The Bitter Tears of Jessica Savitch

Posted in Feminism, Television |

At KYW, she transformed into Jessica Savitch, competent, icily beautiful TV reporter. She rid herself of the bouffant hairdo she wore in Houston, instead styling her hair into that distinctive blonde bob, and began to dress the part of a TV anchorwoman. Jessica also underwent speech lessons to erase a lisp which had plagued her from childhood. Heavy makeup all but erased her teenage acne scars (and any signs of Ron’s beatings). At KYW, Jessica excelled in reporting which allowed her to show her vulnerability. For example, she did a series about rape in which she described her anxiety while walking along a dark street alone. She also did a series about abortion and childbirth, both topics which were not discussed widely on local TV news stations in the early-to-mid 1970s. By this time she had also endured several abortions herself, and was beginning to show tell-tale cracks in her normally businesslike façade.

By the end of her stint at KYW, though, Jessica was angry that the station had not let her out of her ironclad contract to go to CBS; Jessica’s ultimate goal was to be a network anchor by the time she was 30 years old. She occasionally erupted in rages at the crew at KYW; by the time she made it to NBC (by age 30), one of these rages at KYW had made its way through the new medium of videotape around various news networks. In a sense, Jessica was doomed from the start at NBC; she had garnered a reputation as being somewhat difficult to work with, and her assignment on the Senate beat underscored her lack of knowledge and political know-how in Washington, DC. Soon, she began to show the prima donna-like behavior which had dogged her at KYW. This clip from the late 1970s – early 1980s shows some of her almost manic perfectionism and her obsession with her image—she continuously flips her hair, and then erupts into a rage at her stage manager. At this time, it was also widely rumored she had developed a dependency on cocaine, which at the time was not seen as an addictive drug; further rumors of lesbian affairs and illicit drug use were legendary around NBC.

Despite these professional and personal setbacks, Jessica showed flashes of brilliance as a network anchor, even as her TV work became increasingly limited due to her lack of journalistic credibility. A clip from a NBC news update in 1978 shows her to be riveting, conveying intelligence and sensitivity simultaneously. At the end of the clip, she smiles brilliantly, making her instantly accessible. This accessibility made her one of the most trusted anchors in the nation, even while her star was on the wane at NBC.

By 1983, Jessica Savitch was no longer the young, shining talent marketed to NBC upon her arrival at the network in 1977. Other anchors at NBC (namely Connie Chung and Tom Brokaw) were taking over her duties in reporting and anchoring. Also, she had endured two failed, very brief, ill-conceived marriages; her last marriage (to her gynecologist!) ended up in Jessica finding her doctor husband hanging in her basement by her dog’s leash. His suicide undoubtedly pushed Jessica further into disarray and drug abuse. Her work on a PBS show, Frontline, was also being curtailed. Jessica’s looks were fading fast as she was abusing various drugs regularly and enduring the emotional aftershocks of her husband’s suicide.

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