by Hoda Kotb
Or: “Stop wearing that red dress with the red V!”
And: “Please, please, please retire that red dress!”
But I love that dress! (Orange sweater syndrome.) I actually called viewers out on that one, saying on air the next day, “What are you talking about? I don’t wear that red dress all the time . . .”
Big mistake, Hoda.
That comment spurred our producers to put together a montage of all the days I wore that damn red dress with the V. They got me. There was nothing I could do but retire that beauty to my closet at home. Now, whenever I start to wear a dress a little too often, our crew guys say, “Oh, Lord, this is gonna be like that red one.”
Sadly, a “system” had to be developed for me. Donna Richards, our superefficient wardrobe gal, created a sort of Dressing for Dummies calendar for me. She logs what I wear each day on the calendar, and my job is to check it each morning before I get dressed so I don’t repeat too often. I usually pick out my “approved” dress and then Kathie Lee chooses a dress that coordinates. I’ve enjoyed the dress-up process more than I ever thought I would. It certainly helps that I have people guiding me every zip, clasp, and step of the way. We have excellent help with our hair and makeup, too.
The Today show makeup room is like the kitchen in most people’s homes. It’s where everyone congregates. While Meredith gets worked on in her dressing room by people she’s been with for years, the rest of us are fluffed and buffed by the brilliant Mary Kahler (makeup) and Laura Castorino (hair) in the makeup room. The number of heads these gals work on each day is amazing. The talent rolls through according to their hour of the show. Ann is usually first, followed by Natalie, and then regular contributors like Dr. Nancy Snyderman or celebrity chef Giada De Laurentiis. Kathie Lee and I are last to plop into the chairs.
My morning unfolds with a trip to the gym by 5 o’clock in the morning. I shower, then head to 30 Rock by 6:30. I go straight to the makeup room because it’s the hot spot for what’s making news and what’s punching buttons.
“How are the people?” I’ll ask each morning when I wander in.
The reply is always, “The people are good!”
During that hour, I listen to the banter and leaf through my pile of stuff—newspapers and information about my segments for the day’s show. This is the faux meeting before the official meeting at 7:30. I’m listening for potential chat topics and determining what we all feel is the buzziest stuff. It’s fun because everyone brings a different perspective to the same topic—just like the viewers who’ll be watching. When it’s my turn to pop into the chair, Laura spends about forty or forty-five minutes taming my most-often wet hair, followed by makeup for about the same amount of time. Kathie Lee is getting worked on next to me, and senior producer Tammy Filler, along with several of our hour’s producers, have joined us in the makeup room as well. They suggest topics for us to use as springboards in the morning’s chat segment.
“Okay, number one—John Edwards went to Haiti; number two—Tiger Woods was spotted; three—a study says women are waiting longer to get married,” they throw out to us.
We spend time deciding if and how we can use each topic as a launching pad to additional topics, and whether we can move smoothly to the next one. We focus on developing happy, upbeat chat instead of the heavy stuff viewers have already watched for a few hours. If it’s a huge news story, like the earthquake in Haiti, certainly we’ll talk about it, but we’ll steer the conversation toward positive stories of survivors or how to offer donations. The goal is to have fun and fill about ten to twelve minutes off the top of the show. When the producers leave the makeup room, I take my much-improved face and hair to my dressing room so I can read up on my show segments in private. You may be thinking, Wow, there’s actually show prep for your circus of an hour?
Yes, there really is. If an author or actor or director comes on our show, we read as much of the book or see as much of the movie as time allows. The producers are great about getting us material days earlier, if possible. For example, when Avatar director James Cameron joined us, producers set up a special screening for us the day before so we’d be able to share our thoughts about the movie with him. I love that we also have the leeway to break away from the topic at hand and ask the guest for input on something we’ve discussed earlier in our chat segment.
“So, what side do you fall on? Jay or Conan?”
It’s fun for us and our viewers to steer the guests off their paths for a minute, and then go right back to the project they’re actually there to plug. Most days, the show flies by. We’re done by 11 o’clock, and often I’m off and running to something else. I may go to a luncheon in the city where a colleague is either speaking or being honored. Sometimes I stay in the building to track audio scripts for a Dateline story I’m covering. Because I work two jobs now, coanchoring the fourth hour and as a correspondent for Dateline, I can’t travel as often for interviews. Thankfully, Dateline frequently flies in the interviewees to New York. It makes sense in a lot of ways. Ideally, we interview people in their homes because you assume that’s where they’d feel most comfortable. However, our crews are so good at what they do, they bring a truckload of gear to people’s homes. They may have to rearrange and even relocate furniture onto the lawn to make room for all the lights, cameras, and audio equipment needed to create our consistently quality product. The result, though, is not-so-familiar surroundings anymore. What we do for me is fly in the interviewee, create a perfect setting in a New York hotel room, and conduct the interview from there. I try to schedule the sessions for noon, so I still have gas left in my tank. I get up at 4 A.M., so I don’t want to run out of steam. It’s been interesting having to switch gears now, with the two very different jobs. One minute I’m tooling around in a motorized cupcake, the next I’m firing questions at a convicted murderer.
• • •
Right around Halloween of 2009, the Today show decided to feature all of us as characters from the classic movie Star Wars. Matt was Luke Skywalker, Meredith was Princess Leia, Ann was Darth Vader, Al was Han Solo, Natalie was Queen Amidala, and Kathie Lee was C-3PO. With a name like Hoda, guess who I was? Yep. Yoda. My Jedi Master costume was nuts! Several days earlier, I had to sit with some sort of gunk on my face to create a custom-made rubber mask. My ears were—significant. Unfortunately, as timing would have it, in a galaxy far, far away, I had a Dateline interview after the show. I knew I wouldn’t have much time to transform from Yoda to Hoda. When I arrived at the interview in a New York hotel room, I hoped I’d stripped off all remnants of Halloween. And I really hoped my Dateline interview hadn’t flipped on the tube.
“Hey, I saw you this morning as Yoda!” I heard when I walked in the room.
Busted. My interview was a woman I’d profiled before for Dateline when she was convicted of murdering her husband. She was now out of prison on an overturned sentence, so we were doing a follow-up story. I laughed off the Yoda reference, grabbed my mental stick shift and switched gears. I do like the mix of hard news and fun news. It’s interesting. I get to flex different muscles for work. Hard news I know and love—I’m a journalist first. But this new opportunity is great, too.
My work week is busy, but whose isn’t? Two or three times a week I leave my heels on and head off to evening events. They’re always for work, either giving a speech or MCing a gathering. I always request to be finished by 8:30 P.M. because that really means 9, and then I’m home by 9:30. My alarm clock buzzes at 4 A.M., so I try not to burn myself out as best I can. Once during the work week, I have a date or dinner with friends. By Friday, I’m tired and may not do a thing in the evening. Saturday and Sunday I always get in runs and usually have brunch with friends. I often go on another date one of the weekend evenings. Sometimes I travel to D.C. to see family, and then there’s just the general stuff of life to tackle. I like the pace of my world. It’s busy, but for me, the less I do the lazier I get. There’s always room for improvement and a balance check, but overall, I
’m doing just fine.
From Hoda to Yoda
What, Ann? I can’t hear you . . .
19
THE BIG TOP
Filling four hours of quality morning television is a challenge. Today show producers have to come up with something interesting to talk about and someone interesting to talk to for hours on end, five days a week. And the process has to unfold, literally, like clockwork. While viewers are treated to a smooth, orderly experience on air, off air the studio halls are buzzing with activity. All the people and creatures that are “on deck” waiting for their turns are in a holding pattern behind the scenes. The best way to give you an idea of this is to share the kind of thing we typically hear crackling over the loudspeakers.
“Someone needs to get the cougar from 1A.”
Or, “They need the big pants for the Joy Fit segment—STAT—to hang on the clothesline.”
Then, the same voice will whisper, “Natalie, we need you in 1A, immediately.”
It’s a trip.
The studios for the Today show sit on three different floors. The top studio is for cooking segments and where Kathie Lee and I open our hour of the show. The middle floor is where most of what you watch on each hour happens. And the bottom floor is where the guests sit in the Green Room, awaiting their segments. You just don’t know who or what you’re going to run into on any of the floors.
Is that the woman who lost 100 pounds, or a model for the His & Hers Pajamas segment? I’ll wonder.
Folks wandering about on the various floors are hard to identify. The Green Room is easier because people will introduce themselves.
“Hi, there. I’m the girl who can’t stop sneezing.”
Okay, wonderful! Thank you. Bless you.
The cast of characters for four hours of television is quite diverse, as you can imagine. I might see Morgan Freeman and Clint Eastwood standing next to the woman who’s going to talk about the latest face creams. Oh, and there’s Elton John. And while I’m introducing myself to the cervical cancer survivor, we might hear this boom over the loudspeakers: “Has anyone seen the flask that looks like a cell phone?”
I still think about the guest who had cervical cancer. She was jittery and told me several times that she was very nervous. Finally, I smiled at her and said, “Um . . . you beat cancer. Just a reminder.” I paused. “You’re going to talk to us for four minutes . . . you beat cancer.” She laughed. And then she did a great job with her segment.
One thing I don’t necessarily love seeing in the halls or on set are the creatures. If you’ve ever watched our hour, you know that I’m not great with furry things. Or things with scales—or shells—or beaks. On the days we have wild animals on set, I make sure Kathie Lee is always between me and the creatures.
“No, Hoda,” she’ll say. “That’s your side.”
And I’ll say, “Not today.”
I don’t enjoy the hair jumping. That’s the issue. Animals look at me and see a comfortable place to nest.
“They go for the high places,” the handler will say.
Yeah. I know it, and my lid knows it. I had a lemur in my hair so fast one morning I didn’t even have time to react. I just stood there and let it knead around in the “habitat” for a while.
“Do they bite?!”
“Only if you provoke them,” they always say.
I’m not doing anything! My hair is provoking them without my consent!
Birds love me. Macaws, spoonbills, vultures—you name it and I’ve likely housed it for several agonizing seconds. By now, I can spot it in their eyes.
Oh, God, here it comes! Flap, flap, flap—and perch.
I have learned a few tricks to at least outsmart the handlers.
“Put your hand out again,” they’ll say. “So he can eat more grapes.”
“Ohhhh . . . (drop the grapes) . . . too bad—looks like I’m out of grapes.”
I guess I’m just better with humans. They tend to move more slowly and almost never bite.
Incoming!!
20
GUESTS HOSTS AND GUESTS
When someone’s a guest in your home, you want them to enjoy themselves. To laugh and eat and leave happy. We feel the same way about guests on our fourth hour. Except we don’t own the home, we don’t do the cooking or cleanup, and there are 2 million people looking through the windows. But we do our best to create a fun atmosphere for our guests. One thing I’ve learned about that process is that if I’m having fun, my guests are more apt to have fun. Sounds simple, but there is an art to Fun Management. I got a glimpse of how it works when I sat behind award-winning news correspondent and anchor Connie Chung back in August of 2004.
We were attending the largest gathering of journalists in the world, called UNITY: Journalists of Color, held in Washington, D.C. Every four years, the conference brings together thousands of journalists from all nationalities with the goal of improving diversity in the news. More than 8,000 people attended the year we were at the Washington Convention Center. I was asked to co-MC a meeting of the Asian American Journalists Association (What is you?) and was delighted to participate. The room was jam-packed with journalists, and we cohosts got up to introduce Connie, who was to make a speech.
“Ladies and gentlemen, Connie Chung.”
Connie walked up to the podium and proceeded to tell the audience, “I have a little song for you guys.” That year, both Senator John Kerry and then-President George W. Bush addressed the attendees. Connie felt inspired. She began to sing (to the tune of the song “Love and Marriage”), “Bush and Kerry, Bush and Kerry” . . . I can’t recall the rest of the words, but I can remember how weird it felt. I had the perfect vantage point to see the audience, as I sat behind Connie and overlooked the crowd. I love to watch people give speeches. I love the ebb and flow and learning how good speakers grab and hold their listeners. But I have to tell you, I was a bit nervous for Connie. “Bush and Kerry, Bush and Kerry” . . . she sang with gusto. The faces in the crowd were blank. Arms were folded, some eyes were rolling.
Oh, my God! I worried. Connie Chung is bombing!
I wondered what the hell I would do if I was getting the same response to a fake song I was singing a cappella—and not that well. (Sorry, Connie.) I’m pretty sure I would have chalked up the loss and moved on. But Connie just kept belting it out. She didn’t dial it back, she didn’t retreat. In fact, she started singing louder. And then swinging her arms, inviting everyone to buy in. She sang, and smiled and sold it. And you know what? The crowd did buy in. By the end of that song, the place was howling. People were up on their feet and clapping wildly. Go figure.
I learned something that evening. There are times when you just have to show people that you’re all in. Sometimes, if you’re that far in, the best move is to go even farther and take everybody with you. That’s Fun Management. After the speech, I told Connie how amazed I was by her approach and her calm. She shrugged it off. For her, it was just another day. She’s a veteran who knows what she’s doing and how to wrangle fun. She’s a wise one.
• • •
Some of the guests we invite into our “home” are famous or familiar faces we ask to fill in for either me or Kathie Lee. When one of us takes time off or has to be away from the show, the roll call begins for a guest host. Because we are rarely gone, the fill-in experience is a bit odd for both of us—like being on a blind date. Clearly, it’s even odder for the guest hosts. They are plucked out of their element and thrown into our world for an hour. I remember country music star Billy Ray Cyrus asking me in a southern drawl, “Do you want me to read the words over they-er”—pointing to the teleprompter—or “jist talk?” What a good guy. I told Billy Ray to just talk, and he did great.
We make a point to ease the guest hosts’ nerves by chatting about their current projects and interests. One week, we invited a housewife each day from the television series, Real Housewives of (fill in the city). Bethenny Frankel, from Real Housewives of New York, was a very funny gues
t host and melded easily with the show. I asked her on air to tell us about some of the things she liked to do in New York City.
“I like to go to the Four Seasons and get this cotton candy treat,” she described. “It’s beautiful and fun.”
I replied, “Wow, cotton candy at the Four Seasons—how much does that cost?”
She looked at me like I was nuts and without skipping a beat shot back, “You’re on a date. It’s free.” Everything out of her mouth is hilarious. Like that.
We try to choose guest hosts who are current—people viewers recognize from a hot program or project. One of my favorite cohosts is Piers Morgan, known here in the United States as a judge on the TV program America’s Got Talent. We like flirting with each other. He’s British and witty and highly opinionated. Piers is also comfortable on set because he’s familiar with the workings of television.
“Hoda, I’m engaged, but the door’s still open,” he’ll say with his sexy accent and sly smile.
We had his fiancée on as a guest, and she’s gorgeous and smart. So we get that Piers is harmless. The fun part is just having some testosterone around once in a while. The fourth hour is pretty heavily estrogen-laden. Piers always brings me on-air gifts, too, and tries to outgift his “rival” cohost, TV financial and advertising analyst Donny Deutsch. When Donny brought me a pair of Christian Louboutin designer shoes, Piers felt threatened—down in his pair. So, he called his friend, multibillionaire and Virgin founder Richard Branson. On the air, Piers handed me the phone.