May 9, 2025 • 9 mins
Jessica Savitch had a dramatic rise... and an even more dramatic fall in the network news business of the 1970s and ’80s. It’s a shocker! But her tragic story oddly inspired Will Ferrell to do the movie Anchorman: The Rise and Fall of Ron Burgundy. Here’s the backstory!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
She was a talented, smart, beautiful, but troubled network news
star whose story inspired Will Ferrell to make the flick
Anchorman the Legend of Ron Burgundy. But she had one
of the most infamous and watched on air meltdowns in
the history of network news. I'm Patty Steele. Three weeks
after that, Jessica Savage was dead at the age of
(00:20):
thirty six. That's next on the backstory. The backstory is back.
You know what, I finally realized self confidence has pretty
much nothing to do with how talented, smart, good looking, rich,
or entitled you are in life. How sexy you are. Yeah,
(00:40):
maybe a little bit, just because self confidence can make
you sexy. But confidence is its own thing. Perfect example,
the NBC News anchored Jessica Savage. She was beautiful, well educated,
good journalist, network star, but riddled with self doubt, which
led to coke addiction, terrible love affairs, and her career
(01:02):
defining on air meltdown. Three weeks after that awful October
primetime downfall, she was dead at the age of thirty six.
No matter how much you have and how far you
go in life, if you don't have the inner piece
that comes from real self confidence. You're always trying to
make the pain go away, you know. Jessica Savage was
born in Wilmington, Delaware, in nineteen forty seven. Her mom
(01:25):
was a Navy nurse and her dad at a clothing store,
but he died when she was twelve, and Jessica and
her mother moved to the Jersey Shore, just south of
Atlantic City. During high school, she got a job at
a local radio station hosting a rock show, and pretty
quickly was hired as a newsreader and regular disc jockey,
first female DJ in town. Jessica later said she was
(01:48):
hopelessly awkward as a teenager, but hearing her own voice
on the air gave her a sense of direction. After
she graduated from high school, Jessica went to Ithaca College,
majoring in communications. She was an announcer on the college
TV station, and she worked on the radio in nearby Rochester,
New York. As soon as she got out of college,
(02:09):
she got an administrative job at CBS News Radio in
New York, but without any professional experience, they said no
to an on air job for her. So despite her
insecurities and lack of social skills, she was tremendously ambitious
and with the help of friends, she used a WCBSTV
studio off hours to make a TV audition tape. She
(02:32):
sent copies to hundreds of TV stations around the country
looking for an on air job. She got fewer than
a dozen responses and only one job interview. Amazingly, even
with no broadcast news experience, she was hired by a
station in Houston, Texas as their first female reporter. A
few months later, they gave her a weekend anchor shift,
(02:55):
and one of her reports ran on the CBS Evening
News with Walter Cronkite. She was on her way. Within
a couple of years, Jessica was working as a reporter
and anchor in Philadelphia. She was part of a team
there with two men, and they became wildly popular. But
she desperately wanted to be a network reporter, and in
nineteen seventy seven she was hired at NBC News. Jessica
(03:19):
said in her autobiography that when she first tried to
get into TV news, she was told she couldn't because
she was a woman. Later, once she was in, she
said she was told she only got the job because
she's a woman. In fact, her relationships with men in
the news business actually inspired Will Ferrell to make the
two thousand and four comedy anchorman The Legend of Ron Burgundy.
(03:43):
In order to counter snarky critics who said she was
hired for her beautiful blonde looks and promoted ahead of
more seasoned mail journalists, NBC had her due reporting work
on top of anchoring. She was just NBC's second woman
to anchor a weekend national newscast, and later the first
woman to anchor the weeknight edition of NBC Nightly News,
(04:06):
filling in for anchors John Chancellor and David Brinkley. Over time,
she was a regular on Meet the Press and on
the news magazine Primetime. She also anchored sixty second news
updates between primetime TV shows, which got huge ratings. The
more successful she became, the more self doubt she experienced.
(04:26):
It's the impostor syndrome. You've heard of that, and that
triggered her drive for perfection, which was never satisfied, driving
herself and everybody around her nuts. She'd throw massive temper
tantrums if things weren't done exactly her way. She was
starting to unravel. It was becoming apparent that drug use
was fueling both her drive to work around the clock
(04:49):
and her tantrums. Cocaine was apparently her main drug of choice,
and it got so bad that coworker Linda Ellerby went
to their boss and said, you have to get this
woman some help. She's in trouble, Ellerby said. The executive replied,
we're afraid to do anything. We're afraid she'll kill herself
on our time. Others said she was losing weight and
(05:10):
her hands were regularly shaking. NBC big shots began to
focus their attention on other female journalists, like Connie Chung.
In the summer of nineteen eighty three, they removed Jessica
as anchor of the Saturday Evening News and replaced her
with Chang. From then on, Jessica's only regular appearances on
(05:30):
the network were on the NBC News Digest segments, and
that drove her even deeper into emotional instability. During those years,
Jessica also had a difficult romantic life. She dated a
network exec who also had substance problems and abused her.
In nineteen eighty she married an ad executive, who divorced
(05:50):
her eleven months later when he realized she had a
serious drug problem. Within months, she married again. This time
she married her guynecologist, also a drug user, who five
months after their wedding, wound up hanging himself in their apartment.
Jessica found the body. Now it's October third, nineteen eighty three.
(06:11):
Jessica is on air for her sixty second NBC News
Digest segment. It's during a Johnny Carson primetime special, so
there were millions of viewers. Jessica starts slurring her speech,
pausing and even ad living her report it made no sense.
Insiders blamed drugs, Jessica blamed a faulty teleprompter, and her
(06:33):
agent blamed pain medss. He said she was on after surgery. Well,
whatever it was, it was the death knell for her
career at NBC, although she was also hosting Frontline, a
new public affairs documentary on PBS. Fast forward three weeks
before NBC knew what to do with her, and it's
October twenty third, nineteen eighty three. Jessica had just started
(06:56):
dating Martin Fishbein, vice president of the New York Post host.
They'd driven to New Hope in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, beautiful
little old town. They'd had dinner at a romantic French
restaurant after a day of going to galleries and antique shops.
Jessica's dog, Chewy was along for the ride, too, great
big husky. As they left the restaurant around seven point thirty,
(07:19):
Fishbine was driving and Jessica was in the back seat
with Chewi. It was a stormy night with heavy rain
and fog. Fishbine apparently missed warning signs and drove out
the wrong exit from the restaurant. They wound up on
the towpath of the Old Delaware Canal. Their car veered
too far to the left and slid over the edge,
(07:40):
going down fifteen feet into the canal, landing upside down
in five feet of water. Problem is the car sank
into deep mud and that sealed the doors shut. They
were trapped inside as water poured in. The wreck wasn't
found for hours, but it was clear the pair had
struggled to get out before drowning, along with Chewy the dog.
(08:03):
Autopsies showed no drugs and very little alcohol in their bodies,
just a bit of wine for each of them. In
the ensuing forty years, books about her have been written,
and documentaries and movies have been made about her, including
of Course, the two thousand and four Will Ferrell comedy.
Everybody has their Achilles heel. For Jessica, never being satisfied
(08:26):
with herself, her looks, her talent, her accomplishments made her
very short life very sad. Hope you like the Backstory
with Patty Steele. Please leave a review. I would love
it if you'd subscribe or follow for free to get
new episodes delivered automatically, and also feel free to dm
me if you've got a story you'd like me to cover.
(08:47):
On Facebook, It's Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele.
I'm Patty Steele. The Backstory is a production of iHeartMedia,
Premiere Networks, the Elvis duran Verroup, and Steel Trap Productions.
Our producer is Doug Fraser. Our writer Jake Kushner. We
have new episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Feel free to
(09:09):
reach out to me with comments and even story suggestions
on Instagram at Real Patty Steele and on Facebook at
Patty Steele. Thanks for listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele.
The pieces of history you didn't know you needed to
know
She was a talented, smart, beautiful, but troubled network news
star whose story inspired Will Ferrell to make the flick
Anchorman the Legend of Ron Burgundy. But she had one
of the most infamous and watched on air meltdowns in
the history of network news. I'm Patty Steele. Three weeks
after that, Jessica Savage was dead at the age of
(00:20):
thirty six. That's next on the backstory. The backstory is back.
You know what, I finally realized self confidence has pretty
much nothing to do with how talented, smart, good looking, rich,
or entitled you are in life. How sexy you are. Yeah,
(00:40):
maybe a little bit, just because self confidence can make
you sexy. But confidence is its own thing. Perfect example,
the NBC News anchored Jessica Savage. She was beautiful, well educated,
good journalist, network star, but riddled with self doubt, which
led to coke addiction, terrible love affairs, and her career
(01:02):
defining on air meltdown. Three weeks after that awful October
primetime downfall, she was dead at the age of thirty six.
No matter how much you have and how far you
go in life, if you don't have the inner piece
that comes from real self confidence. You're always trying to
make the pain go away, you know. Jessica Savage was
born in Wilmington, Delaware, in nineteen forty seven. Her mom
(01:25):
was a Navy nurse and her dad at a clothing store,
but he died when she was twelve, and Jessica and
her mother moved to the Jersey Shore, just south of
Atlantic City. During high school, she got a job at
a local radio station hosting a rock show, and pretty
quickly was hired as a newsreader and regular disc jockey,
first female DJ in town. Jessica later said she was
(01:48):
hopelessly awkward as a teenager, but hearing her own voice
on the air gave her a sense of direction. After
she graduated from high school, Jessica went to Ithaca College,
majoring in communications. She was an announcer on the college
TV station, and she worked on the radio in nearby Rochester,
New York. As soon as she got out of college,
(02:09):
she got an administrative job at CBS News Radio in
New York, but without any professional experience, they said no
to an on air job for her. So despite her
insecurities and lack of social skills, she was tremendously ambitious
and with the help of friends, she used a WCBSTV
studio off hours to make a TV audition tape. She
(02:32):
sent copies to hundreds of TV stations around the country
looking for an on air job. She got fewer than
a dozen responses and only one job interview. Amazingly, even
with no broadcast news experience, she was hired by a
station in Houston, Texas as their first female reporter. A
few months later, they gave her a weekend anchor shift,
(02:55):
and one of her reports ran on the CBS Evening
News with Walter Cronkite. She was on her way. Within
a couple of years, Jessica was working as a reporter
and anchor in Philadelphia. She was part of a team
there with two men, and they became wildly popular. But
she desperately wanted to be a network reporter, and in
nineteen seventy seven she was hired at NBC News. Jessica
(03:19):
said in her autobiography that when she first tried to
get into TV news, she was told she couldn't because
she was a woman. Later, once she was in, she
said she was told she only got the job because
she's a woman. In fact, her relationships with men in
the news business actually inspired Will Ferrell to make the
two thousand and four comedy anchorman The Legend of Ron Burgundy.
(03:43):
In order to counter snarky critics who said she was
hired for her beautiful blonde looks and promoted ahead of
more seasoned mail journalists, NBC had her due reporting work
on top of anchoring. She was just NBC's second woman
to anchor a weekend national newscast, and later the first
woman to anchor the weeknight edition of NBC Nightly News,
(04:06):
filling in for anchors John Chancellor and David Brinkley. Over time,
she was a regular on Meet the Press and on
the news magazine Primetime. She also anchored sixty second news
updates between primetime TV shows, which got huge ratings. The
more successful she became, the more self doubt she experienced.
(04:26):
It's the impostor syndrome. You've heard of that, and that
triggered her drive for perfection, which was never satisfied, driving
herself and everybody around her nuts. She'd throw massive temper
tantrums if things weren't done exactly her way. She was
starting to unravel. It was becoming apparent that drug use
was fueling both her drive to work around the clock
(04:49):
and her tantrums. Cocaine was apparently her main drug of choice,
and it got so bad that coworker Linda Ellerby went
to their boss and said, you have to get this
woman some help. She's in trouble, Ellerby said. The executive replied,
we're afraid to do anything. We're afraid she'll kill herself
on our time. Others said she was losing weight and
(05:10):
her hands were regularly shaking. NBC big shots began to
focus their attention on other female journalists, like Connie Chung.
In the summer of nineteen eighty three, they removed Jessica
as anchor of the Saturday Evening News and replaced her
with Chang. From then on, Jessica's only regular appearances on
(05:30):
the network were on the NBC News Digest segments, and
that drove her even deeper into emotional instability. During those years,
Jessica also had a difficult romantic life. She dated a
network exec who also had substance problems and abused her.
In nineteen eighty she married an ad executive, who divorced
(05:50):
her eleven months later when he realized she had a
serious drug problem. Within months, she married again. This time
she married her guynecologist, also a drug user, who five
months after their wedding, wound up hanging himself in their apartment.
Jessica found the body. Now it's October third, nineteen eighty three.
(06:11):
Jessica is on air for her sixty second NBC News
Digest segment. It's during a Johnny Carson primetime special, so
there were millions of viewers. Jessica starts slurring her speech,
pausing and even ad living her report it made no sense.
Insiders blamed drugs, Jessica blamed a faulty teleprompter, and her
(06:33):
agent blamed pain medss. He said she was on after surgery. Well,
whatever it was, it was the death knell for her
career at NBC, although she was also hosting Frontline, a
new public affairs documentary on PBS. Fast forward three weeks
before NBC knew what to do with her, and it's
October twenty third, nineteen eighty three. Jessica had just started
(06:56):
dating Martin Fishbein, vice president of the New York Post host.
They'd driven to New Hope in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, beautiful
little old town. They'd had dinner at a romantic French
restaurant after a day of going to galleries and antique shops.
Jessica's dog, Chewy was along for the ride, too, great
big husky. As they left the restaurant around seven point thirty,
(07:19):
Fishbine was driving and Jessica was in the back seat
with Chewi. It was a stormy night with heavy rain
and fog. Fishbine apparently missed warning signs and drove out
the wrong exit from the restaurant. They wound up on
the towpath of the Old Delaware Canal. Their car veered
too far to the left and slid over the edge,
(07:40):
going down fifteen feet into the canal, landing upside down
in five feet of water. Problem is the car sank
into deep mud and that sealed the doors shut. They
were trapped inside as water poured in. The wreck wasn't
found for hours, but it was clear the pair had
struggled to get out before drowning, along with Chewy the dog.
(08:03):
Autopsies showed no drugs and very little alcohol in their bodies,
just a bit of wine for each of them. In
the ensuing forty years, books about her have been written,
and documentaries and movies have been made about her, including
of Course, the two thousand and four Will Ferrell comedy.
Everybody has their Achilles heel. For Jessica, never being satisfied
(08:26):
with herself, her looks, her talent, her accomplishments made her
very short life very sad. Hope you like the Backstory
with Patty Steele. Please leave a review. I would love
it if you'd subscribe or follow for free to get
new episodes delivered automatically, and also feel free to dm
me if you've got a story you'd like me to cover.
(08:47):
On Facebook, It's Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele.
I'm Patty Steele. The Backstory is a production of iHeartMedia,
Premiere Networks, the Elvis duran Verroup, and Steel Trap Productions.
Our producer is Doug Fraser. Our writer Jake Kushner. We
have new episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Feel free to
(09:09):
reach out to me with comments and even story suggestions
on Instagram at Real Patty Steele and on Facebook at
Patty Steele. Thanks for listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele.
The pieces of history you didn't know you needed to
know
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