PR.com (Allison Kugel): What was your very first job in television and how did you get it?

Leeza Gibbons: My very first job in media was actually a radio job. I worked for National Public Radio while I was in college and realized how much fun it was. I just got totally hooked on communicating stories. You know, when I was in the sixth grade, we were doing one of those talent shows at school and I came home upset [because] I had no talent. And my mom said, "Yes you do! You're going to stand up there and tell a story. You're a great story teller." I guess I really self identified at that moment and had been doing that throughout my entire career. My first television opportunity to tell stories came my first year out of college, at WSPA-TV in Spartanburg, South Carolina. I was a general assignment news reporter. I did everything from chase ambulances to report on burst water pipes and exotic animals escaped from the zoo…everything.

PR.com: So you started your career in South Carolina, your hometown. What brought you to Los Angeles?

Leeza Gibbons: I moved to LA by way of New York and Texas. I was working for Eyewitness News in South Carolina and that was around the time when Magazine Shows started populating the broadcast landscape. That is when they first began to do PM Magazines. So I started hosting a show in Texas. I had my heart set on moving to Dallas, and when I showed up with my little resume tape in Dallas, they thought I was not quite ready for the big city, so they sent me to their sister station in Bellmont, Texas. I did a PM Magazine there and then a year later I moved up to Dallas and did the same thing for five years, and a headhunter called me in Dallas and said that they were looking for hosts for "Two On The Town" in New York. I'd never really been to New York, so I thought, "Well that'll be great. I'll go and check that out."

PR.com: That was your very first trip to New York?

Leeza Gibbons: Yeah. I got that job and then we got cancelled. The show was cancelled while I was on assignment in Rio. We got a call [from the show], "Don't hurry back. Enjoy yourself. Show's cancelled."

PR.com: Did they at least pay for the rest of the trip?

Leeza Gibbons: Yes they did!

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