Up Close and Personal was originally intended as a biographical film about Savitch. and exceptions. She substituted as anchor on the Today and Tomorrow shows. Since last summer, when Connie Chung took her place as the anchor on the Saturday ''Nightly News,'' she had delivered the network's weekday news updates. ", Learn how and when to remove this template message, "Jessica Savitch of NBC-TV Killed in Car Accident", "Read the Angry Letter the Real-Life Ron Burgundy Sent PEOPLE in 1983", "The Savitch Story: Confirmation & Denial: '60 Minutes' Correspondent Ed Bradley Confirms Affair With NBC Anchorwoman", "Melvin R. Korn, 75, Advertising Executive", "Liver Disease Linked to Death Of a TV Journalist's Husband", "Two Views of Doomed Newscaster Jessica Savitch", "Jessica Savaged: How Hollywood Heterosexualized, "Inside Television: Jessica Savitch Biography Stirs Emotions And Charges: 'Almost Golden - Jessica Savitch And The Selling Of Television News,' By Gwenda Blair", "Remembering Jessica Savitch, 30 Years After Her Death", "Almost Golden: Jessica Savitch and the Selling of Television News by Gwenda Blair", "TV Review: 'Savitch': An Anchorwoman's Tragic Fast-Track Life, Career", "Ward Is 'Almost Golden', But Movie Is Not", "IGN Visits the Set of Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy", JessicaSavitch.com | A Professional Retrospective, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jessica_Savitch&oldid=1133001785, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles needing additional references from August 2016, All articles needing additional references, Articles with unsourced statements from December 2022, Articles needing additional references from July 2022, Articles with unsourced statements from July 2021, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 11 January 2023, at 20:00. Savitch's experiences as a pioneer anchorwoman also helped inspire Will Ferrell to make the 2004 film Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. this link is to an external site that may or may not meet accessibility guidelines. Both biographers also write that Savitch had a problem with cocaine that eventually affected her career. Remembering Jessica Savitch, 30 Years After Her Death By Alissa Krinsky on Oct. 18, 2013 - 7:00 AM In the early 1980s, with cable in its infancy and network Savitch got along well with some members of the KYW staff, including her regular location shooting crew and her co-anchor Mort Crim. The bodies were found in the car at about 1 a.m. EDT. At KYW, Savitch won recognition for her multi-part feature stories on unusual (for that time) subjects such as rape and childbirth, the latter of which featured a live television broadcast of a birth during the holiday season. After a brief, unhappy stint at Chicagos CBS-owned television station, Crim settled on April 5 (UPI) -- First Contact Day, celebrated annually on April 5, commemorates the date humanity met its first extraterrestrial species in the "Star Trek" franchise. Copyright 2023 Meredith Corporation. She divorced her first husband after 10 months, and found her second hanging 5 months after they wed. Ironically, the troubled anchorwomans own death was an accident. He left that station and joined Detroit's NBC affiliate in 1978. After falling approximately fifteen feet and landing upside down in four to five feet of water, the car sank into deep mud that sealed the doors shut. Thereafter, although she was a general assignment reporter and helped to cover the 1980 Republican and Democratic conventions, she was primarily known as an anchor. JESSICA SAVITCH OF NBC-TV KILLED IN CAR ACCIDENT, https://www.nytimes.com/1983/10/25/obituaries/jessica-savitch-of-nbc-tv-killed-in-car-accident.html. She also contributed to ''Prime Time Saturday'' and ''Prime Time Sunday,'' NBC news magazines. Her incoherent From Brendan Fraser and Michelle Yeoh to a Best Supporting Actress toss-up, see who EW thinks will win at the 2023 Oscars. They were divorced 10 months later. In 1972, Savitch joined KYW-TV, then the NBC affiliate (now CBS O&O) in Philadelphia, as a general assignment reporter and weekend anchor under a five-year contract. Three weeks after her collapse one of the most infamous broadcasts in TV history Jessica Savitch was dead at 36. Fischbein may have missed posted warning signs in a heavy rainfall. Savitch did her last newscast for KYW in August 1977. [1][9] Korn reportedly divorced Savitch after learning that she had a significant drug problem. University Libraries, Creative This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. GLENWOOD, Wash. -- The Coast Guard Sunday found the body of a second rafter who was thrown overboard in an accident that killed Last week marked the 30-year anniversary of her tragic death in a car accident at the age of 35 (Jessica Savitch Remembered). In life, Savitch was renowned for her audience appeal and her skill as an on-camera news reader, although she drew criticism for her relative lack of journalism experience. Commons Attribution 4.0 license. Early on Aug. 2, 1981, a few months after she suffered a miscarriage, Miss Savitch returned from New York to find her husband hanging unconscious in the basement of their home. She is survived by her mother and two sisters, Lori and Stephanie Savitch of Margate, N.J. See the article in its original context from. By 1979 she was demoted from the Senate assignment due to poor performance. Reproduction of material from any Salon pages without written permission is strictly prohibited. And she didnt have the self-confidence to roll with the punches.. S.C. woman wins $200,000 lottery prize on her birthday. [1] Savitch began feeling anxious about her job and showed signs of emotional instability. Jessica Savitch, 35, an award-winning newswoman with the NBC network since 1977, drowned early yesterday after the car she was riding in plunged into the Delaware Canal in New Hope, Pa., about 35 miles northeast of Philadelphia. She was strictly a weekend anchor and never permitted to substitute for the prime time positions. [2][30] Lifetime also aired a documentary entitled Intimate Portrait: Jessica Savitch that was based on the perspectives of Savitch biographer Alanna Nash.[24]. However, other staff members found Savitch difficult, especially towards the end of her KYW contract when she was planning to leave for NBC. Her first marriage in 1980 to Philadelphia advertising executive Melvin "Mel" Korn ended in divorce after eleven months. ''At last I felt that I belonged.''.
But as soon as she began reading her 45-second news capsule to 15 million viewers, Savitch fell apart. Kerr, Peter. Results were expected in several days. The day before the 1978 midterm elections, NBC journalist Jessica Savitch opened a TODAY Show report predicting that, This year, the national womens political movement is likely to suffer a setback. Savitch was herself a pioneer for women in media, and one of the earliest female anchors of an evening newscast. But it's also at this period of her life that, according to the film, she began using cocaine, a habit that haunted her almost to the very end. Off drugs, she promises herself that she'll pull the crazy pieces of her life back together -- but then, on a rainy night in bucolic New Hope, Pa., in 1983, a car in which Savitch was riding with a male friend plunged into a canal. Yet almost everything Savitch appeared to be, she was not. Her first marriage, to Mel Korn, a Philadelphia advertising executive, ended in divorce after less than one year. reserved. CAPTION: Sela Ward stars as anchorwoman Jessica Savitch on Lifetime's "Almost Golden.". He stepped down as anchor in 1997. In order to counter criticism that she had been hired for her looks and promoted ahead of skilled journalists, NBC also assigned her to do reporting work, including a brief stint as U.S. Senate correspondent. The car was found upside down in about four feet of water early yesterday, a member of the Lambertville, N.J., rescue squad said. Instead, her mentor does, like Norman Maine in "A Star Is Born.". Crim later admitted that he was initially "not nice to her" due to his own male chauvinism, but the two later became good friends. Shortly before her death in October 1983, Savitch gave a broadcast of NBC News Digest in which her delivery was erratic and she appeared to be under the influence of an illicit substance. [1][18], Savitch's family and a group of her friends later sued the New York Post (whose insurance covered the leased car Fischbein was driving), Fischbein's estate, Chez Odette, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for damages in Savitch's death. Copyright @2021 The Pennsylvania State University. Fight fraud and ID theft with the AARP Fraud Watch Network. "In a single Digest, forty-three seconds of live television, she destroyed what was left of her career. He said there had been a similar death there some years ago. Indeed, Savitch struck such a chord that Gwenda Blair's 1988 book Almost Golden: Jessica Savitch and the Selling of Television News was made into a 1995 Lifetime channel movie starring Sela Ward and Ron Silver. Jessica Savitchhad a reputation for being highly-strung, beautiful, ambitiousand having a nose fordrugs. Savitch's trailblazing legacy includes, among other things,inspiringWill Ferrel'sAnchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. The film is also blessed with Sela Ward, of NBC's "Sisters," who gives a stunningly powerful performance as the bright young newswoman who vowed to be a network anchor by the age of 30 and died at 35. As a result of her KYW work, Savitch became a local celebrity in Philadelphia and was sometimes mobbed walking down the street. WebSavitch tragically died in an automobile accident in 1983. As the flashbacks end, she tells her friend Ron, "I'm really just a scared fake" and says the Jessica Savitch on TV is "someone I dreamed up to sell tickets." IE 11 is not supported. Florida firefighters free cow stuck in mud for nearly 24 hours. One station cuta few seconds too earlyfrom its anchors' somber summary of thedeath of a rookie copto reporterScott McKane. Her air of competence and cool command on the camera helped her achieve a salary of $500,000 a year at the age of 33. He drove out of the wrong exit from the restaurant and up the towpath of the old Pennsylvania Canal's Delaware Division on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware River. [4] Although both biographies contain similar material, Savitch's family and friends have challenged as untrue portions of the books regarding her reporting skills and controversial aspects of her personal life (see Personal life). She eventually joined NBC News as an anchor and Washington correspondent. AARP is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that empowers people to choose how they live as they age. A longtime boyfriend beat her. Previous Article Journalist Updated On January 29, 2023 Journalist Updated On January 29, 2023 Journalist Updated On January 29, 2023 Mysterious." It ended in an auto accident 12 years ago, but she is still one of the most talked-about personalities And, certainly, a few lessons on life. Savitch's police involvements led to her completion of a five part series on rape. 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