Kathie Lee Gifford

Television personality, singer. Born Kathie Lee Epstein on August 16, 1953, in Paris, France. Her father, Aaron Leon Epstein, was an American naval officer and weekend jazz saxophonist, and her mother, Joan (nee Cuttell), was a former Naval secretary turned radio singer. Kathie Lee and her two siblings, David and Michelle, grew up in France and several other European countries where their father was stationed. The family returned to the United States in 1957 and eventually settled in Bowie, Maryland, where Aaron Epstein worked as a newspaper distributor and insurance agent. He and his wife later became proprietors of a resort hotel. Kathie Lee attended Methodist Sunday school in Bowie and became a born-again Christian at the age of 12 after watching a Christian film entitled The Restless Ones, which depicted the tragic results of a young girl doing drugs and having sex. At 17, Gifford won her state Junior Miss pageant and traveled to Mobile, Alabama, to represent Maryland in the nationwide competition. There she met Anita Bryant, a prominent Christian singer and co-host of the pageant. Bryant immediately saw Gifford’s potential as a Christian entertainer and invited her to live and work with her and her husband, Al Green, at their home in Key Biscayne, Florida. Gifford agreed and spent a disillusioning year babysitting, doing secretarial work, and occasionally singing in Southern Baptist churches. She realized that the couple’s loveless marriage was merely a front for their careers and that their family life lay in shambles. Wanting no part of the hypocrisy, Gifford opted to leave. However, Bryant had already secured a full scholarship for Gifford at the evangelical Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma, as well as a place in Roberts’ World Action Singers. Beginning in 1972, Gifford sang on Oral Roberts’ television show broadcast from Burbank, California, and traveled throughout the Bible Belt attending revival meetings. Gifford quickly became aware of the manipulation going on behind Roberts’ charismatic veneer and dropped out of the university during her junior year. Experiencing her own form of spiritual awakening, Gifford used the remainder of her scholarship money to rent an apartment in Tulsa. There she spent a few weeks scribbling down her spiritual thoughts, which she eventually published as The Quiet Riot in 1976. In April of that year, Gifford married Paul Johnson, her Bible study group leader and owner of a Christian music publishing company. She later admitted it was a show-biz marriage, no more than “a contract with the state of California.” Although the marriage only lasted six years, it was professionally productive. Gifford cut three gospel albums between 1976 and 1978, and the couple often appeared together on religious television shows, such as The 700 Club. Gifford simultaneously began to work on her own, more secular career. While visiting a friend on the set of the NBC soap opera Days of Our Lives, she was hired to play “Nurse Callahan,” which she did for nine months. She also worked on commercial jingles and made several TV pilots. From 1977-1978, Gifford was the featured singer on Name That Tune, replacing song lyrics with “la-la’s.” This exposure generated a slew of career opportunities, including a part in the TV sitcom Hee Haw Honeys, and gigs as the opening act for such comics as Bill Cosby, Shecky Green, and Rich Little in Las Vegas, Reno, and Lake Tahoe casinos. In 1981, Regis Philbin left his post at the radio show A.M. Los Angeles, and Kathie Lee Gifford substituted as host for two days. Susan Winston, an executive producer of ABC’s televised morning program Good Morning America (GMA) happened to be listening and was immediately drawn to Gifford’s talent and freshness. She asked Gifford to do some reporting and occasionally substitute for Joan Lunden on GMA in New York. After divorcing her first husband in 1982, Gifford made the move to New York City and began to appear on the nationally televised show.