Matthew Todd Lauer (born December 30, 1957) is a former American television news anchor. He was the co-host of NBC's Today show from 1997 to 2017, and a contributor for Dateline NBC. With NBC he hosted the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade from 1998 to 2017 and co-hosted the opening ceremonies of several Olympic Games. He was also previously a news anchor for The Today Show from 1994 to 1997, anchor for WNBC in New York City and a local talk-show host in Boston, Philadelphia, Providence, and Richmond. He also hosted the PM Magazine (or Evening Magazine 1980-86), and in the early 1990s, segments of HBO Entertainment News.
Following allegations of his inappropriate sexual behavior towards a colleague, Lauer was terminated by NBC in November 2017.
Video Matt Lauer
Early life
Lauer was born in New York City, the son of Marilyn Lauer (née Gentry), a boutique owner, and Jay Robert Lauer, a bicycle-company executive. His parents divorced during his youth.
Lauer's father was of Romanian Jewish ancestry, as seen on the Today Show's Finding Our Roots. Lauer said, "My dad was Jewish. My mom is not. So I was not raised anything. I do feel a desire now to find something spiritual. Getting married and wanting to have kids has something to do with that."
Maps Matt Lauer
Education and early career
Lauer earned his undergraduate degree from Ohio University at age 39 in 1997; he had studied at the school's Scripps College of Communication, School of Media Arts and Studies. He had previously dropped out of the same institution in the spring of 1979. Later in 1979, Lauer began his television career as a producer of the noon newscast for WOWK-TV in Huntington, West Virginia. By 1980, he had become an on-air reporter for the station's 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts.
He then started to move around the country, hosting a number of weekly information and talk programs in Boston, Philadelphia, Providence, and Richmond. He was also host of PM Magazine in Providence and then in 1984 at WNEW-TV in New York until the show's cancellation in 1986. In 1986, he then moved on to co-hosting Made In New York on the station (now WNYW after Fox's 1985 purchase of the station) with Jill Rappaport for a fifteen-week run. In 1986, he also co-hosted Fame, Fortune and Romance. He also worked for ESPN in the 1980s. He then headed to Boston in 1988 to host WNEV-TV's Talk of the Town.
From 1989 to 1991, he returned to the New York market, this time to Secaucus, New Jersey's WWOR-TV, where he hosted 9 Broadcast Plaza, a three-hour live interview program. He departed that series as it took a turn in booking "tabloid" guests and topics, and for what he relayed as a refusal to live-read ads on the show for Dial-a-Mattress. In 1990, he was hired by the Kushner-Locke Company to host a pilot called "Day In Court," executive produced by veteran producer David Sams, who helped to launch The Oprah Winfrey Show into national syndication. The program was retitled "Trial Watch" when it went to series, and ran on the NBC network for two seasons. NBC hired Rob Weller as host over Lauer when the program was picked up as a daily series. The same year, he filmed a pilot for the World Wrestling Federation's bodybuilding spinoff, the World Bodybuilding Federation for USA Network known as WBF BodyStars, though WWF owner/chairman Vince McMahon later decided to host the program himself instead. In 1991 Lauer appeared as the co-host (along with Willow Bay) of "Etc., Etc.", a show on the Travel Channel. Lauer moved to WNBC in 1992 where he became co-anchor, alongside Jane Hanson, of the early weekday news show Today in New York. After a year, he also filled the role of Live at Five co-anchor with Sue Simmons. He held that job until 1996.
NBC News
Lauer's on-camera presence provided him with many opportunities with NBC's national news organization while working for WNBC in New York. Lauer filled in as the newsreader on The Today Show for Margaret Larson when needed from 1992 to 1993. This "audition" period allowed him to join The Today Show full-time in January 1994 as news anchor, while still co-anchoring Today in New York and Live at Five.
Lauer stepped in for Scott Simon, Mike Schneider and Jack Ford as the co-host of Weekend Today, and for Ann Curry as anchor of the former NBC News program NBC News at Sunrise from 1992 to 1997. He had also filled in for Tom Brokaw on NBC Nightly News. As the Today Show news anchor, he also substituted for Bryant Gumbel on the Today Show before being named the official co-anchor on January 6, 1997, after Gumbel stepped down.
On top of Lauer's duties on The Today Show, he also hosted programming on Discovery Channel and MSNBC.
From 1998 until 2009, Lauer embarked on what was generally an annual five-day, globe-spanning adventure called Where in the World is Matt Lauer? on the Today Show during TV sweeps. The segment was named after the PBS game show Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? from which it borrowed the theme song. This segment sent Lauer to various locations around the world, from where he reported on the importance of each location. He broadcast from locations including Bhutan, Easter Island, the Panama Canal, Iran, Hong Kong, Croatia, and the Great Wall of China. In 2009, NBC News announced the segment would no longer air in consideration of the stagnant, unstable U.S. economy.
On some occasions, Lauer has conducted interviews that escalated into tense exchanges. During a June 2005 interview with Tom Cruise, Lauer argued with Cruise about psychiatry and postpartum depression, and Cruise called Lauer "glib". In December 2008 (more than three years later), Cruise said that he regretted the exchange and arm wrestled Matt Lauer in the same studio where the confrontation took place.
On June 19, 2007, he interviewed Prince William and Prince Harry.
Between 1998 and 2016, he co-hosted NBC's live coverage of Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Lauer co-hosted the opening ceremonies of several Olympic Games, carrying on what his former co-host Katie Couric had done since the 2000 Summer Olympics. He co-hosted the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Summer Olympics, the 2010 Winter Olympics, the 2012 Summer Olympics, the 2014 Winter Olympics and the 2016 Summer Olympics. His commentary on the 2012 opening ceremonies, along with that of co-hosts Meredith Vieira and Bob Costas, came under fierce criticism, being described as "ignorant" and "banal".
On the April 5, 2012, program, Lauer announced that he had signed a new contract with NBC News through 2017. An estimate by Forbes indicated that the contract paid Lauer $25 million a year.
It has been widely reported that Lauer had much pull in co-anchor Ann Curry's departure from The Today Show, executed by its executive producer Jim Bell under the name called "Operation Bambi".
During the 2014 Winter Olympics, prime-time host Bob Costas suffered a major eye infection over the first five days of prime-time coverage. As a result, Lauer replaced him for the sixth day of coverage, and hosted from February 11 until February 14.
In November 2015, Lauer hosted an interview with Charlie Sheen, during which Sheen revealed that he was HIV-positive.
On September 8, 2016, Lauer conducted separate 30-minute interviews with presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. The New York Times reported that the reaction to Lauer's performance was "not kind". Lauer devoted much of the Clinton interview to questions about her e-mail server, and according to critics appeared to rush through audience-led topics such as domestic terror attacks and veterans' affairs, implying that there was not enough time to cover these in detail. Many also felt that Lauer failed to challenge Trump on alleged inaccuracies, such as his statement that he was "totally against the war in Iraq", which other sources called "lies". CNN reported that the short amount of time for the interviews, the short notice with which they were conducted, and the small amount of audience questions were a major reason for the poor reviews.
On November 30, 2016, it was revealed that Lauer had signed a new contract through 2018. Variety reported that his salary was $20 million a year. On January 6, 2017, Lauer celebrated his 20th anniversary on The Today Show with a look back at some of his most memorable moments on the show.
Sexual misconduct allegations
On November 29, 2017, NBC News announced that Lauer's employment had been terminated after an unidentified female NBC employee reported that Lauer had sexually harassed her during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, and that the harassment continued after they returned to New York. Andrew Lack, chairman of NBC News, sent a memorandum to his staff that said, in part, "On Monday night, we received a detailed complaint from a colleague about inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace by Matt Lauer. ... While it is the first complaint about his behavior in the over 20 years he's been at NBC News, we were also presented with reason to believe this may not have been an isolated incident." A network executive said Lauer would not receive any form of monetary settlement because he was fired "for cause". His contract had been scheduled to run through the end of 2018.
NBC News management said it had been aware that The New York Times and Variety had been conducting independent investigations of Lauer's behavior, but that management had been unaware of previous allegations against Lauer. Variety reported allegations by at least ten of Lauer's current and former colleagues. Additional accusations went public in the ensuing days.
In a statement, Lauer apologized for his actions, saying, "Some of what is being said about me is untrue or mischaracterized, but there is enough truth in these stories to make me feel embarrassed and ashamed."
Two weeks later, former Today production assistant Addie Zinone made an additional accusation, saying a consensual sexual relationship with Lauer in June 2000 was an "abuse of power" on Lauer's part. Zinone said she felt that turning down Lauer's advances would have hurt her career.
Other work
Lauer had a guest appearance as himself on a live episode of Will & Grace in early 2006.
In November 2006, Lauer and his daughter Romy hosted the Sesame Street direct-to-DVD show Sesame Beginnings: Exploring Together. Lauer hosted The Greatest American on the Discovery Channel, which used Internet and telephone voting by viewers to select the winner. Lauer was critical of his own program since it tended to favor well-known figures over others who had less influence in pop culture.
He served as the 2009 Class Day speaker at Harvard University's undergraduate commencement ceremonies on June 3, 2009.
Lauer has appeared as himself in the 2009 film Land of the Lost. Archival footage of Lauer is shown in the 2017 films Lady Bird and I, Tonya. He also appeared as himself in the TV movies Sharknado 2: The Second One and Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!.
Career timeline
- 1986-1987: Fame, Fortune and Romance host
- 1988: Talk of the Town host (WNEV-TV)
- 1988-1991: 9 Broadcast Plaza host
- 1992-1996: WNBC-TV
- September 1992 - September 1994: Today in New York co-anchor
- August 1993 - September 1996: early evening newscast Live at Five co-anchor
- 1992-2017: NBC News
- 1992-1997: fill-in anchor on Weekend Today and NBC News at Sunrise
- 1993-1994: Today fill-in news anchor
- June 13, 1994 - January 3, 1997: Today news anchor
- January 6, 1997 - November 28, 2017: Today co-anchor
- 1997-2017: Dateline NBC contributing anchor
- 1998-2016: Christmas in Rockefeller Center host
- 1998-2017: Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade host
- 2010-2013: Rock Center with Brian Williams correspondent
Personal life
Lauer is married to Dutch model Annette Roque, whom he met on a blind date in July 1997. Lauer proposed to Roque after five months of dating and the two wed in Water Mill, New York on 3 October 1998. They have three children together: son Jack, daughter Romy, and son Thijs (b. November 28, 2006)
He was previously married to television producer Nancy Alspaugh for seven years, from 1982 until 1989. They had no children.
References
External links
- Bio on the Today Show (Archived on January 17, 2017)
- Matt Lauer on IMDb
- Appearances on C-SPAN
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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