How Connie Chung launched a generation of Asian American girls named ‘Connie’ — and had no idea

NEW YORK (AP) — Some public figures are honored with namesake buildings or monuments. Veteran broadcaster Connie Chung has a pressure of marijuana and lots of of Asian-American ladies as legacies.

Chung was contacted 5 years in the past by a fellow journalist, Connie Wang, whose Chinese language immigrant mother and father gave her the prospect as a preschooler to select an Americanized first identify. She considered Connie, after the gorgeous girl she noticed on TV, and in addition recommended some random cartoon characters. Her mother and father selected properly.

After reaching faculty, Wang discovered she was a part of a particular sorority. There have been all kinds of Asian American Connies round her, many given the identify by mother and father who noticed Chung as a sensible, achieved girl whose skilled success their daughters might aspire to.

Till Wang informed her this, Chung had no thought.

“I used to be flabbergasted,” she mentioned. “I’m not a crybaby, and I actually bawled.”

Clearly, a profession in tv information had a higher affect than she knew. Chung, now 78, tells tales about her life in a brand new memoir 10 years within the writing and on sale Tuesday, titled — what else? — “Connie.”

She dishes and names names

Chung’s profession took her from Washington reporting for a fabled CBS Information bureau within the Seventies via anchor jobs in Los Angeles and at NBC Information and an ill-fated partnership with Dan Reasonably on the “CBS Night Information” within the Nineteen Nineties to dodging the Barbara Walters-Diane Sawyer rivalry at ABC Information.

She dishes and, sure, names names. The presidential candidate who made a move at her. The actor who gravitated to Asian ladies. The male anchor (not Reasonably) who lengthy held a grudge in opposition to her.

Off the air for a number of years now, she lives a snug retired life along with her husband, tv persona Maury Povich. Between her absence, the Reasonably episode and a tarring with extra of a fame as a star journalist than she ever wished, Chung is commonly ignored.

Not by Wang and different Connies. Few Asian-Individuals had the identify earlier than Chung and few since, however “from the late Seventies to the mid-Nineteen Nineties, that’s the Connie era,” she mentioned. A frequent argument for variety within the office is so younger individuals can see themselves in distinguished roles; not often do you come throughout such a tangible instance of its impact.

Shortly after writing concerning the phenomenon, Wang mentioned she personally heard from at the least 100 Connies with comparable tales, doubtless a small pattern of what’s on the market.

“There was fairly actually nobody else like her,” Wang mentioned. “She was very skilled, she was robust but in addition stunning. What drew my mom to her was additionally her fashion. She cared a lot about her look.”

She at all times needed to show herself

Chung was the tenth baby — the one one born in the USA — of Chinese language mother and father whose marriage had been organized once they have been 12 and 14 and met 5 years in a while their marriage ceremony day. No son survived previous infancy, so her father beseeched her to carry honor to the household identify when she started her profession. As an alternative it turned out to be Connie — shortened from Constance — that turned inspirational.

Rapidly out of faculty and two years in native information, Chung earned a job at CBS, partially as a result of there was stress within the late Sixties and early Seventies to make tv rather less of a white man’s world.

“I at all times needed to show myself,” Chung recalled. “Day by day was a check, as a result of I used to be a lady and since I used to be a minority, however extra as a result of I used to be a lady. There have been no skirts in my enterprise.”

Her hustle earned respect, along with her willingness to remain up nearly all evening protecting George McGovern’s 1972 presidential marketing campaign leading to a scoop on his vice presidential alternative. She needed to show herself to older males and dodge predators, as soon as publicly rejecting a sodden suitor with a sly nod to an previous cliché about Chinese language meals not holding one sated for lengthy: “You don’t wish to go to mattress with me,” she mentioned. “You’ll simply be attractive an hour later.”

She feels that younger individuals want to listen to tales about sexism and racism she encountered.

“We’ve come a great distance, however the factor that’s disturbing to me is that we actually haven’t come that lengthy a method,” she mentioned. “The sexism nonetheless exists. The racism for Asians has reared its ugly head in a most miserable method. Wanting again, it’s necessary to me that ladies and minorities know that issues have modified, however not sufficient.”

‘I cooperated loads’

From the memoir, it’s clear that she remembers most fondly these days of protecting onerous information, from Watergate to Nelson Rockefeller’s temporary tenure as vp.

Chung turned a information anchor regionally in Los Angeles and, within the Nineteen Eighties, at NBC Information. But she mentioned she was saddled too typically with what have been thought of “ladies’s tales,” about miniskirts originally of her profession to superstar profiles and tabloid fodder like “Scared Sexless,” about AIDS, at NBC.

Too typically, she says, she accepted assignments that she actually didn’t wish to cowl. Her fame suffered. Secretly she agreed with a few of the criticism, but it surely wasn’t straightforward seeing influential critic Tom Shales name her “Connie Enjoyable.”

“I by no means wished to be referred to as the ‘b-word,’” she mentioned. “I by no means wished to be referred to as a diva. So I cooperated loads. I feel that’s a Chinese language factor and a lady factor. I used to be a double dose of dutiful, so it was as a lot my very own doing by agreeing to do issues that my higher-ups wished me to do.”

She moved again to CBS Information and, with Dan Reasonably struggling within the scores as “CBS Night Information” anchor in 1993, was named his co-anchor. It appeared like a profession peak, however Chung wrote that she had an inkling of what was to come back in her first assembly with Reasonably, when he mentioned, “now you’re going to have to begin studying the newspaper.”

Chung writes in “Connie”: “I wished to imagine I had been chosen as a result of I deserved the job. I will need to have been dreaming. They wished me to place a bow round Dan Reasonably’s neck that will make him seem pleasant and cuddly and regular. However as a substitute, it was I who ended up in a noose.”

The partnership lasted two years earlier than Chung acquired the ax. She selected to not settle for CBS’ provide of a face-saving function, as a substitute throwing herself into elevating Matthew, the toddler she and Povich adopted.

Later transferring on to ABC Information, she discovered some satisfying work with some newsier investigations, ones the place she didn’t need to become involved within the titanic struggles between Sawyer and Walters. She accepted a prime-time anchor’s job at CNN, however that proved short-lived. Her TV profession was winding down.

She has yet one more namesake

Chung just lately discovered, from her niece, about her different namesake — the Connie Chung pressure of marijuana. Ever the journalist, she dove into analysis, discovering a pack of 5 pre-rolled joints obtainable on-line for $22.

Requested if Connie Chung has tried the Connie Chung model, she politely demurred, then later volunteered that she hadn’t smoked marijuana since faculty, successfully answering the query. However she took satisfaction in studying concerning the traits of Chung weed.

“I’m straightforward to develop,” she mentioned. “I create a stunning flower and one among my favourite components is that I’m low-maintenance. I discover that very admirable, though I don’t assume Maury would agree that I’m low-maintenance.”

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David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Observe him at http://x.com/dbauder.