Neighbor:

Katie Couric
News Anchor

By Jerry Cimisi

The real Katie Couric may lie somewhere in between the first woman ever to solo anchor the evening news on the networks, the woman who underwent an on-the-air colonoscopy to raise awareness for the disease that killed her husband, a 15-year co-host of “The Today Show,” and possessor of the most talked about (and viewed) legs in the news business. Oh, yes: and a new Hamptons homeowner.

As everyone in the Western world knows, Ms. Couric made news herself this September 5 when she took over as anchor on the “CBS Evening News,” once the stage for Dan Rather and, before him, the venerable Walter Cronkite (“The Most Trusted Man in America”). On that September evening, CBS saw its ratings rise 86 percent over the same night a year ago, with the network reversing what had become its usual third place position behind NBC and ABC. In a white jacket over a black top, and back-dropped by graphics of the “War on Terror,” Couric, oft-criticized as coasting on her perkiness, was clearly sailing on top of the heap, balancing Afghanistan with a photo of Tom Cruise’s baby.

A few dry facts. She was born Katherine Ann Couric on January 7, 1956 in Arlington, Virginia. Her father was Episcopalian, of French descent and her mother Jewish, of German immigrants. Couric reported on “The Today Show” that she had traced her ancestry back to a French orphan who came to America in the 19th century who became a broker in the cotton business.

Couric began her reporting career as a desk assistant for the ABC News Bureau in Washington. She later went to CNN. She spent the mid-1980s as an assignment reporter for a Miami station, then went to an NBC affiliate in D.C., where she earned an Associated Press award and an Emmy.

She joined NBC news in 1989. The following year she became a correspondent for “The Today Show” and became a co-anchor in ‘91. She hosted news and entertainment specials, the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, has interviewed presidents, foreign leaders and J.K. Rowling.

And, it seems, she has shown her legs. Or, at least, her camera people have. Her perennial choice of short skirts have led to as much discussion as the news she has conveyed. Once when she was a substitute host on “The Tonight Show,” person or persons unknown cut away the front of Jay Leno’s desk so the audience could see her legs.

A staff member on a science-based website was watching Couric on “Today,” and made the comment to her colleagues that the broadcaster’s legs were getting as much play as the news. As both a lark and an experiment, the website developed commentary and photos on Ms. Couric and her legs, and gets about 300,000 hits on these matters a month. Among its images: a short-skirted, black-booted Ms. Couric before a panel of men in suits, and an unidentified male (we just see the bent top of his head) lifting one of Katie’s legs and nuzzling her toes — while she laughs (both in embarrassment and triumph, perhaps).

And there are the quotes, “attributed” to her: “A good brain and good legs are an asset in this business. If you’re a man you need neither.”

And: “When there is so much emphasis on ratings, it’s hard for true journalism to survive.”

OK, let’s say she’s serious about that. She certainly knew how to mix the personal with her large audience after her husband, Jay Monahan, died of colon cancer in 1998. Couric urged viewers to gain greater awareness of the disease, and underwent a colonoscopy on the air. Years later she would broadcast her own mammogram. Her concern about such issues could only have been increased by the death of her sister Emily, a Virginia state senator, who died of pancreatic cancer in 2001.

In 2003 an issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine reported that according to a study, Couric’s efforts had increased the numbers of those seeking a colonoscopy, commenting that “an individual can draw attention and support to worthwhile causes.”

Couric, who has two daughters from her late husband, has been linked romantically with jazz trumpeter Chris Botti, Republican billionaire Jimmy Reyes of Reyes Holding LLC (ironically, Couric is considered a liberal) and multimillionaire TV producer Tom Werner. It was reported that the fact that Werner lived on the west coast caused a geographic problem for the east coast Couric, who resides with her children in a $3.2 million apartment on Park Avenue.

And reportedly she spent almost twice that, $6.3 million, to purchase a home this year in East Hampton, on an acre and a half about five blocks from the beach. Her neighbors are basketball’s Larry Brown and promoter Ron Delsener.

While she hunted for a house on the East End this year, and was on the verge of leaving “Today” after a decade and half, the enormity of her leap may have made her bit absent-minded. New York magazine reported a “source” who said that Couric more than once left her fur-lined purse in the cars of her brokers as they drove her around to see homes. At one real estate office an assistant of Couric’s was sent to retrieve the purse, which the “source” said no one in the office peeked into.

Couric trivia: she played a prison guard in Austin Powers: Goldmember. She surpassed Bryant Gumbel as the longest serving co-anchor of “The Today Show” —by one month and 26 days.

She took over the “CBS Evening News” on the same date – September 5 – that Tom Brokaw, with whom she once worked, began his own long stint as anchor of the “NBC Nightly News” in 1983.

In May, when Katie Couric announced she was leaving “The Today Show,” she said, “Sometimes I think change is a good thing. Although it may be terrifying to get out of your comfort zone, it’s very exciting to start a new chapter in your life.”

It appears that Katie Couric has at least one large, long chapter left to her storied life that will now include time in the Hamptons, where she will doubtless stroll with her renowned legs.