Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 21, 1993 TAG: 9303180163
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAMES ENDRST THE HARTFORD COURANT
DATELINE: CANADENSIS, PA. LENGTH: Medium
SCARS MOSTLY HEALED, NORVILLE RETURNS
"I knew I'd be back," says Deborah Norville. "A lot of people didn't. Never dreamed. But I'm back, and I'm strong. Stronger than I ever was."Norville has reason to sound a little defiant, a little proud. Cast as the villain in the "Today" show-Jane Pauley debacle of late 1989, Norville's career would have appeared to be over when, after a thorough roughing up in the press, she was replaced just 14 months later on NBC's morning show in April 1991 by Katie Couric.
"They threw the best they had at me," she says. "They took their best shots, their most powerful punches, and I'm still standing."
At this moment, the 34-year-old TV newswoman is standing in a less-than-glamorous living room in the hinterlands of the Poconos on assignment for the CBS News magazine "Street Stories."
The story she's working on, which she wants to keep secret for competitive reasons, is equal parts religion and scandal. And throughout the morning and early afternoon, Norville displays both a disarming charm and dogged determination in pursuit of good television. Like some of Norville's other pieces broadcast since her debut on "Street Stories" in January - a two-parter on the re-emergence of tuberculosis and an investigation of a particularly grisly South Carolina murder - this isn't work meant for "Murphy Brown's" Corky Sherwood. And that suits the Dalton, Ga., native with the home- Norville coming-queen good looks and the summa cum laude degree.
"I knew I wanted to report," says Norville, whose critically drubbed 1989 NBC News special "Bad Girls," a documentary on violence among teen-age girls, nevertheless was one of the highest-rated news specials in TV history.
Two years after "Today," Norville is now focused on her tomorrows. She's taking control of her life again, too. A working mother and proud of it, Norville and husband Karl Wellner, a New York businessman she calls her "knight in shining armor," have a 2-year-old son, Niki, born at her professional nadir.
A stint as host of her own talk show for ABC Radio - which she did out of her home, sometimes in bathrobe and slippers - has eased her way back into broadcasting, giving her the confidence she needs to come back.
She's taking control of her image, too - something she says she was unable to do at NBC - and has hired a personal publicist.
Norville says she doesn't like to "micromanage the past" but nevertheless seems ready, even anxious, to get her point of view, finally, on the record.
Of her former co-anchor Bryant Gumbel, who has repeatedly characterized his relationship with Norville in professionally cordial terms, Norville says only, "What an actor."
As for Pauley, the two have lunched a couple of times and both women say there are no hard feelings. "I knew she was suffering because the media chose to portray her as the villainess," says Pauley, now co-anchor of "Dateline NBC." "She wasn't in the position to step up and plead her own case."
But Norville clearly hasn't shaken the past. CBS News is obviously hoping to take advantage of her high recognition factor. But one source close to Norville says there is still some behind-the-scenes skittishness at her new network.
Ed Bradley, anchor of "Street Stories" (Thursday nights at 9 on WDBJ-Channel 7), for instance, comes close to damning her with faint praise.
"She wasn't my first choice," he says, though he explains that's only because he thought CBS should hire from within.
Still, Bradley says, "My preconceptions were many. I thought what happened at the `Today' show was unfortunate. I thought she was damaged by it. I thought it sullied her reputation. I thought that she probably never had a chance to succeed there. And that's unfortunate. That's the most unfortunate. I look at this as an opportunity for her to put that behind her."
The CBS newsman, best known for his work on "60 Minutes," says he was unfamiliar with Norville's reporting skills but said her reputation was solid.
"I think she's done good work and she will do better work," he says of her contributions thus far.
Norville is happy - relieved, even - to be out of the anchor chair.
Her revenge - and that's not what she's looking for - will be success, in doing a "bang-up job" for CBS "and reminding folks that what got Deborah Norville into a position where she was in the spotlight was her hard work, her tenacity in doing it right, to be prepared, something that is even more strong now."
Norville isn't sure what the public's perception of her is. "I've always been Debbie Norville from Dalton, Ga.," she will say, proudly pointing out, too, that, it was her "relationship with Jesus Christ" that helped her weather her professional storm.