Favorite Anchor/Anchorwoman While Growing Up

Sue Simmons.

Gayle King, who was an anchorwoman on the CBS affiliate WFSB in CT throughout the 80s. She was by far the most popular local news personality in CT, and was locally famous long before Oprah became nationally famous. In CT we knew of Oprah as Gayle King's best friend.

Sue Simmons, of course!

Jessica Savitch. Peter Jennings.

Sue Simmons and Chuck Scarborough

Susan Audé Fisher (not "Fisher" anymore though)

Monica Kaufman, WSB, Atlanta

The brilliant and entertaining Jessica Savitch.

And Nancy Dickerson, NBC News.

My boyfriend at the time would make fun of my crush on boyish anchorman Marvin Bartlett from WLEX in Lexington, KY. Such a dork.

No love for Shelby Scott?

Poor Shelby. Always out there in the crap weather in a big ol’ parka.

R2 Gayle was great at WFSB. I always thought Denise D’Ascenzo was bland.

Oh and I miss Wendy Rieger in DC.

Bill Curtis

Who was that cross eyed woman from the early days of CNN?

She used to freak me out as a kid.

Steve Caporizzo has been in Albany for years now, OP. He's got the grandpa look now.

Bernie what-his-name from CNN. He was on24/7, I loved him, and now I can't remember his last name.

[quote]Who was that cross eyed woman from the early days of CNN?

The fabulous Bobbie Batista.

I loved when I visited my grandparents in Fort Lauderdale that the guy on the news was named Dwight Lauderdale.

Channel 11's own Kaity Tong has been around forever!

That picture is sweetened

Bobbie Batista RIP

an entire 1/2 hour with CNN Headline News evening anchor Lynne Russell

I know that Penny Crone had her some DRANKS between takes!

Uncle Walter

Bobbie Batista's wonky eye was mesmerizing. It followed you around the room as you were watching her on CNN. RIP Bobbie.

Michael Tuck of KFMB 8 in San Diego.

He started out as a young man with an impossibly thick head of hair, and a deep voice that seemed like a mismatch with his boyish good looks.

I went looking for pics or videos of him to share here, only to learn that he died last year at age 76.

I also loved his co-anchor, Allison Ross. I found her Insta. She seems to no longer be playing with a full deck, and bears zero resemblance to the pretty brunette I grew up watching.

Anyway, here's a video tribute to Michael Tuck:

Jim Vance.

I was fascinated by Bree Walker. A 1980s blonde beauty who had ectrodactyly — hands like lobster claws. In her first jobs she had to wear rubber "hands" over her claws, but as she got more powerful she put them aside and you could see her moving papers on her desk with her claws.

Then she and her co-anchor Jim Lampley were revealed to be having an affair while married to other people, destroying their marriages. It was completely obvious on air and the LA Times or LA magazine wrote a big expose on "the city's most public office romance." They eventually got married and moved to New York.

The cheese began to slip off the cracker. New York was a disaster and Bree ended up in San Diego and divorced Jim. Then she had the worst plastic surgery imaginable, completely ruining her pretty face (see link). There was at least one DUI arrest. Incoherent social media postings that sounded like she might be homeless. Her website went dead and she isn't on FB or Twitter. The last public sightings of her were almost 10 years ago.

Whatever Happened to Baby Bree?

Nationally, it was Jessica Savitch. Locally, in the city I grew up in, Indianapolis. it was WISH-TV's Mike Ahern (link). When I would be visiting relatives in Chicagoland, it was the duo anchors at WBBM CBS 2 Bill Kurtis and Walter Jacobson and when in NYC it was PIX 11's Pat Harper who co-anchored with her husband Joe Harper.

Jessica Savitch was fierce. She could bitch out the entire newsroom staff in a tirade, rail some lines, and then deliver the news like nobody's business.

R29 Pat looked like a tough broad who could knock a few back.

Roseanne Scamardella at WABC Eyewitness News in the 1970s. Bruce Springsteen is interviewed before "Darkness on the Edge of Town" concert.

Kim Covarrrrrrrrrrrrubias

Randy Price in Boston. I seem to remember him being out in the late 80s/early 90s (grand marshal for 1990 pride?) and he was always so enjoyable to look at.

Bill Bonds of WXYZ in Detroit was priceless and a Detroit fixture.

How many anchors had a punk rock song written with them in mind?

Heads or tails?

R23 Yep, nationally no one else was close. You just knew he actually understood what he was saying, and he'd tell the truth, no matter what.

Locally, eons ago in local LA news, there was a dashing "old journalist" type I was drawn to. Fedor, trenchcoat, and rocking that moustache. Clete Roberts.

Any elder gays from Chicago remember this golden era?

Jerry Dunphy and Christine Lund

"From the desert to the sea, to all of Southern California, a good evening."

Rose Ann Scamardella was the inspiration for Gilda Radner's Roseanne Roseannadanna.

WABC New York's Mara Wolynski, who gave the one finger salute live on air. Roger Grimsby's quip was priceless.

Is Don Henley’s Dirty Laundry about Christine Lund or Ann Martin?

Christine was in the middle of the SLA shootout in 1974, ducking gunfire.

Paul Moyer and Ann Marin having an expletive ridden argument off the air. Paul was sick of her shit and threatened her with working with Harold Greene!

Tritia Toyota was honored in a song by the Dickies: "I'm Stuck in a Pagoda with Tritia Toyota."

R25: At about the same time that Michael Tuck was at KFMB-San Diego, we had Stan Miller. I loved him. R40: Such a pleasant memory of the Southern California of my youth.

R45 no shit Sherlock. You’d make a shitty reporter…

I forget where i read it but somebody claiming to be the daughter of a KABC anchor or reporter posted on-line somewhere that Christine Lund destroyed her family while she was growing up for carrying on an affair with her father. At link, the SLA shootout mentioned above.

r44 that was hilarious!

Paul Moyer to Ann Martin: "You know, you go home and have a couple of shooters and I don't know what the fuck happens but when you come back you're not the same lady."

😂😂

R48, was her dad Joseph Benti? He and Lund carried on for several years.

R48, can't remember. I do remember though her saying how it devastated her mother.

Ted Baxter, WJM

I vividly remember Bree Walker and Jim Lampley - they were on channel 2 and for years I watched Knots Landing on Thursday nights and was glued for the previews. Then Bree Walker would be on for the news. ……I am always an ABC 7 viewer back to Jerry Dunphy, Christine Lund and her hair helmet and Dr. George Fishbeck. Way back when Chuck Henry was on Channel 7 before he move to channel 4.

In boston I thought local anchor Tony Pepper was very sexy.

I’m from the Bay Area & loved zaddy Van Amburg in the ‘70s. Pete Giddings was the best weatherman EVER, his forecasts were never wrong. I was so sad when he left our ABC station, but he’s had a great career.

R1 Beth was a well known floosie at cheap saloons off of Route 91. She also moonlighted as a stripper. Her successor, Brenda, was also a Madame operating in the Hartford area prior to her turn in journalism.

Linda Alvarez, KPNX.

Suzanne Geha!!!

R41, thoroughly debunked. The name was based on The Name Game Song which Radner came up with after finding the wig in a box and creating the character.

Just read how Jessica Savitch died. Unbelievable. It's like something from a "Final Destination" movie.

Jack and Liz in Boston

Bill Beutel in NY was very good-looking. Loved Sue Simmons, too, especially her Chipmunk imitation on Groundhog Day. Can't believe Chuck Scarborough is still broadcasting.

Hoda Kotb was an anchor in New Orleans and even though she wasn’t a native New Irleanian, she quickly became everyone’s favorite TV anchor. When she left for NBC I wasn’t surprised. But she was getting small segments on the evening news and I kept wondering when she get her shot as an anchor. I was and I wasn’t surprised to see her rise through the ranks to become a Today Show host. She really is as nice in real life as she seems to be.

We both lived in the French Quarter (and I can’t remember what network she was on, but if it was the local CBS, that was right in the quarter as well).

I saw her EVERYWHERE. I got my haircut at a sorta punk rock barbershop where a friend’s wife worked and she was there every time I was there. After a couple times I thought it was really weird and asked my friend’s wife and she said she was there every other day to get her hair styled for her anchor job! They either didn’t have a hairstylist or she didn’t trust the studio one and she picked the strangest place to get her hair done she could have.

And every time I saw her-at the barber shop, at Tower records and video, at a coffee shop, SHE’D stop ME to say hi and ask how I was doing and usually tell a funny story and then she was off! And I asked around and everybody said “oh yeah, she does that to EVERYONE!” She never even knew my name! But I think if I ran into her on the street and she gave me a hug and said “oh my gosh, it’s been so long! How are you?” I wouldn’t be totally shocked. She is the very definition of the best of all of us.

Literally the nicest person on the planet.

But I have a second favorite. Sally Ann Roberts is Robin Roberts sister. I’ve never seen or met her in person. But when Robin was battling cancer it came out that her sister was going to be a bone marrow donor. Without giving it any thought, I went to the local news station website and you could submit an email to any reporter or anchor (they didn’t list their email addresses) and I just shot off an email telling her how I had grown up watching her on TV and that I’d always been a fan and that I loved watching her and her sister and what she was doing was amazing that I hoped everything went well.

Never thought I’d hear back and then out of nowhere, 4 months later she fucking replied. And apologized for not replying sooner! She thanked me, said she’d just got back to work after a hiatus and staying with Robin and that Robin was the amazing one.

I love all thee of them (Hoda, Sally Ann, and Robin) and if I ever heard a rumor about any of them being difficult or bitchy, I’d never believe it. They’re all lovely and kind and while I’ve never communicated with Robin and only had one email with her sister, I think they are all as nice as they come across and I think that might be rare.

DL fave Jessica Savitch goes nuclear.

Aw fuck. I have to add another one from New Orleans. Angela Hill. Another French Quarter resident and total New Orleans eccentric. I think she was a beauty queen before she became a news person. She was pretty gorgeous when she was young and always great to watch.

And she walked a pig on a leash through the French Quarter. Beautiful, smart, wealthy, famous woman, walking a pig down the street.

I feel bad for kids in New Orleans, who never would’ve seen her on TV.

KWQC, (WOC when I was a kid in the '80s) superstars Terry Swails and Paula Sands are both ageless and still going strong.

Paula Sands!

OP I have not thought about Beth Carroll in years! And Dave Madsen, he was on forever. Not hot though.

My sister temped at the ABC station in Springfield as the receptionist one summer. She got all the gossip on the anchors! One of them, a frumpy looking woman, was often drunk on air so she was fired.

My sister was told that woman ended up with the on air job because one day someone did not show up for work so they made her go on, she was a writer or something for the station. If I remember her name I will post it.

And they all did their own makeup in the bathrooms, I thought that was weird. Beth apparently married some rich guy and would lord it over the others.

OP - wow, is this the first time I was scrolling through DL to see a western MA pic at the start of a thread?

Whatever happened to Beth Carroll? Man did I prefer to that bleach blond Brenda Garton on TV22.

And Dave Madsen is STILL on the air... incredible.

Former reporter/correspondant Knowlton Nash ushered in a new more modern approach to the CBC's tv news in the 80s.

The National was immediately followed by The Journal, a more in-depth current affairs magazine hosted, among others, by Barbara Frum, whose career was cut short by leukemia at 54.

I liked Patti Burns at KDKA in Pittsburgh who anchored the news with her father Bill for a time in the 80s. Sadly she died from cancer at 49 back in 2009.

On the flip side WPXI had an anchor I couldn’t stand who went by the name Edie Tarbox (great name). I remember a Christmas promotion one year where Channel 11 personalities would share a Christmas memory in a 30 second bit that would air during the weeks before the holiday. Edie’s was about how the family would tie a sled onto the back of the pickup truck and drive the kids around in a field when it snowed. Pure white trash. No surprise she went on to Fox News as E.D. Hill later on.

Linda Yu!

Huntley Brinkley and Frank Reynolds

As follow-up to my oher post, here's an unusual interview where Barbara lets her often austere persona and is clearly fangirling over her guest Shirley MacLaine. The in-studio interview was also a departure from the show's signature remote/satellite interviews.

Barbara was also mother to journalist and presidential speechwriter David Frum.

Joan Lunden and Chatlie Gibson

Linda Ellerby

Another from the CT market - Janet Peckinpaugh. She was on channels 8, 3, and 30.

R69 looks like Beth and her husband run an event space in NH.

She left 22 in a hurry back in the 80s. She was living with the boss, who cheated on her. All went nuclear in that newsroom.

R44 Any idea what the Paul Moyer/Ann Martin spat was about? Is he accusing Ann of drinking on her dinner break between newscasts? I imagine that could be problematic if true.

Jason Colthorp back in little Lansing, MI. Now he’s in Detroit.

I always loved his hair for whatever reason.

Tom Ellis on BZ.

Donna Kelly on CNN. There was a time when CNN anchors were likable, low key people.

Shelby Scott - I forget the story because I was a kid but wasn’t she going to be let go, because she was getting older, but they couldn’t, so they stuck her outside in storms and did all kinds of things like that, and she did it and ended up being even more popular and respected for it? (Boston)

I also remember (though he wasn’t a favorite) Jack Cole - i think that was his name - who got in trouble for saying “More alleged news after this message.”

Jack Chase. “So long and make it a good day.”

Growing up, both Tom Snyder and Tom Brokaw were on the local NBC affiliate in LA. Snyder was already something of a superstar and a diva. He only did the evening news, never doing the late night or early news, and he had his own community show called "Sunday". Brokaw did all of them, even filling in on "Sunday" and he was my fave with his boyish good looks and charm.

Barbara Budd on CBC always had a soothing voice

Oh, yeah, Jack Chase. he also did a talk show with Sonya Hamlin, didn’t he?

^R84

Another vote for Jim Vance.

I'm another one who enjoyed the team of Roger Grimsby and Bill Beutel on WABC Eyewitness News in New York. I actually pretty much liked all of the others who worked with them, too. WABC News was my favorite news show when I was growing up.

I loved the intro and outro music, too.

KNBC news in the 60s and 70s was a launching pad for lots of great/famous news reporters:

Bryan Gumbel, Kelly Lange, Jess Marlow, John Schubeck, Chick Hearn, Pat Sajak, David Horowitz

You can't mention Sue Simmons without including her most famous blooper!

R90 that same music was used by all of the major ABC affiliates…not unique to NYC.

Earl Camembert and Floyd Robertson

The absolute best: Gwen Ifill.

Sue Simmons and Jessica Savitch were roommates for awhile. It was understood that they were bumping muffins.

He was mocked back in the day for various reasons but man, do I love Dan Rather. He’s worth a Twitter follow, for those who are still there.

R95 To me Ifill was the only one who compared to Cronkite.

Decades ago a young man named Devin Scillion was an anchor on our local farm-town news channel for awhile. When he left I was devastated.

I recently moved to the Detroit area and sat down the other night and turned on WDIV-TV and there was Devin. Oddly he's aged while I, in true Datalounge form, have not.

Linda Ellerbee and Lloyd Dobyns (and then Bill Schechner) on NBC's News Overnight. I still remember how incredible that was and it's been 40 years or so. That show kept me out of bars when I was young.

Also, Lynne Russell from Headline News. I'm a Kinsey 6 but man, she was sexy as hell.

Dave Garroway

Ron Burgundy, Channel 4 in San Diego. (I never watched anchored news growing up.)

Speaking of Snyder, Paul Moyer became something of a joke because he followed Snyder and everyone noted the similarity in their looks and delivery.

R97 I unfollowed Dan Rather after about a week. Typical "rich neoliberal" bs. Has he ever tweeted about the need to raise the minimum wage, or universal health care?

[quote]Aw fuck. I have to add another one from New Orleans. Angela Hill. Another French Quarter resident and total New Orleans eccentric.

Also known for her eccentric "fashion" sense. Once a year she would have "Goodwill Week" where all her on-air looks were cobbled together from Goodwill donations as a way to support the charity. "This jacket only cost three dollars, can you believe it?" Yes, darling Angela, we can.

She had a regular feature called "Animal Patrol" which I loved, spotlighting animal shelters, unusual pets, and all sorts of human interest stories involving animals. As mentioned above, she lived in a skyscraper and owned a pet pig.

Never found out what it was about r44. I do love that he tells her to get her shit together or she will end up working with bumbling ginger Harold Greene.

R30 her ass would be fired in less than 5 minutes in 2023

Lynne Russell was gorgeous, she looked like a 1950s movie star.

Lynne Russell reminded me of Peggy Bundy's cousin who went to finishing school.

Lyn shur looked like fellow lezzy anne murray

Cute Tawny Little

Tawny was married to John Schneider briefly. My mother couldn’t stand the bitch.

Remember when David Horowitz and sexy John Beard were held at gunpoint live on KNBC’s 4pm newscast?

See Tawny win…our Bicentennial Miss America

Her big moment is at the 32:00 mark.

Jane Jayroe, an anchor in OK City and in DFW…Miss America 1967

Lynne Russell was a dead ringer for porn star Annette Haven.

That's crazy, R112.

[quote]On August 20, 1987, Gary Stollman—the son of former KNBC pharmacy specialist Max Stollman—went onto the news set and demanded consumer advocate David Horowitz to read a manifesto at gunpoint. Horowitz obliged and read various statements, including that Stollman's father was "a double created by the Central Intelligence Agency and alien forces", along with numerous other conspiratorial allegations against the U.S. government. Once Horowitz finished reading, Stollman identified the weapon as an unloaded BB gun and set it down on the desk; Beard reached over and grabbed the weapon as police entered the scene and arrested Stollman.Stollman pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of false imprisonment, with a felony charge dismissed.

Darn it. The newscast was off the air when the manifesto was read and the general public never heard about the gunman's father being a double created by the CiA and aliens. Outrageous.

I grew up watching Maryalice Demler on WGRZ Buffalo. At the time she was on from early to late morning, almost 20 years later she is therr but now on the 11 PM broadcast

Diann Burns, Linda Yu and Linda MacLennan- the Holy Trinity of Chicago local anchorwomen in the 80s/90s.

[quote][R30] her ass would be fired in less than 5 minutes in 2023

Ummm...no. Not really.

Sue Simmons. The FUCK are you doing!

Alice Blanchard

Lisa Laflamme

Wasn't Christine Lund a dyke?

Tawny used to be on the KABC morning show. She was so moody that it made for hilarious TV. Once she was doing a remote and some guy kept putting his face into the frame. Welllll. Miss Tawny turned to him and in no uncertain terms told him they were doing a live TV show and would he kindly get off the camera. They quickly cut to Christine who said they were having technical difficulties and will be back shortly.

LOL at R2! Gayle King had that shake and go wig even back then!

R71 Thanks for posting that! For being a medium size market like Pittsburgh we really had some great anchors and reporters back in the day. Bill Burns was so "Pittsburgh" - like a cranky Walter Cronkite who just wanted a shot and a smoke after he was off the air.

The guys at WTAE - including lush Don Cannon and Paul Long - were, I swear, the inspiration for "Anchorman." And before the staff at WPXI became solid they changed faces so often. They were the ones that got in trouble for calling a house full of burned children "crispy critters." Wait, which one of you bitches worked there??!??

But KDKA really was the prime news source then. We had Marie Torre - aka the reporter that went to jail over the Judy Garland story - for nearly 20 years (sharing her with NYC). And while Pittsburgh was never a bastion of political correctness it had a lot of great women in the field - Patti Burns, Sally Wiggin, Peggy Finnegan, Patrice King-Brown (who was Gayle before Gayle was Gayle) among others.

PS I saw WPXI's David Johnson at my gym in the late 80s or early 90s.

He had a nice furry bush and a nice show-er of a dick, but what surprised me the most is that the dude was STACKED. Massive biceps and chest. Hot DILF but you'd never be able to tell under his suit jacket. He just looked like a big ole nerd on TV. (His hair was also a bit tragic, sadly.)

"Anchor/Anchorwoman"

Is that you, Lou?

[quote] that same music was used by all of the major ABC affiliates…not unique to NYC.

Most stations buy music packages, or used to, as well as graphics, etc.

We've had threads before about the "Hello" song that was modified for every town. The 'feeling in the air that you can't get anywhere except for.....' was, well, a feeling you could apparently get everywhere!

(This was all pre-internet, of course, so few people would ever see this outside of the city it was playing in...)

Same song but for Milwaukee

Not for LA

Roger Grimsby would have made a great datalounger. He couldn't stand having gossip maven Rona Barrett on a news show and referred to her as Rona Rooter. Once he introduced her segment by saying "and speaking of garbage..."

An interviewer asked him if he ever had an embarrassing moment on air. Smiling, Grimsby responds: Yes, when I mispronounced the word 'count'.....

She sure did r124. Gayle has never had good wig game.

That’s her natural hair! Only old, sick or Orthodox women still wore wigs after the 70s.

Carol Marin in Chicago.

Bitch suffered NO fools!

I loved Suzanne Suzannadana. That was a chracter based on Sue Simmons that two local NYC shock jocks made up. She sounded like Mammy from Gone With The Wind. Unthinkable today.

R135. It was unthinkable then. FIFY, asshole.

Clit Master and Old Dumbass Bitch

Young Peter Jennings.

And this smug mf'er king of bullshit....

....who I still would have drained until I couldn't drain his balls any more.

Walter Cronkite.

"Marvin Zindler, Eyewitness News." "There's slime in the ice machine!!!" Houston, TX, 1980s. (he was the one that shut down the famous Chicken Ranch)

Never married Alice Blanchard was taken care of by her longtime female friend. She went to the UW before I was there and she was on the local news. My communications professor said that she was always very serious and unsmiling. That caught up to her as audiences found her too cold and the director would order her to smile on the fade. She looked very uncomfortable.

MZ Eyewitness News

TV hadn’t been invented we gathered around the radio and listened to Amos & Andy

Bryant Gumbel and Katie Couric. Katie didn't take any of Bryant's guff and she seemed to soften up his rough edges.

Over on BBC 1 Moira Stuart is my all time favorite newsreader. She was always so cool and had the perfect speaking voice. Apparently the rumors are false. She’s allegedly not a lesbian and was never in a relationship with Pat Butcher.