Summary

One in a series of evenings and special screenings presented at he Paley Center for Media. Held at the Paley Center in New York, this evening is part of an annual series which salutes fifty groundbreaking women in television and radio. Frank A. Bennack, Jr. (chairman of the Board of Trustees, The Paley Center for Media) offers opening remarks about the history of She Made It, and then introduces Pat Mitchell (president and CEO, The Paley Center for Media). Mitchell acknowledges the previous years’ honorees in the audience and then introduces a clip package featuring a montage of the women to be honored over the course of the evening. Mitchell then introduces Audra McDonald (actress, “Private Practice”), who provides comments about women in the media, including specific remarks about Judith Cary Waller (radio pioneer); Frances Buss Buch (first female US television director), present in the audience; and Lynda La Plante (screenwriter, “Prime Suspect”).

A program highlighting the accomplishments of the 2007 honorees is then shown in sections, featuring live commentary between the installments. The honorees include: Gracie Allen (comedian and star of “The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show”); Peggy Charren (activist for children’s television); Lee Grant (director, documentaries and feature films); Martha Stewart (entrepreneur and publisher); Perry Miller Adato (documentary producer and director); Beth McCarthy Miller (director, “Saturday Night Live” and other programs); Lucy Salhany (chairwoman, Fox network); Ellen Violett (television writer); Marilyn Suzanne Miller (writer, “Saturday Night Live,” “Murphy Brown”); Nancy Malone (writer/director/producer and co-founder of Women In Film); Judy Crichton (executive producer, “The American Experience”); and Dr. Ruth Westheimer (radio personality and sex therapist).

Journalist Marlene Sanders, an honoree from 2006, takes the stage and offers comments on further upcoming individuals, including: May Chidiac (Lebanese reporter and survivor of an assassination attempt); Nina Totenberg (legal affairs correspondent for NPR); and Mary Margaret McBride (radio host and writer). The program resumes, and the honorees include: Paula Zahn (journalist and news anchor); Totenberg; Chidiac; Martha Rountree (journalist and creator of “Meet the Press”); Gwen Ifill (correspondent and PBS journalist); Amy Goodman (host of “Democracy Now!”); Yang Lan (businesswoman and talk show hostess); Andrea Mitchell (NBC correspondent); Maria Hinojosa (journalist for NPR); Meredith Viera (journalist and news anchor); Nancy Hanschman Dickerson (first female correspondent for CBS); Radhika Roy (media baron and creator of the first privately-owned Indian news program); Hannah Storm (CNN sports reporter); Christine Ockrent (Belgian journalist and TV anchor); and Linda Ellerbee (news anchor for NBC and Nickelodeon).

Olympic swimmer Donna de Varona takes the stage and offers comments on Jay Presson Allen (television producer and screenwriter) and Suze Orman (financial advisor and author). The program resumes, and the honorees include: Candice Bergen (actress, “Murphy Brown”); Betty Cohen (marketing executive, Cartoon Network and Lifetime Channel); Rebecca Eaton (executive producer, Masterpiece Theatre); Barbara Kopple (documentary director); Salma Hayek (actress and executive producer, “Ugly Betty”); Claire Labine (writer/producer and creator of “Ryan’s Hope”); Rosie O’Donnell (actress and television personality); Margaret Drain (executive producer, “American Experience”); Shonda Rhimes (executive producer and creator, “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Private Practice”); Bonnie Hammer (president, USA and SciFi networks); Caryn Mandabach (producer, “The Cosby Show” and others); Margaret Loesch (television executive producer); Jennifer Saunders (actress, “Absolutely Fabulous”); Abbe Raven (president and CEO of A&E and the History channel); and Marta Kauffman (creator and executive producer, “Friends”).

Loreen Arbus (head of programming, Showtime and Lifetime networks) takes the stage and acknowledges the 2007 She Made It Honorees present in the audience. She briefly discusses the launching of shemadeit.org and the plans to expand the program to include women in advertising and in digital media. Arbus then introduces Kay Koplovitz (co-chair, She Made It), who takes the stage and discusses Springboard Enterprises, a venture-catalyst that connects female entrepreneurs with investors. She then announces a collaboration between Springboard and the Paley Center in the creation of a joint venture capital, All Things Media. Actress and activist Marlo Thomas then takes the stage and introduces a series of clips depicting the progress of women in media over the course of the 20th century.

In the clips, Thomas and feminist activist and author Gloria Steinem offers comments as the program discusses watershed moments in the history of women, including suffrage; the creation of NBC radio in 1926 and involvement of women; the Great Depression; WWII and Adolf Hitler’s attempts to eradicate women’s rights; the increase of women in the workforce during the war; the increasing numbers of women on television in the 1950s, including Lucille Ball; Barbara Walters and other television women achieving more authority in the 1960s; the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and how it affected the women’s movement; the flourishing of cable television under women’s command; Steinem’s statement that “ownership and control is crucial” in business and that there is no “automatic change” in societal gender issues. The program closes with a montage of the all of the women honored through She Made It in 2005, 2006, and 2007.