Ruth Ashton Taylor, the first television reporter to cover the West Coast, has died at age 101.
Ashton Taylor’s daughter, Laurel Conklin, told The Hollywood Reporter that he died on Thursday, January 12, in San Rafael, California.
The iconic news anchor began her career at CBS Radio alongside Edward R. Murrow in the 1940s. In 1951, she accepted a position at KNXT-TV in Los Angeles, earning her the title of the Coast’s first female west in reporting on television.
Ruth Ashton Taylor took a break from news in 1958 when she became the university’s public information officer. But it was only four years before she returned to co-host. The Ruth and Pat Show on the radio with Green Acres star Pat Buttram.
Ruth Ashton Taylor Didn’t Plan to Be a Television Pioneer
In 1966, Ashton Taylor stepped back in front of the camera to co-host a weekend show and act as a general reporter. She remained in those positions until she returned in 1989. However, she occasionally returned as a guest contributor for media in Sacramento well into her 70s.
“There weren’t any women on the air, so it was something you accepted,” she said of forging a career in television during an interview with Suzanne Haibach Marteney. “From time to time, I would hear women say on British stations or in other countries that they had women on the air, but we never did and you more or less thought about it. But I didn’t have high aspirations because it wasn’t something you really aimed for if there was no work. And I didn’t feel like a pioneer in paving the way in that direction. “I was doing well and having fun.”
During her lifetime, Ruth Ashton Taylor earned the Governor’s Lifetime Achievement Award from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in 1982 and the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1990.
Categories: Biography
Source: vcmp.edu.vn