Quick Facts
Biography
Kathleen Sullivan (born May 17, 1953) is an American television journalist.
She was hired as CNN anchor by former president Reese Schonfeld in 1980. Her career has been involved in nearly every area of broadcasting. For more than ten years, Sullivan was a news anchor, working at CNN, ABC News and CBS News. She is a blogger for The Huffington Post.
Early life and education
She was born in Pasadena, California.
Career
CNN
Starting her career in local television, she became the first female anchor hired by CNN in 1980.
She became the first American woman to broadcast live from the Soviet Union when she went there to interview Russian cosmonauts for the Soviet Pre-Olympic festival. In 1980, Sullivan was picked by Ted Turner to help launch his Cable News Network.
ABC News
Moving to ABC News, she debuted ABC News This Morning with co-anchor Steve Bell in 1982, substituted for co-host Joan Lunden on Good Morning America, anchored ABC World News Saturday, and started the first national-network health program, The Health Show. During the 1980s, Sullivan reported live from political conventions, summit meetings, state funerals and the Olympics Games. She broadcast live from Buckingham Palace in London to report the royal wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales and Diana, Princess of Wales.
In 1984, Sullivan became the first woman to anchor a telecast of the Olympic Games. She was an in-studio anchor for ABC's coverage of the Olympics during the 1984 Winter Olympics, held in Sarajevo, and later that year during the 1984 Summer Olympics, held in Los Angeles, California.
NBC News
Sullivan also anchored the 1992 Summer Olympics, held in Barcelona, for NBC's pay-per-view Olympics Triplecast.
Radio
She has also worked in radio, doing weekly commentaries for ABC News and working in Los Angeles as a talk-show host on KABC and as a drive-time anchor for the all-news station KFWB, 1999-2000.Template:Date=October 2011
CBS News
Sullivan was the only American journalist invited by U.S. President Ronald Reagan to a 1987 White House state dinner honoring Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and celebrating the end of the Cold War. Her reporting in 1989 on Hurricane Hugo in South Carolina won her and CBS News an Emmy Award for Outstanding Live Coverage of a Breaking News Event.
Later work
After leaving CBS News, Sullivan was the host of two syndicated health shows in the 1990s.
In the mid-1990s, she appeared in television and magazine ads as a spokesperson for Weight Watchers.
E!
Sullivan received an Emmy nomination for Best Sportscaster – a first for a woman – and received two Emmy nominations for her work as anchor of E! Entertainment's E! News Daily, which she hosted after anchoring full-time coverage of the 1995 O.J. Simpson murder trial.
Awards and honors
She has been nominated for Emmy Awards in news, sports and entertainment.
Memberships
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
Sullivan is a member of the National Advisory Board of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration – a branch of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services – to which she was appointed in 2003 by the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson.
In popular culture
She has made various cameo appearances as herself in various entertainment television programs including the episode "Millions from Heaven" (1996) of the television situation-comedy series Roseanne (1988–1997), reporting on the Conner family winning the lottery.