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Home , Deborah Norville, Kelly Ripa, Nile Rodgers, Star Jones

lifestyle SUNDAY, MAY 1, 2016

Feature

NEW YORK: Kelly Ripa, left, poses with , her co-host on the Beverly Hills: Jimmy Fallon, left, and Jay Leno pose backstage at the NEW YORK: Deborah Norville attends 24th NEW YORK: Ann Curry attends the Panthere daily television talk show “LIVE! with Kelly and Michael”. — AP 70th Annual Golden Globe Awards on Jan. 13, 2013. Annual Broadcasting and Cable Hall of de Cartier Collection dinner & party at Fame Awards on Oct. 20, 2014. Skylight Clarkson Studios on Nov. 12, 2014. Strahan-Ripa breakup isn’t TV’s first botched transition

ive with Kelly and Michael” host Kelly Ripa “That’s shocking to me,” co-host said. It should- emerged from her brief “strike” this past week on n’t have been. The show’s creator, , said later “Lstronger footing, having extracted an apology that Jones had known for months that the show was going from Walt Disney Co. officials for giving her little advanced in a different direction. Jones said in a magazine interview word that her co-host Michael Strahan was leaving for “Good that appeared that day that she had been fired. Morning America.” As Jones made her announcement, Walters sat at her side, She had briefly boycotted the popular daytime talk show, glaring. To the proper television doyenne, few things were as saying she had earned the right to better treatment. Her important as appearances and the illusion that the ladies of audience gave Ripa a standing ovation upon her return “” were a convivial bunch. She told The Associated Tuesday, and ABC said Strahan was leaving nearly four Press that day that Jones’ announcement was a betrayal. months earlier than expected. It was hardly the first time tel- The next day, Jones was gone. Walters said Jones had evision executives had botched a transition, nor the most been given time to find another job so the transition would spectacular. Here are some other dropped batons: appear smooth. “I would have loved for Star to have left and not said ‘I was fired’ and not make it look like the show was The younger woman somehow being cruel to her,” she said. had been a mainstay on NBC’s “Today” show It was six years before she was welcomed back onto the for 13 years, first as co-host with Tom Brokaw and later with ABC show as a guest. Even on a program that featured the , when the show’s executives were seduced colorful and combustible Rosie O’Donnell for two separate by a younger woman. tenures, Jones had the most memorable flameout. Deborah Norville, seven years Pauley’s junior, lit up the screen on NBC’s early-morning newscast. She was reassigned Crying curry to “Today” in late summer 1989 with a big new contract, giv- Two decades after the Norville debacle, the “Today” show en a more prominent role than predecessor John Palmer. managed to top itself with Ann Curry’s tearful exit. Norville was widely viewed as Pauley’s successor, certainly to Curry was a loyal soldier, reading the news for “Today” Pauley, who quit before she could be pushed out. starting in 1997 and remaining after she was passed over for During her last show, on Dec. 29, the New York Daily as co-host when Couric left in 2005. When News wrote that Pauley “often looked like she’d rather have Vieira quit in 2011, Curry earned the job next to Matt Lauer. been queued up in a 5-hour rice line in Bucharest.” Most Yet “Today” started fading in the ratings, running neck-and- unfortunately, the show featured a long report on a horse neck with “” in the spring of 2012 that had been racing 11 years but had to be retired. after many years of dominance, and executives worried that The optics were horrible. Women dominate the morning Curry and Lauer had little on-screen chemistry. news audience, and “Today” was serving up their worst They decided to replace her with Savannah Guthrie. nightmare onscreen: a loyal woman approaching middle age Curry’s final show made for excruciating television. She was pushed aside for a sexy new model. The show’s ratings in tears seated next to Lauer on the show’s couch, telling instantly fell behind ABC’s “Good Morning America.” They viewers: “For all of you who saw me as a groundbreaker, I’m didn’t recover until Norville left on maternity leave 19 NEW YORK: From left, Meredith Vieira, Star Jones, Joy Behar and Barbara Walters on the set of “The View” on June 5, sorry I didn’t carry the ball over the finish line. But man, I did months later and was herself displaced by Couric. 2003. — AP try.” Norville fought depression, then battled back as an Again, the effect was immediate. ABC’s “GMA” took over author and host of “.” “It was personally devas- He vacated the late-night perch, and was given a prime-time Jimmy Kimmel as a turncoat, someone who couldn’t give up as morning television’s favorite and while things have been tating to, in less than two years, go from ‘NBC’s fastest-rising show that not many people watched. his seat of power. Besides a reported $45 million buyout, looking up lately, “Today” remains in second place. Lauer’s star’ to a pariah in television,” Norville wrote for The Meanwhile, “Tonight” ratings sank when after O’Brien O’Brien earned another late-night gig at TBS, where he reputation with viewers took a beating, especially when Hollywood Reporter in 2012. took over and NBC executives worried that the quirky sensi- works today. Curry did little to discourage accounts that she partly bility that worked for O’Brien’s later-night show didn’t trans- Leno’s transition to Jimmy Fallon in 2014 went much blamed him for her demise. After reporting primarily on Team coco late to a more mainstream earlier audience. They floated a more smoothly. Fallon was an immediate hit, and Leno gra- international stories, Curry left NBC News in January 2015. If you still have a “Team Coco” shirt in a back closet, you plan to cut the “Tonight” hour in half, giving part of Leno and cious in his exit. Even then, though, he made sure to note “It was a hard time for everybody,” Lauer told the Daily remember late-night television’s worst transition. NBC part to O’Brien. that leaving wasn’t his decision. Beast in 2013. “I don’t think the show or the network handled thought it was being foresighted when it announced in 2004 O’Brien rejected it early in 2010, and began negotiations the transition well. You don’t have to be Einstein to know that five years later, Jay Leno would retire as “Tonight” show for a contract buyout. With the axe near, O’Brien’s “Tonight” Star time that.” — AP host and be replaced by Conan O’Brien. show became white hot. Ratings soared, and his persona as Star Jones, panelist on daytime TV’s “The View,” surprised “I was blindsided,” Leno recalled in a later “60 Minutes” the put-upon employee fueled superb comedy. Fans rallied that show’s audience in July 2006 by announcing after a interview, likening it to being told by a girlfriend that he was around, buying “Team Coco” shirts, and Leno was brutalized commercial break that she would soon be leaving after 10 no longer wanted. He didn’t feel much better five years later. regularly by fellow late-night hosts and years.

Prince’s motorcycle jacket from ‘Purple Rain’ film on auction

motorcycle jacket worn by the Officials from the company had late pop star Prince in his 1984 estimated the jacket would sell for Afilm “Purple Rain,” when he between $6,000 and $8,000, but that rides through the woods with the was before Prince’s death, which drew movie’s leading , Apollonia, will an outpouring of tributes for the sev- be sold at auction, the company en-time Grammy-winner from behind the sale said on Friday. President Barack Obama, Hollywood The V-neck jacket, which is black figures and fans worldwide. with white cross-hatching and has “Now, all bets are off,” Chanes said, leather sleeves from the elbows adding that the jacket could fetch down, will be presented for sale in more than $100,000. Profiles in History’s auction between Profiles in History officials said few NEW YORK: Singer and musician Nile Rodgers arrive at ’s Annual Gala at the Manhattan Center on Friday. — AFP June 29 and July 1 in Calabasas, items of Prince memorabilia have ever California. been offered for sale. The jacket was Brian Chanes, who handles client given to a make-up artist for Prince relations at Profiles in History, said the and Apollonia Kotero, a singer who auction house received the jacket starred as the pop star’s girlfriend in Bono, Feted at Nile Rodger’s about six weeks ago, before the musi- the 1984 film “Purple Rain,” and the cian’s unexpected death on April 21 at make-up artist’s sister is the consignor age 57. for the sale, said Jeff Hare, a spokesman for Profiles in History. The ‘We Are Family Foundation’ Gala auction will be open to participants worldwide through the Internet, the ono electrified the crowd on Friday night for was at that time the actual president of the United Cathedral that it has been over the years for rock company said. Prince’s death at his Nile Rodger’s We Are Family Foundation’s States, my United States.” and roll music and and dance music and I home called Paisley Park near BAnnual Gala at the Manhattan Center in New Bono, an outspoken Christian, praised Carter for am with the groove pope (Rodgers),’ to which the Minneapolis is under investigation by York. The frontman, who was awarded the char- his beliefs. He recalled when Carter was asked Edge had nothing to say,” Bono recited to the officials in Minnesota, but they have ity’s Humanitarian Award, belted out “Pride (In the where his moral compass came from and said, “he delight of the audience. said there is no indication of suicide Name of Love),” and “” at the didn’t quote an economist or philosopher or a poll- Related Bono Joined by Patti Smith at U2’s Paris or physical trauma. — Reuters Hammerstein Ballroom event. ster or pundit. He cited the Holy Scriptures. The Concert: ‘We Are All Parisians’After Bono’s spirited He then finished his set with “Mysterious Ways” most powerful man in the world humbled himself set, the man of the hour, Rodgers had brought the before making a grand exit-vaulting off the stage, to submit to a higher power.” crowd to its feet as he and Chic performed hits like snaking his way through the crowd like an Irish Bono mentioned that U2 bandmate is “,” “Dance, Dance, Dance,” “Everybody Pied Piper and exiting through the front doors. In a a huge Rodgers fan and would have loved to have Dance” and of course “We are Family.” CALABASAS, CALIFOR- heartfelt speech, the 55-year-old singer lauded the jammed on stage with the Chic guitarist, but had The evening, which was hosted by Soledad NIA: Prince ‘’Purple Rain’’ night’s other big name honoree, former president another gig which he couldn’t step away from. The O’Brien, raised over $1 million which included a jacket is shown in this Jimmy Carter. gig in question was playing in the Sistine Chapel $100,000 bid for the guitar Rodgers played at this image released on April “As a teenager I began to hear about this poetic for the Pope. year’s Grammys. — Reuters 29, 2016. — AFP figure who was running for President of the United “I said, ‘I’m doing a gig at the Hammerstein States,” he said. “[Carter] quoted , who Ballroom and we’re going to turn it into the