Kathie Lee Gifford

Gifford was born Kathryn Lee Epstein in Paris, France, to American parents, Joan (born Cuttell; January 20, 1930 – September 12, 2017), a singer, and Aaron Epstein (March 19, 1924 – November 19, 2002), a musician and former US Navy Chief Petty Officer.

Aaron Epstein was stationed with his family in France at the time of Gifford's birth.

Gifford grew up in Bowie, Maryland, and attended Bowie High School.

Gifford's paternal grandfather was a Russian Jew from Saint Petersburg and her paternal grandmother had Native American ancestry.

Her mother, a relative of writer Rudyard Kipling, was of French Canadian, German and English descent.

After seeing the Billy Graham-produced film The Restless Ones at age 12, Gifford became a born-again Christian.

She told interviewer Larry King, "I was raised with many Jewish traditions and raised to be very grateful for my Jewish heritage."

During high school, Gifford was a singer in a folk group, "Pennsylvania Next Right", which performed frequently at school assemblies.

Kathryn Lee Gifford (née Epstein; born August 16, 1953) is an American television presenter, singer, songwriter, actress and author.

During a summer in the early 1970s, she was a live-in secretary/babysitter for Anita Bryant at her home in Miami.

Her first regular appearances on national TV were as a singer on the game show Name That Tune, hosted by Tom Kennedy in the late 1970s, in which she would sing small portions of songs that contestants would have to identify.

After high school graduation in 1971, Gifford attended Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma, studying drama and music.

Kathie Lee married Paul Johnson, a composer, arranger, producer and publisher of Christian music, in 1976.

Gifford's first television role was as Tom Kennedy's singer/sidekick on the syndicated version of Name That Tune in the 1977–1978 season.

She also occasionally appeared on the first three hours of Today and was a contributing NBC News correspondent.

In 1978, she joined the cast of the short-lived Hee Haw spinoff, Hee Haw Honeys.

Gifford's career took off in the 1980s as a vocalist on the ABC game show Face The Music with Ron Ely.

She was also a correspondent and substitute anchor on ABC's Good Morning America in the early 1980s.

After their divorce in 1982, she married sportscaster and former NFL player Frank Gifford in 1986.

From 1985 to 2000, she and Regis Philbin hosted the talk show Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee.

On June 24, 1985, Gifford replaced Ann Abernathy as co-host of The Morning Show on WABC-TV with Regis Philbin.

The program went into national broadcast in 1988 as Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee, and Gifford became well known across the country.

Throughout the 1990s, morning-TV viewers watched her descriptions of life at home with her sportscaster husband Frank, son Cody, and daughter Cassidy.

In 1990, when TV Guide held a poll for readers to select the most beautiful woman on television, Live! presented a week-long mock campaign to garner votes for Gifford.

Gifford wound up winning the poll, receiving more than four times as many votes as the runners-up, Jaclyn Smith and Nicollette Sheridan.

Philbin and Gifford were jointly nominated eight years in a row (1993 to 2000) for Outstanding Talk Show Host during the Daytime Emmy Awards.

Gifford decided to leave the show in 2000.

She explained that filling in for Carol Burnett on Broadway and guest-hosting Late Show with David Letterman had inspired her to pursue more challenging work.

The day after she hosted Late Show on February 24, 2000, she told Regis she had decided to leave Live!.

Her last episode aired on July 28, 2000.

Gifford is also known for her 11-year run with Hoda Kotb, on the fourth hour of NBC's Today show (2008–2019). She has received 11 Daytime Emmy nominations and won her first Daytime Emmy in 2010 as part of the Today team.

On March 31, 2008, NBC announced that Gifford was to join its morning show, Today, as co-host of the fourth hour titled Today with Kathie Lee and Hoda, alongside Hoda Kotb.

This marked her return to morning television; in many markets, she aired directly after her old show, currently called Live with Kelly and Mark.

Because the fourth hour of Today airs live at 10:00 am ET, and Live with Kelly and Ryan airs live at 9:00 am ET, Gifford's hour did not compete directly with her former show in most markets.

Kotb and Gifford replaced Ann Curry and Natalie Morales.

In the weeks prior to Gifford's arrival, ratings indicated 1.9 million viewers of the fourth hour of Today.

As of 2014, the fourth hour of Today with Gifford and Kotb averaged 2.15 million total viewers, an increase of 13 percent over the 2008 ratings.

He died in 2015.

Kathie Lee has released studio music albums and several books.

On December 11, 2018, it was announced that she would be leaving Today in April 2019.