Bill Geist Biography

Early Life And Education of Bill Geist

Bill Geist was born William Everett Geist in Champaign, a city of Champaign County, Illinois, the United States on May 10, 1945. For schooling, he attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

He graduated with a degree in Bachelor of Arts in Communication in 1968. While attending the University of Missouri, he chose Communications as his major and graduated with a Master degree in 1971.

Bill Geist's Career

Geist is professionally a reporter and a columnist who firstly worked at the Chicago Tribune's Suburban Trib subsidiary in 1972 and left the job after 10 years in 1980.

Then he worked as a columnist for the New York Times from 1989 to 1987. There he used to write columns. After that, he joined CBS News Channel and worked as a contributor for CBS Evening News, CBS Sports and 60 Minutes ll. He appeared on CBS Sunday Morning regularly where he talked about American pop culture and current events.

For his time and energy in the journalism field, he won an Emmy Award in the year 1992 and 2005. He also received a star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6850 Hollywood Boulevard on April 15, 2011. Geist appeared as the commencement speaker in 2005 at the University of Illinois.  

Geist worked as a combat photographer with the First Infantry Division of the United States Army in Vietnam where he was awarded a Bronze Star.

Author

Geist was keen in writing since the beginning and managed to write several best selling books. His first book was published in 1985 titled Toward a Safe & Sane Halloween & Other Tales of Suburbia.     

Then in the following years, he published several books like The Zucchini Plague and Other Tales of Suburbia, Little League Confidential: One Coach's Completely Unauthorized Tale of Survival and so on.

In 2007, he published his book called Way Off the Road: Discovering the Peculiar Charms of Small Town America.

Bill Geist's Net Worth

Bill Geist's net worth is not made public, however, we can assume he must have earned a lot of wealth from his lifelong career as a contributor and writer. 

His son Willie Geist who is associated with MSNBC and NBC is estimated to have a net worth of $6 million. He earns a salary of $2.5 million annually.   

Bill Geist's Personal Life

Bill Geist is married to Jody Lewis. The couple tied the knot on June 1, 1970, and as of 2018 the beautiful pair resides in New York City and they are proud parents of two children Willie Geist and Libby Geist Wildes. Willie who was born on May 3, 1975, is a television personality on the networks MSNBC and NBC.

While their daughter Libby born on February 16, 1979, is a documentary film producer at ESPN. His son Willie is married to Christine Geist and they have two children, George Geist and Lucie Joy Geist. While his daughter married Kevin Wildes.

Geist has been suffering from the Parkinson's disease, an illness which occurs due to a long-term degenerative disorder of the Central nervous system. The disease is said to mainly affect the motor system and the victim generally is slow in movement even has difficulty in walking.

He announced his illness on CBS Sunday Morning show on July 1, 2012. Geist talked about suffering from the disease for very long but didn't tell anyone since he didn't want to worry anyone.