Kathie Lee set to step down at 'Live'

The Washington Post

Kathie Lee has forsaken us-finally.

Kathie Lee Gifford announced Tuesday that she's going to hang it up as co-host of "Live With Regis and Kathie Lee" after 15 years on the daytime talk show. Her last show will be in July.

This time she really means it, unlike all those other years when she let float rumors that she might call it quits. And just when we were starting to get the hang of tolerating her perky babble without succumbing to the desire to kick anything nearby that was cute or cuddly or named Cody.

Gifford's reasons for stepping down are varied - and muddled.

"When I first began as the co-host of 'Live' in 1985, I was single and childless, and talking about my life for a living, as Regis and I do every morning during 'Host Chat,' was simple and impacted no one but myself," the 46-year-old Mrs. Frank Gifford said Tuesday in a statement. She "no longer feels comfortable sharing the ordinary, innocent, everyday details of my family life, only to watch the tabloid media turn them into harmful, misleading and libelous stories," she said.

Those stories include the revelation that her clothing line was produced in foreign sweatshops. And her husband's 1997 tryst with a flight attendant, allegedly set up by a tabloid newspaper.

On the other hand, she also said she was leaving because "performing on Broadway, recording a new album, writing songs and making a (TV) movie this past year have reminded me of how much I miss my first loves" - and no, she's not referring to hubby's original hair color.

But getting back to this retirement thing - this is a terrible, terrible mistake. Is Kathie Lee doing this so she can leave on top, we wondered? "Live" is a solid fourth in the syndicated talk show market, behind Oprah Winfrey, Jerry Springer and Rosie O'Donnell, and its ratings are down about 10 percent this year, as the talk show market in general has been declining.

It's true that Kathie Lee has been insinuating that she's going to leave the show for so many years that it's become a kind of "Live" annual rite of spring. But the folks at Disney, which syndicates the show, were taking the news very seriously.

Of course, that meant the obligatory statement from Mr. Personality, Michael Eisner, Disney's chairman and CEO:

"Throughout the 1990s, Kathie Lee Gifford started the day for millions of people. Now it is a new decade and she has set her sights on new avenues of achievement. I will miss her. But I understand she is an irrepressible spirit who is always seeking out fresh challenges and I wish her well."

Philbin sources say he's going find another co-host. Rege's "Live" contract runs through August 2001.