Nan Winton became the first woman to appear in vision while reading the BBC news on 20 June 1960. The news of this event, unremarkable today, was reported in the national press the following day and generated much discussion over the following months. The decision to place a female newsreader on screen was made partly in response to the challenge of commercial television, but was announced as an experiment.
Winton, who read three news summaries on her first day in front of the camera, was an experienced journalist who had worked on Panorama and Town and Around. She was thought to be serious enough to overcome the prejudice voiced in the media that said women were too frivolous to be the bearers of grave news. However, according to BBC Audience Research, viewers thought that a woman reading the late news was "not acceptable". By October, when the initial experiment ended, Winton had read the late bulletins seven times.
The first female newsreader to gain acceptance on the BBC was Angela Rippon, who became a regular presenter of the Nine O'clock News in 1975. Winton went on to work for ITV.
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When Dorothy Fuldheim began her legendary news career, she was already in her 50s. Retiring from teaching but not the workforce, she entered the field via radio, heading a local history program on WTAM and a weekly editorial on ABC. When Channel 5 WEWS-TV, Cleveland’s first commercial television station, asked her to be its nightly newscaster, Fuldheim, on December 17, 1947, became television’s first female news anchor and possibly the first female television news commentator. A broadcast journalist trailblazer known for her opinionated and passionate personality and fiery red hair, Fuldheim stayed with the news program for 37 years. Fellow broadcast journalism pioneer Barbara Walters described Fuldheim as “the first woman to be taken seriously doing the news.”
Born Dorothy Violet Snell on June 26, 1893, in Passaic, New Jersey, to German Jewish immigrant parents, Fuldheim grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where she attended Milwaukee College and became a country school teacher. After marrying her first husband, Milton H. Fuldheim, she moved to Cleveland, Ohio, in the 1920s and turned to lecturing on social issues. To inform her lecture topics, Fuldheim traveled the world interviewing figures such as Mussolini and Hitler prior to World War II, attracting the attention of WEWS.
After anchoring at WEWS for ten years, she co-hosted “The One O’Clock Club” afternoon show. Fuldheim also worked overseas as a field reporter on assignments from Israel to Northern Ireland. Among her famous interviewees were Helen Keller, Bob Hope, Jimmy Hoffa, Albert Einstein, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Madame Chiang Kai-shek, the Duke of Windsor, and each US president from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan. Her most famous broadcasts included throwing Youth International Party leader Jerry Rubin off of her show for being “vulgar” and condemning the May 4, 1970 Kent State shootings. After members of the Ohio National Guard shot and killed four students during an anti-war protest, Fuldheim cried on air and asked, “And who gave the National Guard the bullets? Who ordered the use of them? Since when do we shoot our own children?” Furious viewers who disagreed with her assessment of the event called the station and sent hate mail, prompting Fuldheim to offer her resignation. However, the channel stood by her and she remained in her role.
Fuldheim won many awards for her journalism and was named one of "America's Most Admired Women'' by a Gallup Poll. She wrote memoirs I Laughed, I Cried, I Loved: A News Analyst’s Love Affair with the World in 1966, A Thousand Friends in 1974, Three and a Half Husbands in 1976, and The House I Live In in 1981. She also authored Where Were the Arabs about the Israeli-Arab conflict following the Six-Day War and wrote book reviews.
Fuldheim’s only child, Dorothy Fuldheim-Urman, a Russian professor at Case Western Reserve University, preceded her in death in 1980. Fuldheim was still working at 91 years old when she suffered a stroke on air after interviewing President Ronald Reagan. This event forced her retirement from her groundbreaking broadcast career. Following a second stroke, Fuldheim died at 96 years old on November 3, 1989, in Cleveland.
This entry was created for This Week in History as part of a course on the history of American Jews and Social Justice taught by Karla Goldman at the University of Michigan, Winter 2021.
Sources: Case Western Reserve University. (n.d.). Fuldheim, Dorothy. Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. //case.edu/ech/articles/f/fuldheim-dorothy; Cleveland Arts Prize. (n.d.). Dorothy Fuldheim, News Commentator and Author, 1893–1989. Cleveland Arts Prize. //clevelandartsprize.org/awardees/dorothy_fuldheim.html; O'Dell, C. (1997). Women Pioneers in Television: Biographies of Fifteen Industry Leaders. Jefferson, N.C. McFarland & Company. //archive.org/details/womenpioneersint00odel/page/108/mode/2up?q=dorothy+fuldheim; Seifullah, A. A.A., & Strassmeyer, M. (1989, November 4). Dorothy Fuldheim, TV News Legend: Life Stories Revisited. Cleveland Plain Dealer; WikiTree. (2011). Dorothy Violet (Schnell) Fuldheim (1893 - 1989). WikiTree Where Genealogists Collaborate. //www.wikitree.com/wiki/Schnell-77
(Image courtesy of Pioneers of Television Archives)
Betty White: First Lady of Television is a special filmed over the course of 10 years by the team behind the acclaimed Pioneers of Television series. Don’t miss this warm look at the life and career of Betty White, the beloved television and film legend who celebrated 80 years in show business in 2018 — officially the longest career in the history of TV.
Lauded for her roles as the bawdy Sue Ann on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, the innocent Rose on The Golden Girls, and her more recent role as the worldly Elka on Hot in Cleveland, Betty White is also an industry pioneer. She was the first woman to produce a national TV show, the first woman to star in a sitcom, the first producer to hire a female director, and the first woman to receive an Emmy nomination.
Betty White: First Lady of Television traces Betty’s remarkable career from her early days in radio to her first TV series — as co-host of a live, five-and-a-half-hour, six-day-a-week variety show. She produced and starred in the pioneering sitcom Life with Elizabeth and was a popular TV personality throughout the ’50s and ’60s. A rabid game player in real life, Betty was a much sought-after game show contestant. It was during an appearance on Password where she first met the man who would become her husband and the love of her life, Allen Ludden.
The 1970s saw Betty win two Emmys for her role on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Betty earned another Emmy in the mid-80s for her role as Rose on The Golden Girls. She made history when she hosted Saturday Night Live in 2010 at the age of 88 – and won yet another Emmy. Although she continues to attain roles and accolades, Betty’s true love is animals; she has been a passionate animal advocate throughout her career.
Granted exclusive access to Betty and her team, the producers of Betty White: First Lady of Television were able to capture the magic of her performances at various venues, along with more personal moments at home and interacting with close friends — one of whom is a 900-pound grizzly bear. The film is packed with hilarious clips from her long career and comments from friends and co-stars, including Valerie Bertinelli, Georgia Engel, Tina Fey, Valerie Harper, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Gavin MacLeod, Carl Reiner, Ryan Reynolds, Tom Sullivan, Alex Trebek, and many more!
On CPTV: Saturday, November 23, 2019 at 8 p.m.
While it would be lovely to think that reality is far more forward-thinking than fiction, the storied history of women in film and TV proves otherwise. So, you can file that under con. Pro? It means Hollywood has helped paved the way for (often long overdue) change. The screen, both big and small, has served as a conduit for introducing charged ideas about race, gender, politics, sex, power and so much more — and with the 2022 Oscar nominations marking film history for Jane Campion as the first woman director to be nominated twice for an Academy Award, we’re looking back at all the women who have pushed TV and movie history forward with their careers.
Related story 20 Movies Directed by Women You Should Watch Right Now
Granted, women in real life face real-life obstacles. But seeing women live their best, most badass lives on-screen makes you want to push past those obstacles — and we can thank trailblazing women of TV and film for that visual reminder. Despite being marginalized, having their work diminished, and, well, being pushed aside routinely throughout history, women on screen have pushed back to become pioneers of social progress. Representation matters. Seeing different versions of ourselves on screen is important. Has Hollywood dismantled the patriarchy? No. But the women who’ve been stealing the spotlight since the inception of moving pictures are sure as hell doing their best to bring the female perspective to the forefront.
So, in celebration of these leading ladies, let’s take a look at some of their most awe-inspiring moments — from groundbreaking conversations to historic award wins.
A version of this article was originally published August 2020.