Born in DC on Valentine's Day, 1944, journalist Bernstein secured himself a place in U.S. history books when he and fellow Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward broke the story of the Watergate break-in. He attended the University of Maryland briefly, but didn't graduate.

In 1966 Bernstein was hired by The Washington Post, and in 1971, Woodward, his future partner in uncovering crime, join the Posts's ranks. The two did not immediately take to each other. In a later interview Bernstein described the younger Woodward as a "kiss-ass." Nonetheless, the two went on to uncover one of the greatest political and criminal scandals in U.S. History, win a Pulitzers for it, and be canonized in a movie starring much-better-looking counterparts, Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman.

After the tumult of the Watergate scandal, Bernstein's career sailed steady. He left the Post in 1976 to work for ABC news, and has published several books in the 30-odd years since. He's now a contributing editor for Vanity Fair and has written biographies of Hillary Clinton and Pope John Paul II.

His personal, life, in the meantime, had its ups and downs. He carried on with Maragret Jay, the daughter of then Prime Minister James Callaghan while married to Nora Ephron (his second marriage). Ephron later turned the story of their marriage into her novel Heartburn. He's also known for having carried on with the likes of Bianca Jagger, Elizabeht Taylor, and Martha Stewart. He now lives with his third wife, Christine, in New York.

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