalie. From September 1961 to May 1963 he attended the State               
University of New York Maritime College, where he was a member of the rowing           
team. He received his J.D. from Brooklyn Law School in 1969, did                       
postgraduate work at the University of Pennsylvania that same year, and                 
briefly attended the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism during           
the summer of 1970. After a brief career in Law Enforcement where he served the         
NYPD as an investigator, he returned to law and became a lawyer for a New York         
Puerto Rican activist group, the Young Lords and attracted the attention of a           
news producer when he was interviewed about the group's occupation of a Spanish         
Harlem church in 1969. He is a member of Tau Delta Phi fraternity.