| # | Fact |
|---|
| 1 | His first granddaughter, Ella Rose Rivera, was born on June 30, 2015. Ella Rose is the sister of his grandson Jace. |
| 2 | His son, Cruz Rivera, became the father of a girl, who was born on June 30, 2015. She is Geraldo's first granddaughter. |
| 3 | Inducted into the International Mustache Hall of Fame in 2015 (inaugural class) in the category Film & Television. |
| 4 | He and his family differ on what his greatest accomplishment is. He even, according to him, had to remind them that he won a Peabody and an Emmy Award because they were very enamored that he guest starred on [error]. |
| 5 | On Hannity (2009) on February 4, 2015, he mentioned that his long-since-ex-wife C.C. Dyer miscarried six IVF-conceived children during their attempts to have children. Their seventh-IVF-conceived child was born full term and named Isabella. |
| 6 | Longtime friend of nearly 35 years is the late Joan Rivers. Rivera attended her funeral, when the comedienne passed away on September 7, 2014. |
| 7 | Since his maternal granddad's side is a Friedman from Dolhinov, Belarus, he may be related to economist Milton Friedman. |
| 8 | On his January 6, 2014 show, he mentioned that he went to P.S. 119 in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. He also mentioned that his son Gabriel lived in the neighborhood for a time as well. |
| 9 | As of January 1, 2014, he will broadcast his radio show exclusively on WABC and WABCRadio.com. On WABCRadio.com, he will have live-stream video of himself, his sidekick Noam Laden, and others play during the show. |
| 10 | Hosted ABC's Good Night America: Episode dated 6 March 1975 (1975) the very night Abraham Zapruder's film footage of President John F. Kennedy's assassination was first televised for the public in 1975. |
| 11 | New York, USA: He joined 77 WABC (in New York) and 77 KABC (WABC's sister station in Los Angeles) as a radio talk show host. He currently lives in Manhattan with his wife and their daughter Sol. [January 2012] |
| 12 | Release of his book, "A Special Kind of Courage: Profiles of Young Americans". [1976] |
| 13 | Release of his book, "The Great Progression: How Hispanics Will Lead America to a New Era of Prosperity". [September 2009] |
| 14 | Release of his autobiography, "Exposing Myself" by Geraldo with Daniel Paisiner. [1991] |
| 15 | Release of his book, "His Panic: Why America Fear Hispanics in the U.S.". [2008] |
| 16 | His first grandchild is Jace Rivera, and his second grandchild is Desmond Samuel Rivera (b. September 2014). The respective fathers are Cruz and Gabriel Rivera. |
| 17 | His niece lost her Lindenhurst, NJ home in Hurricane Sandy, Oct 2012. His nephew also lost his home in Bay Shore. |
| 18 | Pets: Dogs Elvis and Hudson (Golden Retrievers), a cat (who's owned by daughter Simone), and Maltipoos Ricky and Lucy (who he states that he "never wanted", but who Erica and Sol wanted; and with whom he lives in Apartment 17 in his Manhattan Apartment Complex as of October 11, 2012). |
| 19 | On his KABC radio show on October 1, 2012, he identified his family as the following in terms of political affiliation: Isabella as a Republican, Simone, Gabe, and Erica Levy as Democrats; and Cruz as not even registered to vote. |
| 20 | Good friend of Alana Stewart, since her first marriage to George Hamilton, and they were neighbors in Malibu, California. |
| 21 | He stated that he will not play himself in a Lifetime Television movie about the Casey Anthony case. |
| 22 | Radio talk show host, WABC in New York City. |
| 23 | Joined Fox News Channel in November 2001 as a war correspondent. |
| 24 | Graduate of the University of Arizona and Brooklyn Law School. |
| 25 | Brother-in-law of Cordelia Bowe. |
| 26 | Married at Central Synagogue in Manhattan. |
| 27 | He is selling shares in his yacht "Voyager" and his private island, El Cayo, in Puerto Rico. |
| 28 | Senior columnist for FoxNewsLatino.com. |
| 29 | Good friend of John Lennon and Jose Baez. |
| 30 | His son Gabe Rivera married Dr. Deborah Rish in May 2009. Thus, Gabe is the son-in-law of one of the doctors who investigated Michael Jackson in Jackson's 1993 criminal case. |
| 31 | Ex-brother-in-law of Nanny Vonnegut. |
| 32 | He underwent knee replacement surgery on his left knee on September 28, 2009. He also underwent back surgery after a trip to Afghanistan, and was off work for two weeks. |
| 33 | Siblings are Craig Rivera, Sharon Rivera, and Irene Rivera Hurst. Cousin is Wilfredo Rivera, adopted by Geraldo's parents. |
| 34 | Wife Erica Levy's mother is Nancy and father is Howard Levy, who was a prostate cancer survivor; but died recently. |
| 35 | Geraldo Rivera and Erica Levy welcomed their daughter, Solita Liliana, on August 2, 2005. He was 62, and she was 30 at the time of Sol's birth. This was his fifth child and third daughter, while it was her first and only child. He has also since said that after having five children, he's "done" . |
| 36 | The fictional news anchorman character Hector Ramirez which appeared in several popular cartoon series during the 1980s (G.I. Joe (1985), The Transformers (1984), Jem (1985) and InHumanoids (1986), all produced by Marvel-Sunbow Production) was a parody of Rivera. |
| 37 | His fourth wife, C.C. Dyer, did not take his last name when they married. |
| 38 | NBC executive Brandon Tartikoff once said of him: "There are two words that serve as a signal that you're operating in an area of questionable taste. Those words are 'Geraldo Rivera.'" |
| 39 | Listed on his birth certificate as Gerald Michael Riviera, he was born to Cruz "Allen" and Lillian Friedman Rivera. In his autobiography "Exposing Myself," Rivera said that he believed his mother was attempting to deflect future discrimination from her children by misspelling their surname on their birth certificates, as they were the products of a mixed marriage. The marriage was "mixed" because Cruz was a Puerto Rican and Roman Catholic who (as Geraldo later explained) never "got around to" converting to Judaism because of his work as a church layman; and Lillian (born Lillie Friedman, a daughter of Isaac Michael and Tillie Krivel Friedman) was both ethnically and religiously Jewish. |
| 40 | His mother, Lilian Friedman, was a Jewish American of Russian Jewish ancestry; she was born in New Jersey, to an Orthodox Jewish family from Dolhinov, Belarus, which had recently lived in various provinces in Canada. His father, Cruz "Allen" Rivera, was a Puerto Rican of Spanish ancestry, who was raised Roman Catholic. Lilian and Cruz moved to Florida, where Cruz had a fatal heart attack on Thanksgiving Day of 1987 and, as Geraldo mentioned in light of the British Petrolum disaster, where his ashes were scattered. The widowed Lillian Rivera lived in Florida, and was close to her children, who were raised Jewish. She appeared with Craig on one episode of 'Geraldo at Large' from Florida, via satellite. Meanwhile, Geraldo named his youngest son, Cruz, in honor of his father, and his youngest child, Solita Liliana, in honor of his Judaism and his mother. |
| 41 | Exposed deplorable conditions in "Willowbrook State School", an institution for people with developmental disabilities, in early 1972. Publicity from the class-action lawsuit against the state of New York that soon followed was a major contributing factor in the passing of a federal law called "Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act of 1980." |
| 42 | Children: Isabella Holmes (b. 7 November 1992) and Simone Cruickshank (b. September 1994) by C. C. Dyer; Gabriel Miguel (b. 2 July 1979) by Sherryl Raymond; Cruz (b. 1987) by a previous relationship; Solita Liliana (b. August 2005) by Erica Levy. |
| 43 | Allegedly married first wife Linda Coblentz in part to avoid the Vietnam War draft. |
| 44 | His most famous program was The Mystery of Al Capone's Vaults (1986) that aired in April 1986. When Chicago's Lexington Hotel was being demolished, a sealed vault was discovered. Rivera hosted the live program that was going to climax with the opening of the vault, supposedly revealing Al Capone's treasure or a more gruesome find. The biggest find was an empty whiskey bottle. The hype generated a record rating of 57 with an estimated audience of 30,000,000. The term "Al Capone's Vault" has come to mean any overhyped event that leads to nothing. |
| 45 | He hosted the television segment that gave the American public the first chance of seeing the Zapruder film of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. |
| 46 | In his autobiography, he revealed his affairs with Bette Midler, Liza Minnelli, Judy Collins, Chris Evert, Margaret Trudeau, Marion Javits, and at least 1000 other women. He first made a name for himself as a lawyer defending Harlems's largely Hispanic Young Lords gang. His brother is newscaster Craig Rivera, who previously gained experience as Geraldo's producer at ABC News. |
| 47 | His ex-wife, Edie Vonnegut, is Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s daughter. His autobiography, written in 1991, is "Exposing Myself". |
| 48 | Chosen by People magazine as one of the "50 Most Beautiful People" in the world. [1991] |
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