Today
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"I am the luckiest guy I know." In the Clinton, Bush and Obama years, Matt Lauer was one of the faces of television. Lauer conducted some of the most important interviews of the last thirty years, speaking to Prince William and Prince Harry in 2007, Tom Cruise in 2005, Charlie Sheen in 2015, and Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in 2016. Lauer wasn't afraid to get confrontational with his guests, notably getting into a heated debate with Tom Cruise on the subject of psychiatry. While his career would ultimately close on a sour note, it is hard to deny that Lauer was responsible for some of the most compelling content of the last three decades.
College Drop-Out
Born December 30, 1957 in New York City to boutique owner Marilyn Lauer and bicycle company exec Jay Robert Lauer, Matt Lauer started working in television early, dropping out of the Scripps College of Communication and taking a producing job at Huntington, West Virginia's WOWK-TV, handling the noon news segments. Within a year he was promoted to reporter, covering the six and eleven evening news. From there he would become co-host of PM Magazine (1978-91), Made in New York, and finally gain a national audience co-hosting Fame, Fortune and Romance (1986-87), a spin-off of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous (1984-95), co-hosting with none other than Robin Leach. The show only ran for one year, but helped to teach Matt Lauer the ropes of speaking to a national audience.
"My mother is a strong woman. Her strength comes from being tested by life's unpredictability. It comes from soldiering on for her children, even when she might rather have given up. I know it hasn't always come easily, but I also know it's her greatest gift."
Lauer would go from job to job for a time, hosting the interview show 9 Broadcast Plaza for WWOR-TV, a pilot for the Kushner-Locke Company titled Day In Court (1990), and he would co-host Etc. Etc. for the Travel Channel with Willow Bay. Matt Lauer was never starved for work, but he had yet to land the job that would truly make his career. For the most part, Lauer kept busy co-hosting nightly East Coast news segments, short-lived national series and pilots that would find varying degrees of success. In short: Matt Lauer wasn't exactly struggling, but he wasn't quite a success, just yet, either.
It wasn't until Lauer signed with NBC in 1992 that he would become the news icon we know him to be today.
Today
"In this business, the minute you start feeling comfortable about the show you're doing or the ratings you're getting, you're in big trouble."
Matt Lauer truly hit his stride at NBC. He joined the network in 1992 to co-anchor Today in New York (1988-present) at WNBC. In 1993 he would also take on the co-anchor role on Live at Five (1979-2007), eventually transitioning off of Today in New York to devote himself to Live at Five. By the mid-90s, Lauer was NBC's golden boy. He would fill in on The Today Show for a year before joining the series full time, co-anchor on shows like Weekend Today (1987-present) and NBC News at Sunrise (1983-99). In 1998 he would be given his own segment, Where in the World is Matt Lauer? during sweeps week. This segment would air annually with Lauer exploring the world for on-location reports. He visited Panama Canal, the Great Wall of China and Hong Kong before NBC News ended the segment in 2009.
In his time with NBC, Lauer co-hosted the Olympic Games opening ceremonies five times, interviewed major celebrities and political leaders and effectively served as a voice of the nation for three decades. At 39 years old, Lauer would even receive his undergrad degree from Athens' Ohio University, nearly twenty years after dropping out of the School of Media Arts and Studies at Scripps College of Communication.
Lauer enjoyed one of the most celebrated and accomplished careers in journalism, but this all came to a close in 2017. Lauer was accused of inappropriate workplace behavior by a co-worker at NBC, and the network let the reporter go. This would be a sad end to an illustrious career, but since first signing with NBC in 1992, Lauer had achieved what few other journalists before him had. He had been a major draw for the network, with his contracts reportedly earning him an annual salary in the $20+ million range, and his interviewers regularly set new Nielsen ratings records. It is unfortunate that Matt Lauer's career ended the way it did, but through his work at NBC, he was instrumental in changing how America watches the news.
"What makes people successful in this business is to be yourself on camera. Sounds simple. It's not."
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