Jean Smart
Jean Elizabeth Smart is an American actress. After beginning her career in regional theater in the Pacific Northwest, she appeared on Broadway as Marlene Dietrich in Piaf in 1981. Smart was cast in a lead role as Charlene Frazier Stillfield on the CBS sitcom Designing Women, which she played from 1986 to 1991, she was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for the 2000 Broadway revival of The Man Who Came to Dinner, would go on to win two Emmy Awards for her role as Lana Gardener on the NBC sitcom Frasier, a third Emmy in 2008 for her role as Regina Newley on the ABC sitcom Samantha Who?. Her film credits include The Brady Bunch Movie, Sweet Home Alabama, I Heart Huckabees, The Accountant. Between 2006 and 2007, she portrayed Martha Logan on the series 24, starred as Floyd Gerhardt on Noah Hawley's FX series Fargo, which earned her a Critics' Choice Television Award as well as an Emmy Award nomination. Since 2017, she stars in the FX series Legion by Hawley, her most recent appearance is in the Bravo and now Netflix true crime series Dirty John.
She plays the character mother of Debra Newell. Smart was born and raised in Seattle, the daughter of Kathleen Marie "Kay" and Douglas Alexander Smart, a teacher, she is the second of four children. Smart was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. On Season 10 of the television show Who Do You Think You Are?, Smart discovered she is a direct descendant of Dorcas Hoar, one of the last women convicted of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials. She is a 1969 graduate of Ballard High School in Seattle, she graduated from the University of Washington Professional Actors Training Program with a BFA. Smart is a member of the University of Washington chapter of the Alpha Delta Pi sorority. After graduating from college, Smart began her career appearing in regional theater throughout the Pacific Northwest, including in Washington and Oregon, she performed with the Seattle Repertory Theater as well as the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon. In the mid-1970s, she moved to New York City with college friend and fellow actress, Elizabeth Wingate, began working in Off-Broadway and professional regional productions.
In 1980 she appeared as Lady Macbeth at the Pittsburgh Public Theater opposite Tom Atkins as Macbeth and Keith Fowler as Macduff. In 1981, Smart was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for her performance in the Off-Broadway play Last Summer at Bluefish Cove. In February 1981, Smart appeared in a Broadway production of Piaf playing Marlene Dietrich, a role which she would reprise for the 1984 television version. In addition to theater, Smart began working in television in several smaller to mid-size guest parts in the late 1970s and early 1980s, appearing on The Facts of Life and Remington Steele among several others. According to Smart, after roles on the short-lived series Teachers Only and Reggie in 1983, "casting directors just decided I was funny; when that happens, you get pigeonholed, but I was fortunate. I got to move back and forth." The following year, she had a supporting part in the thriller Flashpoint. In 1985, Smart was cast in the starring role of Charlene Frazier Stillfield on the comedy series Designing Women, a role she played from the show's beginning in 1986 through its fifth season.
After leaving Designing Women, her work concentrated within made-for-television movies and supporting roles in films. Notably she portrayed serial killer, Aileen Wuornos, in the TV movie, Overkill: The Aileen Wuornos Story, followed by a supporting part in the black comedy Mistress, opposite Robert De Niro and Eli Wallach. Critic Roger Ebert praised the film and called Smart's character portrayal "calculating."The following year, she appeared in the family drama Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey, as Ory Baxter in a television version of The Yearling. She was cast as Sally Brewton in the television miniseries Scarlett, appeared in a supporting role in The Brady Bunch Movie, she would appear in the television thriller film A Stranger In Town, opposite Gregory Hines. In 1995 Smart was cast as the lead in the comedy series High Society, which co-starred Mary McDonnell and ran for 13 episodes, followed by a role opposite Nancy McKeon in another short-lived CBS sitcom, Style & Substance. Other roles included a part in Neil Simon's The Odd Couple II, as Deborah Sloane in the drama Guinevere.
She had a lead role in the comedy Forever Fabulous as an aging beauty queen. In 2000, Smart was cast as Lana Gardner on the hit show Frasier, set in her hometown of Seattle, she went on to win two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series. Reflecting on the role, Smart said: "I had loved that role on Frasier so much that first episode. It’s nice to get nominated and win for something you were proud of. At the time I was a little bit snobby about doing guest parts. Based on what I don’t know, it wasn't something. But my agent said, “You have to read this.” I thought it was hilarious and the show was brilliant so I didn’t hesitate. I remember when we did the table read with the rest of the cast we could hardly get through it we were laughing so hard."The same year, she played in a Broadway production of The Man Who Came to Dinner, which earned her a Tony Award nomination. Soon after, she landed roles in several high-profile films including Sweet Home Alabama, playing the mother in law of Reese Witherspoon, in the comedy Bringing Down The House, opposite
Sears
Sears and Company, colloquially known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck in 1893, reincorporated by Richard Sears and new partner Julius Rosenwald in 1906. Based at the Sears Tower in Chicago and headquartered in Hoffman Estates, the operation began as a mail ordering catalog company and began opening retail locations in 1925; the first location was in Indiana. In 2005, the company was bought by the management of the American big box chain Kmart, which formed Sears Holdings upon completion of the merger. Sears had the largest domestic revenue of any retailer in the United States until October 1989, when Walmart surpassed it. In 2018, Sears was the 31st-largest retailer in the United States. After several years of declining sales, its parent company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on October 15, 2018. Sears announced on January 16, 2019 it had won its bankruptcy auction and would shrink and remain open with about 400 stores.
In 1863, Richard Warren Sears was born in Stewartville, Minnesota to a wealthy family, which moved to nearby Spring Valley. In 1879, Sears' father died shortly after losing the family fortune in a speculative stock deal. Sears moved across the state to work as a railroad station agent in North Redwood, as well as in Minneapolis. While in North Redwood, a jeweler received an impressive shipment of watches. Sears purchased them sold them at a low price to the station agents and made a considerable profit, he started a mail-order watch business in Minneapolis in 1886, calling it "R. W. Sears Watch Company." Within the first year, he met Alvah C. Roebuck, a watch repairman; the next year Roebuck relocated the business to Chicago. In 1887, R. W. Sears Watch Company published Richard Sears' first mail-order catalog, offering watches and jewelry. In 1889 Sears sold his business for US$100,000 and relocated to Iowa, intending to be a rural banker. Sears returned to Chicago in 1892 and established a new mail-order firm, again selling watches and jewelry, with Roebuck as his partner, operating as the A. C. Roebuck watch company.
In 1893, they renamed the company to Sears, Roebuck & Company and began to diversify the product lines offered in their catalogs. Before the Sears catalog, farmers near small rural towns purchased supplies—often at high prices and on credit—from local general stores with narrow selections of goods. Prices were relied on the storekeeper's estimate of a customer's creditworthiness. Sears took advantage of this by publishing catalogs offering customers a wider selection of products at stated prices. By 1894, the Sears catalog had grown to 322 pages, including many new items such as sewing machines, sporting goods, automobiles. By 1895, the company was producing a 532-page catalog. Sales were greater than $400,000 in 1893 and more than $750,000 two years later. By 1896, dolls and groceries had been added to the catalog. Despite the strong and growing sales, the national Panic of 1893 led to a full-scale recession, causing a cash squeeze and large quantities of unsold merchandise by 1895. Roebuck decided to quit, returning in a publicity role.
Sears offered Roebuck's half of the company to Chicago businessman Aaron Nusbaum, who in turn brought in his brother-in-law Julius Rosenwald, to whom Sears owed money. In August 1895, they bought Roebuck's half of the company for $75,000; the company was reincorporated in Illinois with a capital stock of $150,000 in August 1895. The 1895 transaction was handled by Albert Henry Loeb of Chicago law firm Adler. Copies of the transaction documents are now displayed on the walls of the law firm. Sears and Rosenwald got along well with each other, but not with Nusbaum. Rosenwald brought to the mail-order firm a rational management philosophy and diversified product lines: dry goods, consumer durables, hardware and nearly anything else a farm household could desire. Sales continued to grow and the prosperity of the company and their vision for greater expansion led Sears and Rosenwald to take the company public in 1906, with a stock placement of $40 million, they had to incorporate a new company in order to bring the operation public.
The current company inherits the history of the old company, celebrating the original 1892 incorporation, rather than the 1906 revision, as the start of the company. Sears' successful 1906 initial public offering marks the first major retail IPO in American financial history and represented a coming of age, financially, of the consumer sector; the company traded under the ticker symbol S, was a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average from 1924 to 1999. In 1906, Sears opened its catalog plant and the Sears Merchandise Building Tower in Chicago's West Side; the building was the anchor of what would become the massive 40-acre Sears and Company Complex of offices and mail-order operations at Homan Avenue and Arthington Street. The complex served as corporate headquarters until 1973, when the Sears Tower was completed and served as the base of the mail-order catalog business until 1993. By 1907, under Rosenwald's leadersh
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American English-language commercial terrestrial television network, a flagship property of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. The network is headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City, with additional major offices near Los Angeles and Philadelphia; the network is one of the Big Three television networks. NBC is sometimes referred to as the "Peacock Network", in reference to its stylized peacock logo, introduced in 1956 to promote the company's innovations in early color broadcasting, it became the network's official emblem in 1979. Founded in 1926 by the Radio Corporation of America, NBC is the oldest major broadcast network in the United States. At that time the parent company of RCA was General Electric. In 1930, GE was forced to sell the companies as a result of antitrust charges. In 1986, control of NBC passed back to General Electric through its $6.4 billion purchase of RCA. Following the acquisition by GE, Bob Wright served as chief executive officer of NBC, remaining in that position until his retirement in 2007, when he was succeeded by Jeff Zucker.
In 2003, French media company Vivendi merged its entertainment assets with GE, forming NBC Universal. Comcast purchased a controlling interest in the company in 2011, acquired General Electric's remaining stake in 2013. Following the Comcast merger, Zucker left NBCUniversal and was replaced as CEO by Comcast executive Steve Burke. NBC has thirteen owned-and-operated stations and nearly 200 affiliates throughout the United States and its territories, some of which are available in Canada and/or Mexico via pay-television providers or in border areas over-the-air. During a period of early broadcast business consolidation, radio manufacturer Radio Corporation of America acquired New York City radio station WEAF from American Telephone & Telegraph. Westinghouse, a shareholder in RCA, had a competing outlet in Newark, New Jersey pioneer station WJZ, which served as the flagship for a loosely structured network; this station was transferred from Westinghouse to RCA in 1923, moved to New York City. WEAF acted as a laboratory for AT&T's manufacturing and supply outlet Western Electric, whose products included transmitters and antennas.
The Bell System, AT&T's telephone utility, was developing technologies to transmit voice- and music-grade audio over short and long distances, using both wireless and wired methods. The 1922 creation of WEAF offered a research-and-development center for those activities. WEAF maintained a regular schedule of radio programs, including some of the first commercially sponsored programs, was an immediate success. In an early example of "chain" or "networking" broadcasting, the station linked with Outlet Company-owned WJAR in Providence, Rhode Island. C. WCAP. New parent RCA saw an advantage in sharing programming, after getting a license for radio station WRC in Washington, D. C. in 1923, attempted to transmit audio between cities via low-quality telegraph lines. AT&T refused outside companies access to its high-quality phone lines; the early effort fared poorly, since the uninsulated telegraph lines were susceptible to atmospheric and other electrical interference. In 1925, AT&T decided that WEAF and its embryonic network were incompatible with the company's primary goal of providing a telephone service.
AT&T offered to sell the station to RCA in a deal that included the right to lease AT&T's phone lines for network transmission. RCA spent $1 million to purchase WEAF and Washington sister station WCAP, shut down the latter station, merged its facilities with surviving station WRC; the division's ownership was split among RCA, its founding corporate parent General Electric and Westinghouse. NBC started broadcasting on November 15, 1926. WEAF and WJZ, the flagships of the two earlier networks, were operated side-by-side for about a year as part of the new NBC. On January 1, 1927, NBC formally divided their respective marketing strategies: the "Red Network" offered commercially sponsored entertainment and music programming. Various histories of NBC suggest the color designations for the two networks came from the color of the pushpins NBC engineers used to designate affiliate stations of WEAF and WJZ, or from the use of double-ended red and blue colored pencils. On April 5, 1927, NBC expanded to the West Coast with the launch of the NBC Orange Network known as the Pacific Coast Network.
This was followed by the debut of the NBC Gold Network known as the Pacific Gold Network, on October 18, 1931. The Orange Network carried Red Network programming, the Gold Network carried programming from the Blue Network; the Orange Network recreated Eastern Red Network programming for West Coast stations at KPO in San Francisco. In 1936, the Orange Network affiliate stations became part of the Red Network, at the same time the Gold Network became part of the Blue Network. In the 1930s, NBC developed a network for shortwave radio stations, called the NBC White Network. In 1927, NBC moved its operations to 711 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, occupying the upper floors of a building de
Ann-Margret
Ann-Margret Olsson, known as Ann-Margret, is a Swedish-American actress and dancer. As an actress, Ann-Margret is best known for her roles in Bye Bye Birdie, Viva Las Vegas, The Cincinnati Kid, Carnal Knowledge, The Train Robbers,Tommy, Grumpy Old Men, Grumpier Old Men, All's Faire in Love, she has won five Golden Globe Awards and been nominated for two Academy Awards, two Grammy Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award, six Emmy Awards. In 2010, she won an Emmy Award for her guest appearance on Order: Special Victims Unit, her singing and acting careers span five decades, starting in 1961. She has a sultry vibrant contralto voice, she had a minor hit in 1961 and a charting album in 1964, scored a disco hit in 1979. In 2001, she recorded a critically acclaimed gospel album, an album of Christmas songs in 2004. Ann-Margret Olsson was born in Valsjöbyn, Jämtland County, the daughter of Anna Regina and Carl Gustav Olsson, a native of Örnsköldsvik, she described Valsjöbyn as a small town of "lumberjacks and farmers high up near the Arctic Circle".
Her father worked in the United States during his youth and moved there again in 1942, working with the Johnson Electrical Company, while his wife and daughter stayed behind. Ann-Margret and her mother joined her father in the United States in November 1946, her father took her to Radio City Music Hall on the day they arrived, they settled in Illinois. She became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1949. Ann-Margret took her first dance lessons at the Marjorie Young School of Dance, showing natural ability from the start mimicking all the steps, her parents were supportive, her mother handmade all of her costumes. To support the family, Ann-Margret's mother became a funeral parlor receptionist after her husband suffered a severe injury on his job. While a teenager, Ann-Margret appeared on the Morris B. Sachs Amateur Hour, Don McNeill's Breakfast Club, Ted Mack's Amateur Hour, she attended New Trier High School in Winnetka and continued to star in theater. In 1959, she enrolled at Northwestern University, where she was a member of the sorority Kappa Alpha Theta, but did not graduate.
As part of a group known as the Suttletones, she performed at the Mist nightclub in Chicago and went to Las Vegas for a promised club date which fell through after the group arrived. They moved on to Los Angeles, through agent Georgia Lund, secured club dates in Newport Beach and Reno, Nevada; the group arrived at the Dunes in Las Vegas, which headlined Tony Bennett and Al Hirt at that time. George Burns heard of her performance, she auditioned for his annual holiday show, in which she and Burns performed a softshoe routine. Variety proclaimed that "George Burns has a gold mine in Ann-Margret... she has a definite style of her own, which can guide her to star status". Ann-Margret began recording for RCA Victor in 1961, her first RCA Victor recording was "Lost Love" from her debut album And Here She Is: Ann-Margret, produced in Nashville with Chet Atkins on guitar, the Jordanaires, the Anita Kerr Singers, with liner notes by mentor George Burns. She had a sexy, throaty contralto singing voice, RCA Victor attempted to capitalize on the'female Elvis' comparison by having her record a version of "Heartbreak Hotel" and other songs stylistically similar to Presley's.
She scored the minor hit "I Just Don't Understand", which entered the Billboard Top 40 in the third week of August 1961 and stayed six weeks, peaking at number 17. The song was covered in live performances by The Beatles and was recorded during a live performance at the BBC, her only charting album was The Beauty and the Beard, on which she was accompanied by trumpeter Al Hirt. Ann-Margret appeared on The Jack Benny Program in 1961, she sang at the Academy Awards presentation in 1962, singing the Oscar-nominated song "Theme from Bachelor in Paradise." Her contract with RCA Victor ended in 1966. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, she had hits on the dance charts, the most successful being 1979's "Love Rush," which peaked at number eight on the disco/dance charts. In 2001, working with Art Greenhaw, she recorded; the album went on to earn a Grammy nomination and a Dove nomination for best album of the year in a gospel category. Her album Ann-Margret's Christmas Carol Collection produced and arranged by Greenhaw, was recorded in 2004.
In 1961, she was signed to a seven-year contract. Ann-Margret made her film debut in a loan-out to United Artists in Pocketful of Miracles, with Bette Davis, it was a remake of the 1933 movie Lady for a Day. Both versions were directed by Frank Capra. Came a 1962 remake of Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical State Fair, playing the "bad girl" role of Emily opposite Bobby Darin and Pat Boone, she had tested for the part of Margie, the "good girl", but seemed too seductive to the studio bosses, who decided on the switch. The two roles represented two sides of her real-life personality — shy and reserved offstage, but wildly exuberant and sensuous onstage. In her autobiography, the actress wrote that she changed "from Little Miss Lollipop to Sexpot-Banshee" once the music began, her next starring role, as the all-American teenager Kim from Sweet Apple, Ohio, in Bye Bye Birdie, made her a major star. The premiere at Radio City Music Hall, 16 years after her first visit to the famed theater, was a smash hit: the highest first-week grossing film to date at the Music Hall.
Life put her on the cove
Los Angeles
Los Angeles the City of Los Angeles and known by its initials L. A. is the most populous city in California, the second most populous city in the United States, after New York City, the third most populous city in North America. With an estimated population of four million, Los Angeles is the cultural and commercial center of Southern California; the city is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic diversity and the entertainment industry, its sprawling metropolis. Los Angeles is the largest city on the West Coast of North America. Los Angeles is in a large basin bounded by the Pacific Ocean on one side and by mountains as high as 10,000 feet on the other; the city proper, which covers about 469 square miles, is the seat of Los Angeles County, the most populated county in the country. Los Angeles is the principal city of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second largest in the United States after that of New York City, with a population of 13.1 million. It is part of the Los Angeles-Long Beach combined statistical area the nation's second most populous area with a 2015 estimated population of 18.7 million.
Los Angeles is one of the most substantial economic engines within the United States, with a diverse economy in a broad range of professional and cultural fields. Los Angeles is famous as the home of Hollywood, a major center of the world entertainment industry. A global city, it has been ranked 6th in the Global Cities Index and 9th in the Global Economic Power Index; the Los Angeles metropolitan area has a gross metropolitan product of $1.044 trillion, making it the third-largest in the world, after the Tokyo and New York metropolitan areas. Los Angeles hosted the 1932 and 1984 Summer Olympics and will host the event for a third time in 2028; the city hosted the Miss Universe pageant twice, in 1990 and 2006, was one of 9 American cities to host the 1994 FIFA men's soccer World Cup and one of 8 to host the 1999 FIFA women's soccer World Cup, hosting the final match for both tournaments. Home to the Chumash and Tongva, Los Angeles was claimed by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo for Spain in 1542 along with the rest of what would become Alta California.
The city was founded on September 4, 1781, by Spanish governor Felipe de Neve. It became a part of Mexico in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence. In 1848, at the end of the Mexican–American War, Los Angeles and the rest of California were purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, becoming part of the United States. Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality on April 4, 1850, five months before California achieved statehood; the discovery of oil in the 1890s brought rapid growth to the city. The completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, delivering water from Eastern California assured the city's continued rapid growth; the Los Angeles coastal area was settled by the Chumash tribes. A Gabrieleño settlement in the area was called iyáangẚ, meaning "poison oak place". Maritime explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo claimed the area of southern California for the Spanish Empire in 1542 while on an official military exploring expedition moving north along the Pacific coast from earlier colonizing bases of New Spain in Central and South America.
Gaspar de Portolà and Franciscan missionary Juan Crespí, reached the present site of Los Angeles on August 2, 1769. In 1771, Franciscan friar Junípero Serra directed the building of the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, the first mission in the area. On September 4, 1781, a group of forty-four settlers known as "Los Pobladores" founded the pueblo they called El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles,'The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels'; the present-day city has the largest Roman Catholic Archdiocese in the United States. Two-thirds of the Mexican or settlers were mestizo or mulatto, a mixture of African and European ancestry; the settlement remained a small ranch town for decades, but by 1820, the population had increased to about 650 residents. Today, the pueblo is commemorated in the historic district of Los Angeles Pueblo Plaza and Olvera Street, the oldest part of Los Angeles. New Spain achieved its independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821, the pueblo continued as a part of Mexico.
During Mexican rule, Governor Pío Pico made Los Angeles Alta California's regional capital. Mexican rule ended during the Mexican–American War: Americans took control from the Californios after a series of battles, culminating with the signing of the Treaty of Cahuenga on January 13, 1847. Railroads arrived with the completion of the transcontinental Southern Pacific line to Los Angeles in 1876 and the Santa Fe Railroad in 1885. Petroleum was discovered in the city and surrounding area in 1892, by 1923, the discoveries had helped California become the country's largest oil producer, accounting for about one-quarter of the world's petroleum output. By 1900, the population had grown to more than 102,000; the completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, under the supervision of William Mulholland, assured the continued growth of the city. Due to clauses in the city's charter that prevented the City of Los Angeles from selling or providing water from the aqueduct to any area outside its borders, many adjacent city and communities became compelled to annex themselves into Los Angeles.
Los Angeles created the first municipal zoning ordinance in the United States. On September 14, 1908, the Los Angeles City Council promulgated residential and industrial land use zones; the new ordinance established three residential zones of a single type, where industrial uses were
Kathie Lee Gifford
Kathryn Lee Gifford is an American television host, singer and author. She is best known for her 15-year run on the talk show Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee, which she co-hosted with Regis Philbin. She is known for her 11-year run with Hoda Kotb, on the fourth hour of NBC's Today show, she has received 11 Daytime Emmy nominations and won her first Daytime Emmy in 2010 as part of the Today team. Gifford's first television role had been as Tom Kennedy's singer/sidekick on the syndicated version of Name That Tune, from 1974 to 1978, she occasionally appeared on the first three hours of Today and was a contributing NBC News correspondent. Kathie Lee married Paul Johnson, a Christian composer/arranger/producer/publisher in 1976. After their divorce in 1982, she married sportscaster and former NFL player Frank Gifford in 1986, he died in 2015. Kathie Lee has released written books. Gifford was born Kathryn Lee Epstein in Paris, France, to American parents, Joan, a singer, Aaron Epstein, a musician and former US Navy Chief Petty Officer.
Aaron Epstein was stationed with his family in France at the time of Gifford's birth. Gifford grew up in Bowie and attended Bowie High School. Gifford's paternal grandfather was a Russian Jewish man from Saint Petersburg and her paternal grandmother was of Native American ancestry, her mother, a relative of writer Rudyard Kipling, was of French-Canadian and German descent. After seeing the Billy Graham–produced film The Restless Ones at age 12, Gifford became a born-again Christian, she told interviewer Larry King, "I was raised with many Jewish traditions and raised to be grateful for my Jewish heritage."During high school, Gifford was a singer in a folk group, "Pennsylvania Next Right", which performed at school assemblies. After high school graduation in 1971, Gifford attended Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, studying drama and music. During a summer in the early 1970s, she was a live-in secretary/babysitter for Anita Bryant at her home in Miami. Following her divorce from her first husband Paul Johnson in 1983, Gifford met sports commentator Frank Gifford during an episode of ABC's Good Morning America.
At the time she was several months into her role as a full-time morning talk show personality. On June 24, 1985, she replaced Ann Abernathy as co-host of The Morning Show on WABC-TV with Regis Philbin; the program went into national broadcast in 1988 as Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee, Gifford became well-known across the country. Throughout the 1990s, morning-TV viewers watched her descriptions of life at home with Frank, her sportscaster husband and son Cody and daughter Cassidy. Gifford left the show on July 28, 2000. Regis Philbin and Kathie Lee were jointly nominated eight consecutive years in a row for Outstanding Talk Show Host during the Daytime Emmy Awards. On March 31, 2008, NBC announced that Gifford was to join its morning show, Today, as co-host of the fourth hour titled Today with Kathie Lee and Hoda, alongside Hoda Kotb; this marked her return to morning television. Because the fourth hour of Today airs live at 10:00 am ET, Live with Kelly and Ryan airs live at 9:00 am ET, Gifford's hour does not compete directly with her former show in most markets.
Kotb and Gifford replaced Natalie Morales. In the weeks prior to Gifford's arrival, ratings indicated 1.9 million viewers of the fourth hour of Today. As of 2014, the fourth hour of Today with Gifford and Kotb has averaged 2.15 million total viewers, an increase of 13 percent over the 2008 ratings. On December 11, 2018, it was announced that she will be leaving Today in April 2019, her final Today Show appearance was on April 5, 2019 with a huge party, including a touching video by her children Cody and Cassidy Gifford. Gifford left Today in order to pursue a movie career both as an actress, as a director and producer. In 2018 she filmed Then Came You in. In 2018 she filmed a Hallmark Christmas movie for Hallmark Movies and Mystery called A Godwink Christmas. Gifford intends to make movies about the experiences of losing a loved one and being a widow, which she considers an underrepresented topic in Hollywood. Gifford has several projects in the works including sequels to Then Came You. Gifford's career took off in the 1970s as a vocalist on the game show Name That Tune with Tom Kennedy.
In 1978, she joined the cast of Hee Haw Honeys. Gifford has made guest appearances in films and television series, has several independently released albums on CD, including 2000's The Heart of a Woman, featuring the single "Love Never Fails", she appeared. She was the face of Carnival Cruise Lines in the late 1980s and early 1990s, singing "If my friends could see me now!" In 1994, she appeared as herself in an episode of the NBC sitcom Seinfeld. She did a number of voice overs most notably as Echidna in the 1998 TV series Hercules and the follow up 1999 comedy-drama and animated television film Hercules: Zero to Hero. In September 2005 she became a special correspondent on The Insider, a syndicated entertainment magazine television show, ending her relationship with that program upon her co-hosting role with Today, she played the role of Miss Hannigan in a concert performance of Annie at Madison Square Garden in December 2006. On an episode that aired March 27, 2010, she guest starred on The Suite Life on Deck, along wit
Drew Barrymore
Drew Blythe Barrymore is an American actress, director, author and entrepreneur. She is a member of the Barrymore family of actors, the granddaughter of John Barrymore, she achieved fame as a child actress with her role in E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial. She is the recipient of several accolades, including a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a BAFTA nomination. Following a publicized childhood marked by drug and alcohol abuse, Barrymore released an autobiography, Little Girl Lost, in 1991, she went on to appear in a string of successful films throughout the decade, including Poison Ivy, Boys on the Side, Mad Love, Ever After and The Wedding Singer. The latter was her first collaboration with Adam Sandler. Barrymore's other films include Never Been Kissed, Charlie's Angels, Donnie Darko, Riding in Cars with Boys, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Fever Pitch and Lyrics, Going the Distance, Big Miracle and Miss You Already. Barrymore made her directorial debut with Whip It, in which she starred, received a SAG Award and a Golden Globe for her performance in Grey Gardens.
She stars on the Netflix series Santa Clarita Diet. In 1995, Barrymore and Nancy Juvonen formed the production company Flower Films; the pair have produced several projects. In 2013, Barrymore launched a range of cosmetics under the Flower banner, which has grown to include lines in makeup and eyewear, her other business ventures include a range of a clothing line. In 2015, she released Wildflower. Barrymore received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2004. Barrymore was born in California, to actor John Barrymore and aspiring actress Jaid. Jaid was born in a displaced persons camp in Brannenburg, West Germany, to Hungarian World War II refugees. Barrymore is one of four children and has a half-brother, an actor, her parents divorced in 1984. Barrymore was born into an acting family. All of her paternal great-grandparents—Maurice and Georgie Drew Barrymore and Mae Costello —as well as her paternal grandparents, John Barrymore and Dolores Costello, were actors, with John being arguably the most acclaimed actor of his generation.
Barrymore is a niece of Diana Barrymore, a grandniece of Lionel Barrymore, Ethel Barrymore, Helene Costello, a great-great-granddaughter of Irish-born John and English-born Louisa Lane Drew, all of whom were actors. She was a great-grandniece of Broadway idol John Drew Jr. and silent film actor and director Sidney Drew. Barrymore's godmothers are Lee Strasberg's widow, Anna Strasberg, her godfather is director Steven Spielberg. Barrymore's first name, was the maiden name of her paternal great-grandmother, Georgie Drew, her middle name, was the surname of the family first used by her great-grandfather, Maurice Barrymore. In her 1991 autobiography Little Girl Lost, Barrymore recounted early memories of her abusive father, who left the family when Barrymore was 6 months old, she and her father never had anything resembling a significant relationship and spoke to each other. Barrymore grew up on Poinsettia Place in West Hollywood until the age of 7, when she moved to Sherman Oaks. In her 2015 memoir, she says she talks "like a valley girl" because she grew up in Sherman Oaks.
She moved back to West Hollywood upon becoming emancipated at 14. Barrymore attended elementary school at Fountain Day School in Country School. In the wake of her sudden stardom, Barrymore endured a notoriously troubled childhood, she was a regular at the racy Studio 54 as a young girl, her nightlife and constant partying became a popular subject with the media. She was placed in rehab at the age of 13, spent 18 months in an institution for the mentally ill. A suicide attempt at 14 put her back in rehab, followed by a three-month stay with singer David Crosby and his wife; the stay was precipitated, Crosby said, because she "needed to be around some people that were committed to sobriety." Barrymore described this period of her life in her autobiography, Little Girl Lost. After a successful juvenile court petition for emancipation, she moved into her own apartment at the age of 15. Barrymore's professional career began at 11 months, she was nipped by her canine co-star, to which she laughed and was hired for the job.
After her film debut with a small role in Altered States, she played Gertie in E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial, directed by Steven Spielberg. He felt that she had the right imagination for her role after she impressed him with a story that she led a punk rock band. E. T. is the highest-grossing film of the 1980s and made her one of the most famous child actors of the time. For her work, she won a Young Artist Award for Best Supporting Actress. In the 1984 horror film adaptation of Stephen King's 1980 novel Firestarter, Barrymore played a girl with pyrokinesis who becomes the target of a secret government agency known as The Shop; the same year, she played a young girl divorcing her famous parents in Irreconcilable Differences, for which she was nominated for her first Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. In a review in the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert stated, "Barrymore is the right actress for this role b
