Early career

Gifford's career took off in 1978 when she joined the cast of the short-lived Hee Haw spinoff, Hee Haw Honeys. She was also a correspondent and substitute anchor on ABC's Good Morning America in the early 1980s.

Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee

On June 24, 1985, Gifford replaced Ann Abernathy as co-host of The Morning Show on WABC-TV with Regis Philbin. The program went into national broadcast in 1988 as Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee, and Gifford became well known across the country. Throughout the 1990s, morning-TV viewers watched her descriptions of life at home with her sportscaster husband Frank, son Cody, and daughter Cassidy.

In 1990, when TV Guide held a poll for readers to select the most beautiful woman on television, Live! presented a week-long mock campaign to garner votes for Gifford.^[7] Gifford wound up winning the poll,^[8][9] receiving more than four times as many votes as the runners-up, Jaclyn Smith and Nicollette Sheridan.^[7]

Philbin and Gifford were jointly nominated eight years in a row (1993 to 2000) for Outstanding Talk Show Host during the Daytime Emmy Awards.^[10] Gifford decided to leave the show in 2000. She explained that filling in for Carol Burnett on Broadway and guest-hosting Late Show with David Letterman had inspired her to pursue more challenging work. The day after she hosted Late Show on February 24, 2000, she told Regis she had decided to leave Live!. Her last episode aired on July 28, 2000.^[11]

Today with Kathie Lee and Hoda

On March 31, 2008, NBC announced that Gifford was to join its morning show, Today, as co-host of the fourth hour titled Today with Kathie Lee and Hoda, alongside Hoda Kotb. This marked her return to morning television; in many markets, she aired directly after her old show, currently called Live with Kelly and Mark. Because the fourth hour of Today airs live at 10:00 am ET, and Live with Kelly and Ryan airs live at 9:00 am ET, Gifford's hour did not compete directly with her former show in most markets.^[12] Kotb and Gifford replaced Ann Curry and Natalie Morales. In the weeks prior to Gifford's arrival, ratings indicated 1.9 million viewers of the fourth hour of Today.^[13] As of 2014, the fourth hour of Today with Gifford and Kotb averaged 2.15 million total viewers, an increase of 13 percent over the 2008 ratings.^[14][15] On December 11, 2018, it was announced that she would be leaving Today in April 2019. Her final Today Show appearance was on April 5, 2019, with a party, including a video by her children Cody and Cassidy Gifford.^[16] In 2019, they won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Informative Talk Show Host.

Other media appearances and projects

Gifford has made guest appearances in films and television series, and has several independently released albums on CD, including 2000's The Heart of a Woman, featuring the single "Love Never Fails".^[17][18]

She appeared as a spokesperson for Slim Fast diet shakes after her son Cody was born. She also was the face of Carnival Cruise Lines in the late 1980s and early 1990s, singing "If my friends could see me now!" In 1991 she christened the Carnival Ecstasy, the 2nd of the Fantasy Class of cruise ships. In 1994, she appeared as herself in an episode of the NBC sitcom Seinfeld.

She did a number of voice overs most notably as Echidna in the 1998 TV series Hercules and in Higglytown Heroes as the Mail Carrier Hero in 2004.

In September 2005 she became a special correspondent on The Insider, a syndicated entertainment magazine television show, ending her relationship with that program upon her co-hosting role with Today.^[19]

She played the role of Miss Hannigan in a concert performance of Annie at Madison Square Garden in December 2006.^[20]

On an episode that aired March 27, 2010, she guest starred on The Suite Life on Deck, along with her real-life daughter, Cassidy.

She appeared as herself in the 2015 television film Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!.

She has written numerous autobiographical books, Just When I Thought I'd Dropped my Last Egg: Life and Other Calamities in 2010, The Rock, the Road and the Rabbi in March 2018, and It’s Never Too Late: Make the Next Act of Your Life the Best Act of Your Life in 2020. Her book regarding the Christian faith, The Jesus I Know: Honest Conversations and Diverse Opinions about Who He Is was released in 2021. She has also written a number of children's books.

Current career

Gifford left Today in order to pursue a movie career as an actress, director, and producer. In 2018, she filmed Then Came You in which she co-stars with Craig Ferguson. That same year, she also filmed a Hallmark Christmas movie for Hallmark Movies & Mysteries called A Godwink Christmas. Gifford intends to make movies about the experiences of losing a loved one and being a widow, which she considers an underrepresented topic in Hollywood.^[21] Gifford has several projects in the works including sequels to Then Came You.

On April 28, 2021, Gifford was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to the television industry. Her star is located at 6834 Hollywood Boulevard, only five stars away from that of her former co-host Regis Philbin.^[22]

Musical theatre

In the late 1990s, Gifford began working in musical theatre. She contributed a number of musical numbers to Hats, and wrote and produced Under The Bridge,^[23] based upon the children's book The Family Under The Bridge by Natalie Savage Carlson. In 2000 she released the album The Heart of a Woman on Universal.

Gifford wrote the book and lyrics for Saving Aimee, a stage musical about evangelist Aimee McPherson, which premiered in 2007 at the Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia.^[24][25] The premiere starred actress Carolee Carmello in the lead role.^[26] The show, retitled as Scandalous: The Life and Trials of Aimee Semple McPherson, ran on Broadway from November 15, 2012, through December 9, 2012,^[27] with Carmello reprising her role as McPherson. On April 30, 2013, Carmello received her third Tony Award nomination for the performance.^[28]

On April 16, 2007, Gifford was a guest presenter at the Washington, D.C. Helen Hayes Award Ceremony, honoring contributions and professional accomplishments in theatre.^[29]

In 2008, Gifford and David Friedman wrote a junior high school musical entitled Key Pin It Real.^[30] The play depicts a coming-of-age story about a young girl named Key Pin. The first production took place in December 2008 in Kendallville, Indiana, at East Noble High School.^[31]

In 2011, Gifford was working on a musical adaptation of It's a Wonderful Life with John McDaniel; McDaniel is composing music while Gifford is writing lyrics.^[32]

Charity

Gifford is a celebrity ambassador for the non-profit organization Childhelp. She regularly makes appearances at fund raisers and events for the child abuse prevention and treatment organization and is an ardent supporter.^[33]

Frank and Kathie Lee Gifford raised the money to build and continued to financially support two shelters in New York City for babies born with HIV, or a congenital crack cocaine addiction. These shelters were named in honor of her children, Cody and Cassidy.^[34]

Labor rights activity

In 1996 Gifford was earning $9 million annually licensing her name to a brand of clothing sold at Walmart. Part of the proceeds went to charity. Charles Kernaghan's human rights group called the National Labor Committee reported that sweatshop labor was being used in manufacturing the Kathie Lee Gifford branded clothing.^[35][36]

Gifford called Kernaghan's report "a vicious attack" on an episode of Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee. Gifford explained during this broadcast that she was not responsible for the contract manufacturers that made her products.^{[35] [37]}

Kernaghan in his congressional testimony of April 1996, said that to make Gifford's clothing, girls as young as 15 worked for 31 cents an hour, 75 hours a week.^[35] Kernaghan reported that a worker in Honduras smuggled a piece of clothing out of the factory, which had a Kathie Lee label on it.^[38] One of the workers, Wendy Diaz, came to the United States to testify about the conditions under which she worked. She commented, "I wish I could talk to [Kathie Lee]. If she's good, she will help us."^[39]

Gifford later contacted federal authorities to investigate the issue and worked with US federal legislative and executive branch agencies to support and enact laws to protect children against sweatshop conditions. She appeared with President Bill Clinton at the White House in support of the government's initiatives to counter international sweatshop abuses.^[40]

Films

Television