Rocca Solid

CBS’s multitalented (and hilarious) Mo Rocca celebrates the lives of the dead in his new book, Mobituaries.

- Yolanda Crous

AS IF MO ROCCA DIDN’T HAVE ENOUGH to do between his jobs as a correspondent for CBS Sunday Morning and host of CBS’s Henry Ford’s Innovation Nation and the Cooking Channel’s My Grandmother’s Ravioli, he recently began exploring his love of obituaries. His “Mobituaries” podcast debuted earlier this year and his book Mobituaries: Great Lives Worth Reliving, co-written with Jonathan Greenberg, hit shelves this November.

“A good obituary is like watching a movie trailer for an Oscarwinning biopic,” he explains. “Two minutes of the triumphs! The tragedies!” He warns that if you run into him on the street, you’re likely to get more than you bargained for. “You don’t want to know me after this. Whoever is around is going to be sprayed with factoids about medieval medicine, Fanny Brice, and all the celebrities who died on the same day,” he says. Watch! spoke with Rocca about liverwurst, Milwaukee, and, yes, celebrities who died on the same day.

Obituaries are often amazing pieces of writing.

It’s not always easy to capture a person’s life in a few inches. I believe a life well lived is one where there is an overlap between accomplishments and what matters to that person.

What makes a Mobituary different from an obituary?