Word: vieira
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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When Vicki Gordon, a producer of CBS's trendy magazine show West 57th, opened this month's issue of Esquire, she was horrified. There on page 142 was a scorching picture of Meredith Vieira, one of the show's on-air correspondents, seated in a chair, head shyly hidden in folded arms -- and pink taffeta skirt hiked up, revealing an extravagance of thighs and a beauty mark on the inside | of her knee. Gordon promptly called the magazine to protest. To her chagrin, she soon learned that Vieira herself was unruffled. Indeed, the 34-year-old journalist had happily posed...
Others cheered Vieira's attitude. Said Helen Gurley Brown, editor of Cosmopolitan: "I've been defending the idea for years that you could be womanly, interested in sex and still be a serious achiever." Declared Andrew Lack, executive producer of West 57th: "I think Meredith is a fascinating woman, and that was reflected in the piece. Being sexy does not compromise your journalistic values...
...Vieira is just one of a handful of successful journalists who have recently flouted their images as serious professional women by flaunting their glamour and sex appeal. NBC's Maria Shriver, decked out in a strapless evening gown, dallied mischievously with Arnold Schwarzenegger in Vanity Fair shortly before their April 1986 wedding; this month the 32-year-old TV reporter's make-up routine is featured in a stunning photo sequence in Harper's Bazaar. And CBS Superstar Diane Sawyer, 42, radiated Hollywood-star presence in a set of sultry photographs in last September's Vanity Fair...
...these high-powered women indulging in such dazzling displays? "I am a journalist, and I take that very seriously," explains Vieira. "But I don't think being serious means that you can't show different facets of yourself. This was for fun. That's the spirit in which I took it, and the spirit in which I wish anybody else would take it." Others, though, see subtler motivations. Sociologist Arlie Hochschild of the University of California, Berkeley cautions that some women may feel less feminine the higher up the ladder they go and thus have a greater need to advertise...
...Meredith Vieira joins the growing band of female TV journalists who flout the old rules by flaunting their glamour and sex appeal...