Kathryn Lee Epstein was born on August 16, 1953, in Paris, France. Her father served in the United States Navy, and Kathie spent most of her childhood with her deeply religious family in Baltimore, Maryland. After high school, she studied drama and music at the Oral Roberts University in Tulsa.
Her popularity grew in the 1970s when she was married to Paul Johnson. She worked as a vocalist on the game show Name That Tune, hosted by Tom Kennedy, where she put her vocal skills to work in the "sing a tune" segment. Gifford also joined the cast of Hee Haw Honeys, a sitcom spin-off of Hee Haw.
After divorcing Johnson, Kathie met sports commentator Frank Gifford during an episode of Good Morning America. The pair married in 1986. She worked for several months as a morning talk show personality, and in 1985 took over for Cyndy Garvey as co-host of The Morning Show. The other host was Regis Philibin, and the chemistry and witty banter between the pair led to greater popularity for the show.
In 1988, the title of the show was officially changed to Live With Regis and Kathie Lee, and Gifford became a national star in her own right. Viewers and fans tuned in for their daily dose of the pair, and Kathie freely shared the details of her at home life with her husband Frank and children Cody and Cassidy. In 2000, the constantly perky Kelly Ripa replaced Kathie as Philbin’s sidekick.
In 1996, Kathie found herself at the center of a controversy when it was reported that sweatshop labor was used to make her signature clothing line sold in Wal-Mart stores. One of the workers even came to the United States to talk about the horrendous conditions. Of course, Gifford did what she could to save face during the embarrassing allegations. She defended herself on Live, and later appeared at the White House with then president Bill Clinton to support a government initiative to stop sweat shop labor.
Further embarrassment for the star came in 1997 when the tabloid magazine The Globe discovered an affair was occurring between her husband and a flight attendant named Suzen Johnson.
As if that weren’t enough, the same publication targeted her again a short year later. They printed a photo of her daughter Cassidy next to a photo of the murdered JonBenet Ramsey. The two children were posed similarly and the headline claimed that Kathie Lee was doing the same thing to her child as JonBenet’s mother had done to her, implying that Cassidy was a victim of negligent parenting. Two weeks later, Kathie announced her departure as Regis’s co-host, and although she said nothing specifically about the tabloid headlines, she did say she was doing it to protect her children.
Her career, although not as big as it once was, is far from over. She has released the CD The Heart of a Women, serves as a special correspondent on the The Insider, and also works with several children’s charities for babies born with HIV or crack cocaine addiction.
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