But there was no way I could change that. We live a public life and we live a private life. And if they collide, they collide… There's a point at which you just want to have your life and move on; and I've moved on. He is immune to that, I think. Gumbel, whose former wife was black, added: "Love is so difficult to find and happiness is so difficult to find, when you find it, you find it. Though Gumbel, who once described himself as "a cocky SOB," has been criticized for being brusque and abrasive, Quinlan says that's not the reality.
He's a man of great humility that people would be very surprised by. But Lauer also pointed out his friend's flaws. When Gumbel left Today, Lauer remembers making a toast: "I said, 'If Bryant likes you, you have one of the best friends you'll ever have.
If Bryant doesn't like you, you should go off and join the Witness Protection Program. He adds, "There's not a lot of gray area with Bryant… He has very strong opinions and he voices them, but that, in my opinion, is what makes him interesting.
Responding to rumors about a tense relationship between them, he says, "We were two different kinds of people. What sometimes she thought was funny, I would think was not; what I thought was funny, she thought was juvenile.
We got along for television purposes, and off the air we got along, but we weren't particularly close. Gumbel may be leaving morning TV, but Lauer doesn't think he'll be content away from center-stage for too long. And that's enough for me. He has also hosted multiple shows on CBS.
Gumbel was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on September 29, The degree he earned from Bates College, in Lewiston, Maine, was in Russian history, and he also holds honorary doctorates from several higher learning institutions.
From there, he went on to interview some of the world's most successful and powerful people, reporting on hard-hitting topics across the globe. Let's take a look at the life and career of Bryant Gumbel. Bryant Gumbel is not the kind of sportscaster who peppers in a few "boomshakalakas" during the highlight reels before calling it a day. His reporting — even, or rather, especially in sports — is so in-depth and insightful that the Peabody Awards said, "Bryant Gumbel's long-running series could just as easily be called 'Real life.
The show's Peabody-winning season looked into the detrimental effects of concussions on professional football players. As several universities, organizations, and awards programs have recognized over the years, Bryant Gumbel's reporting never leaves a stone unturned. One of the characteristics that has served Gumbel well in his decades-long journalism career is his self-confidence. It's something that he views as essential to his profession.
But Gumbel's critics tend to describe his self-confidence as arrogance, while white journalists get called things like "aggressive" and "assertive. But he has little time for such obvious racial prejudice. Gumbel's self-confidence has been a point of contention since early in his career. He had to answer cries of arrogance in , when he was chosen to host the Olympics , held in Seoul, South Korea, that year.
As a result, I'm perceived as more arrogant than Ted Koppel. He went out, bought a Blimpie sandwich and called his parents, collect. Deck the Halls. He finally took a job writing for a small monthly, Black Sports , and that was what he was doing on April 10, , when a friend of the family called to tell Bryant his father had collapsed in his courtroom and died of a heart attack.
Richard never saw Bryant on TV. How long did it take him to get over that death? And the truth is, he's not. As Greg has said, ''Without sounding as if I don't miss [my father], I think it's fair to say Bryant misses him more. He suffers more. He gravitated tremendously to Dad. It's certainly nothing we've ever talked about, but I would say Bryant was probably my father's favorite. This summer Bryant recalled the last time he saw his father. He was saying goodbye, and he had wanted to kiss him, but thought, ''Nah, you're a man, now,'' and shook his dad's hand instead.
Ironically, a week after Richard's funeral, Bryant's career began to bloom. Gumbel flew in and was so good that the producer assumed Gumbel had memorized the audition script. Within a year, he was doing the weekday sports.
He was doing a wrap-up for his own affiliate, using NBC cameras, and the network people watching were so impressed that they called him in. We were dumbfounded. We had experienced network guys who would've taken two hours to do what he did in two minutes. The next year that kid was hired as cohost of NBC's wraparound show, Grandstand, paired first with Jack Buck and then with Lee Leonard, both of whom were phased out over the next few years.
It wasn't their fault. Next to Gumbel, everybody else clunked like a dryer full of tennis shoes. When the show folded, Gumbel joined the first wave of ubiquitous sports anchors. Before long, Gumbel was the rock of 30 Rock. Once, he was supposed to do an opener from the floor at an NCAA title game. What the producers didn't know was that the empty seats behind Gumbel at rehearsal would be filled that night by a very loud band. When the show went on, there was a trombone threatening!
He not only couldn't hear what his producers were saying from the truck, but he also couldn't hear what he was saying. Unruffled, he spun through his segment as though he were chatting over a backyard fence, finishing at the correct second, cueless.
Barry Bonds. Just ask him. The early years on Today were dicey -- the show was still running a distant second in the ratings in the summer of -- but by '85 it had tied Good Morning America in the Neilsens, and last winter it held a comfortable lead. One big reason, says Today writer Merle Rubine, is that ''Bryant just improved every day, absorbed new material every day, got better, smarter, wiser and more sophisticated as he went along. Yet he sits there and proves himself day after day.
Gumbel will turn 40 during the Olympics, the Carnegie Hall of his career. He will be dissected daily by every newspaper critic with a TV in his den. What, him worry? Anti-Gumbelers say his microchip perfection will wear out its welcome the first week. Hey Gladys, does this Gumbo guy ever screw up? Is he ever at a loss for words? Can a man who knows everything ever be surprised? Jim McKay, the perennial Olympic host for ABC, may have slipped a bit, but he at least seems human; he at least seems thrilled.
Gumbel-maniacs think he'll be golden. They needed somebody who had stature, who was tremendously facile and glib, who had supreme confidence in himself and wasn't likely to be rattled by anything. That's Gumbel. What some people don't like about Gumbel is that he seems to know how good he is. And, O. Even he admits, ''I've always got a comeback.
Does Paulina Porizkova walk around without makeup? In fact, the only racism he encounters comes from other blacks.
Gumbel doesn't listen. Rhea has noticed. When Bryant is in town, he stays at a hotel and takes her out for dinner. Greg was on hand for his younger sister Renee's wedding. He was at Fergie's wedding in London. And his sister Rhonda? Her birthday is the same day as June's. But all that is side hurt. The real hurt is Rhea's. She reads of Bryant speaking eloquently about her husband, but never about her. She was so ''heartbroken'' after one article that she wrote a letter to Bryant that was almost unreadable from the tear stains.
But I brought you into this life, not him. Bryant wrote back, ''I'm not going to dignify some of your remarks. You wrote it when you were hurting. Greg: ''I think my father is probably bigger in death to Bryant than he was in life. With that constant, every-day comparison, there's no way she can measure up. Bryant: ''She probably doesn't think I'm as proud of her as I am. I just don't show it. I'm not good at showing a lot of things. Besides, you've got to understand where most relationships are with me.
If it's halfway decent, it's way up there with me. I guess she sees it as much less. Gumbel has a spare dark suit and tie hanging in his office in case the news is tragic and the suit he's wearing is too light for the occasion. He brings six golf shirts on a three-day golf trip just to make sure he looks perfect. Gumbel never loosens his tie or takes off his jacket, even in summer.
The reason is simple. If he knows that he ''will never see someone as good'' as his father, he knows that includes himself. Guilty as charged. My father did what he did better than I do what I do. What my father did required a lot more intelligence than what I do. He was smarter. He was more important to society. He had more worth. And so, to alleviate the guilt, to prove his worth, Gumbel works obsessively. He didn't become a lawyer as his father had hoped, so he'll be 10 times as good in television.
His goal is to go into every interview unsurprisable. No answer can shock him because he knows all the answers. Gumbel sometimes stays over at his Manhattan town house, but when he sleeps at home in Westchester, he's up at a. Gumbel might know more about Dan Quayle than Dan Quayle does. Are you watching, Dad? Take the Olympics. He went on a coach-hopping tour, meeting with Olympic coaches from coast to coast.
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