Sally Jessy Raphaël
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Sally Jessy Raphaël (born Sally Lowenthal on February 25, 1935 in Easton, Pennsylvania) is an American tabloid talk show host.
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[edit] Early years
Raphael was born in Easton, in the Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania. She attended Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and the University of Puerto Rico in Puerto Rico. She earned a BFA from Columbia University in New York City.
[edit] Career
[edit] Journalism
Following her graduation from Columbia University, Raphael became a media correspondent for the Associated Press and United Press International.
[edit] Sally Jessy Raphaël show
She later gained notoriety as a radio personality in Puerto Rico. She hosted a radio call-in advice show distributed by NBC Talknet from 1981 to 1987, but is most famous for hosting the television talk show, Sally Jessy Raphaël (later shortened to simply Sally), which ran in first-run syndication from 1983 to 2002. She was best known to TV viewers for her big, red-framed glasses, and the Kleenex tissues she handed out liberally to crying guests.
In later years, her show moved toward topics such as unwed mothers who did not know the father of their babies, and wild, sexually-active teenagers who were sent to boot camp; in this regard, her show had become reminscient of shows hosted by Maury Povich and Jerry Springer. At its core, her show had not previously touched such topics, going for less controversial subject matter.
Raphaël spoke out in the press against the change to more raunchy material, but she continued the show, insisting that she'd rather be on television with lower ratings than end her career entirely. When her talk show became one of the lowest-rated talk shows in syndication by the early 2000s, the show was eventually canceled by the production company in charge of distribution.
In 2002 Raphaël was one of only three people named on both industry publication Talkers magazine's 25 greatests radio, and 25 greatest television, talk show hosts of all time lists. [1]
[edit] Talknet
As of 2005, she hosts a daily radio show, Sally Jessy Raphael on Talknet (previously called Sally JR's Open House), on the Internet, and recently she has transferred the format to local radio. She recently did a sample show for WLIS/WMRD, Middletown-Hartford, Connecticut, and recorded 9 hours of material for WHJJ, Providence, Rhode Island. After these trials, the show was picked up by WVIE, Baltimore, Maryland, as the parent station, and is being syndicated among other AM stations in New England, the Mid-Atlantic and the Mid-West. The show is still accessible on the internet. The name "Talknet" is a revival of the name of NBC Talknet, the now defunct radio network that carried her previous radio show from 1981 to 1987.
[edit] Personal life
Raphaël has been married since 1963 to Karl Soderlund, who also doubles as her manager. In 1992, her 19-year-old adopted son was seriously injured in a car accident.
Mere weeks after the incident, her daughter Allison (from her first marriage to Andrew Vladimir) died in her sleep, reportedly from a mixture of alcohol and pain medication she had been taking for a back injury.
Raphaël's grief from the two incidents was highly publicized. Raphaël currently resides in Dutchess County, New York, with her husband.
[edit] External links
- Sally Jessy Raphael Official Web Site.
- Sally Jessy Raphael at the Internet Movie Database.
- Sally Jesse Raphael at NNDB.
Categories: American television talk show hosts | Television series by NBC Universal Television | The Surreal Life | Daytime Emmy Award winners | Columbia University alumni | Jewish American journalists | People from the Lehigh Valley | American adoptive parents | 1935 births | Living people | First-run syndicated television programs | Television talk shows
