Lynne's still lookin' good!
Hey, isn't it that woman from CNN?
What's fiery news veteran Lynne Russell doing reading news updates on the upper channels of the CBC?
By Suzanne Ma
GLOBEANDMAIL.COM
Five years after veteran anchor Lynne Russell signed off from her last broadcast on CNN Headline News, the flamboyant newscaster, famous for her red hair and sultry voice, is back -- this time on Canadian television.
Russell is now behind the desk at CBC Newsworld in Toronto, reading headlines at the top of the hour on Friday evenings and hosting the occasional newscast. It's a small job for a big-time journalist, who spent 18 years at CNN in Atlanta. But that's exactly what she wants, for now.
"It's a great way to settle in and become familiar with the operation," said Russell, 59, who first appeared on the CBC in mid-May. "It's wonderful to have the luxury of taking that kind of time."
Dressed in black strappy heels and a peach-orange blazer, Russell anchored Newsworld updates last Sunday, conducting a live question-and-answer segment with a World Cup soccer expert in Vancouver. As time ran out, producers in the control room gently told Russell to "wrap it up." She finished the segment smoothly with a dashing smile, but later told producers that she wasn't sure how much time she had left in the segment.
"Everyone is just so nice and polite here," she said. "I was waiting for someone to go 'shut the hell up!' That's how they do it down south."
During her time at CNN, Russell garnered a massive fan following (one that is still alive and well today on the Internet), maintaining a much higher -- and sexier -- profile than most anchors. She was asked twice by Playboy to pose (clothed) but declined, and also appeared on the Late Night with Conan O'Brien, where she hiked up her skirt to reveal a gun and holster strapped to her thigh. An unusual accessory for most news anchors maybe, but not for Russell, who still works as a private investigator and was a volunteer sheriff in Atlanta. She holds two black belts in the Korean martial art Choi Kwang Do, and has a tattoo on the inside of her left forearm with Korean characters that read "Pil Sung" or "Certain Victory."
Today, Russell and partner Thomas Beck call Toronto home. This week, they purchased and moved into their first house in the west end of the city. They plan to settle in Canada permanently. The couple moved from Atlanta last July after Beck, a German citizen, accepted an offer to become the president and CEO of the Canadian German Chamber of Industry and Commerce. He held the same position at Atlanta's German-American Chamber of Commerce. "I was sitting at home thinking what it would be like to have winter again when [Thomas] called and asked, 'How'd you like to move to Toronto?' " Russell recalls. "I heard myself saying, 'When?' " Over the years, both she and Beck travelled extensively for their jobs and found Canada to be a comforting place.
"I've worked from one end of the [United States] to another . . . and I think y'all have something good going here," said Russell, who, at times, speaks with a slight southern drawl, though she was born in New Jersey.
"There are neighbourhoods here. I live on a street where there are little lawns, and people talk to each other, people take care of each other, and if you get sick, there are people knocking on your door with chicken soup."
While many Canadian journalists head south of the border for opportunities at bigger and seemingly more exciting U.S. networks, Russell said she has come to Toronto looking for a "mellower" time. From the time she was 19, her life has been the exact opposite.
After dropping out of nursing school in college, she got a job as a receptionist at a radio station in Colorado where she quickly became a disc jockey, and later moved on to talk radio. In 1978, she appeared on television reporting for local news stations across the United States. She was one of the first anchors hired at CNN Headline News in 1983, and was the first woman to be a prime-time solo anchor on network television.
Her autobiography titled How to Win Friends, Kick a$$ & Influence People was released in 1999. She met her partner, Beck, that same year at a party in Atlanta. She was standing at the back of the room with an empty wineglass. He brought her some more wine, and later that week, sent a whole case of German wine to CNN. "Security went crazy," laughed Russell, who received heaps of letters from crazed fans and stalkers.
Russell recalls one instance when a man followed her to the San Antonio airport and repeatedly tried to get in the background of her location shot. "I covered my mike, turned to the man and said, 'If you don't knock it off, you're gonna carry your balls out in a basket.' "
She left CNN in 2001 because she wanted to change her lifestyle. "Life is too short," she said. "And I was tired of trying to catch up all the time." Both her parents died that year and Beck was diagnosed with colon cancer (he underwent surgery and is now cancer-free). Life at CNN was also in a state of flux, after the network was purchased by the newly merged AOL Time Warner.
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"rack" indeed!