EDITORIAL ROUTING 6-28-94

TO:

ENTERTAINMENT
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'Today' job

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Bryant Gumbel plans to keep his

a day away.."Today," on the other hand, now only. a windowpane away. For i9 those too bleary-eyed in the morning to tell, the venerable lrsc news/weather/interview show has just inaugurated a new look_- or, some morning l'tt put"my i""l-on -y rather, re-inaugurated an ord look: bedroom floor"at +'".'n. dna ,rvot
, Tomorrow, g-oes the song,_ is only

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By Frank

Lovece

of the show's history; he,s been the -have host, anchor, what you since January tgBZ. "l,ve alwayi said that I think this is the best .jon in t"r"uision," he declares. "l Jincereiy uelieve that. But I'm also not so iraive as to believe anything lasts forever.
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Gumbel, 45, can claim a solid sense

the show's least volatile in awhile. From Gumbel's scorching internal

memo that was leaked in 1989 lam-

jOb in teleViSiOn. I SinCerely believe that. BUt I'm ' ' arSO not SO ment. With "Today" consistentlv -': neck-and-neck in tire ratings witfi naivg aS tO belieVg ff.'';r;i"Jl"yi:'lrru AT:i]i:;,; a nvthi n g tasts fo reve r. more giraffe-like the. new tooi< SOmg m0fning lrll pUt - And makes perfect sense. while the __-__ ,^ "roaatr;-;;1;"i;;;;;';;;; ;il; mY feet on mY greatest shot-in-the-arm the show has ever had, it is, sa.ys anchor bedfOOm flOOf at 4 Bryall Gumbe! "p.ol"Uiy tfr" g.""t- a.m. and Say, "NOt "',-.:1":g"ll lli"'X'.1 1,::? frly[:H todav-o'
Clearly,.as another song purs it, ttrey believe in yesterday. end.whatev"iJ"y it is, the change . rs a srgniticant, $15 million invesr-

'l\te alWayS Sard that I :i""'fi'""#:il'"i:il:?:ilff,1"5j:,h: think nris is rre besr

its new studio in Manhattan,s Rock-

Huge street-level windows now line

sportscaster (a job his well-known older brother Greg currenily has, after his own stints with ESpN and

Suavely yet approachably handsome, with the grown-up-little-boy's face he still has, he auditioned for weekend sports anchor at KNBC in Los Angeles, and was hired in September t9?2 two years out of school and just days shy of 24 years old. After getting booted upstairs to NBC

months, he was editor-in-chief.

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at "Today" when Brokaw was named anchor of NBC's evening news.

Tom Brokaw

CBS), Gumbel was chosen to succeed

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At "Today," the Emmy-winning

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Gumbel has fashioned a respected reputation as an interviewer, and as a naturally quick study who knows his
subjects and doesn't pander to them.

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being, as Time magazine put it in a 1992 article, "testy" and "often abrasive."

He also has a wide reputation for

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"The Time writer never met me,

doesn't know who I am," Gumbel savs resignedly, familiar wiih the criticisrn

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he considers unfair.

basting weatherman Willard- Scott, movie reviewer Gene Shalit and others to the merry-go-round of to Deborah Norville to Katie Couric, the last half-decade has been eventful. The redesign puts a welcome closure to all that. More importantly in the short term,

female co-anchors from Jane pauley

today."' So to speak. "Dave Garroway (the late original anchor) told me when I took this job that no one should keep it more than five years," Gumbel reflects. "Otherwise, you go into the woods and start talking to moose."

anyone on sfaff has ever heard me raise my voice here in 13 years." He concedes he has, as he once put it, than anyone else." Gumbel, who lives on Manhattan's East Side with his wife, June Baranco, and their school-age children,

"I

don,t"think

"a low boiling point," but, he says today, that's "more toward myself

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Garroway's tenure,

percentages, any little advantage you get tends to be a pretty big deal."

ings) wins and losses in tenths of

says Gumbel, is that it addresses ..a problem well, not a problem but - or, with a fact of life morning television, that people do a lot of sampling. you'li stay with one (show) until it comes to an interview you don't like, you,ll turn to another during a commercial, et cetera. We wanted to do something tltat would separate us from the pacli And what we have that others don't," he asserts, "is a history we could play to. We wanted to do things that others couldn't, and this studio, which reflects that history affords us the opportunity. In a game where we measure (rat-

noted, lasted from the.premiere (in January 1952) until June 1g61, so he (and the moose) probably knew what he was talking about. Be that as it

it

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should be

^ 'Bmall Bates College in Lewiston,

may, Gumbel has had a career as fast and bright as a silver fox. After graduating in lg70 from the

isn't a puppy," he says, "that you can give away in two weeks."
OI994 NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE ASSN.

talks about his new professional home. And a good thing, too. .,This

Bradley Christopher and Jillian Beth, sounds genuinely enthusiastic as he

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Maine, Gumbel spent a few months as a cardtroaid salesperson for the paper- products giant Westvaco. It gotten q degree in Russian history," he remembers, "fully intended to go to law school to keep my deferment. Then Uncle Same came long and declared me 4F.
"The reason," he says vaguely, was

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wasn't what he'd planned on. "I'd

STAR VIEW

Gumbel wrote articles for "Black

"broken bones, lots of them." While doing the cardboard thing,

Sports" maga2ine; within eight