Customer Reviews

Golden Girl: The Story of Jessica Savitch

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Alanna Nash's biography of Jessica Savitch is a fine work, richly detailed and competently researched. In reading the story of this gifted, tragic woman one recalls the old Greek dictum, "Those whom the gods wish to destory they first make mad." I recall witnessing that now famous Sunday evening news broadcast, many years ago, when Jessica appeared in a foggy, bewildered state. I was busy with a young family at mealtime but stopped to watch as she seemed to self-destruct on the air.

Jessica Savitch led a charmed life, was blessed by the gods at first. Beautiful, intelligent, and charismatic, she found all doors opening to her. She entered television journalism with expectations on all sides of great success. She died at an early age after suffering through miserable relationships and becoming addicted to drugs. This modern-day morality tale makes somber reading, but is worth your time. Recommended.

I could barely recall who Jessica Savitch was, but I love biographies so I read it. It was a breathtaking journey into a young girl turned celebrity's life. I read this book in one day and I couldn't get her out of my head for weeks afterward.

In high anticipation, I watched the movie "Up Close & Personal" which was supposedly based on this book. Even though the movie was good, it really had very few similarities to the book. I was dissapointed.

I strongly recommend this book.

I remembered Jessica Savitch as a newswoman from my youth, remembered liking her immensely, and vaguely recalled her untimely death. After reading Golden Girl, however, I felt like I knew her, which is quite an accomplishment for the author since no one in her life really knew her, save, perhaps, her equally trouble soulmate. Nash's breathtaking portrait of this troubled woman is perhaps the most compelling biography I've ever read. She has told the gritty tale of this Golden Girl with the best of the journalist's skills: non-judgmentalism as the platform for truth. I came away with enormous compassion for Savitch, and dreamed of her the night I finished the book. And I not only learned about Savitch, whom I both wish I had known and am glad I didn't, I also learned about television news, the horrors of drug abuse, and the fallacies of judging a book by its cover--metaphorically speaking. This is one great read.

this book is written with upmost respect to the life of television anchorwomen jessica savitch and her family. alanna nash does a perfect job of researching jessica from childhood to her death in 1983.ifound this information very helpful when i did some research of my own .i feel that lifetime television could not have found a better person to explain the life of jessica savitch than alanna nash for their intimate portrait.everyone should read this book.

Alanna Nash does something with "Golden Girl" that many biographers just can't achieve-she made me feel like I was part of Jessica Savitch. If you've seen the movie "Being John Malkovich" and you bought into the part of actually becoming the man, this book does the same thing with words. Jessica Savitch was obviously a very troubled, complicated woman and through Nash's text I felt her pain and empathized with her struggles. Even though I wasn't at all familiar with Jessica Savitch when she was alive, this book made me care about her. Excellent!

GOLDEN GIRL WAS WRITTEN WITH SUCH DEDICATION AND ACCURACY THAT I FOUND IT IMPOSSIBLE TO PUT THE BOOK DOWN. I FELT SUCH A CONNECTION TO JESSICA SAVITCH WHILE READING THE BOOK. ALANNA NASH STEPS RIGHT INTO JESSICA'S SOUL AND MAKES YOU FEEL SUCH COMPASSION AND SADNESS FOR A LIFE THAT ENDED TOO EARLY. WE ALL REMEMBER JESSICA SAVITCH AND MOST OF US CAN'T BELIEVE THAT HER LIFE WAS SO TROUBLED. THE BOOK SHOWS US THAT ALTHOUGH HER LIFE WAS TROUBLED SHE ACCOMPLISHED SO MUCH IN THE SHORT TIME SHE WAS HERE. I RECOMMEND THIS BOOK TO ALL AND ESPECIALLY THOSE WHO REMEMBER JESSICA'S WARM SMILE EVERY EVENING LOOKING BACK AT US!

then you should read this book. I probably should not read biographies. They are usually too entrancing and foster the obsession that grows in me. While reading this book, I did find myself getting obsessed, wanting to know everything about Jessica Savitch, not stopping until I could actually get my hands on some footage of her work. I am only 25 so I don't remember her heyday. I wanted to see that trademark smile for myself. I don't know why I am so mystified but this book did not help. It fed me all these details that made me want to know more. I usually don't comment on how a biographhy was written as for as the techinical stuff, I can only comment on the content. I feel that biographies should read like someone is talking to you - that is how I felt about this book. Maybe that is why I couldn't get enough because Nash was telling us her story. It was truly compelling and I was completely captivated.

It was impressive!
I could tell that Alanna had doneso many researches and interviews to write this book.

Jessica Savitch was one of the most well-known anchor in the
American broadcasting history. After reading this, I felt like she is still alive and watching the journalists today.

If you want to be a jouranalist, you should read this
and learn the other side of TV world.
It's a stressful world. Besides, you need efforts, patience,
lucks, and talents.

Even though Jessica ended up her life with tragedy,
I think she lived her life hard.

I can't wait to read Alanna's new book.
She has done a great job to let us know how important
Jessica was for anchor-women.

I've kicked around a little bit - I know how easy it is to fall into the crapper, but this book- my heart was broken for Ms. Savitch. A person who wasn't what you would call whole to begin with goes into television and that television becomes her whole life, everything secondary to it. A little instable to begin with, maybe if she came across the right people early enough things might not have been so bad for her, but she didn't get the help she needed in time and ended up losing herself in drugs and promiscuity, her compartmentalized life finally seeming to collapse on her at the end.

I was very interested in the technical people and the description of the jobs they did and tried to look a few of them up, many of them spending their whole lives in camera, sound, film and videotape, but there is not much of a public record, which I think is a terrible shame; I think these people would have a lot of interesting things to say about recent developments in their prospective fields, the shape of the job market, etc. It is a shame these people don't get more attention - are you listening, union bosses, ABC, CBS, NBC, etc.? As important as Ron Kershaw was to the industry in his years in it, there is zero to Google about him, and I only came up with one piece of film of him as a reporter in his Houston days on the Vanderbilt web site - a double shame!

Get the book - very interesting for myriad reasons. And be thankful you are not Jessica.

... is the story of Jessica Savitch, who was certainly the Golden Girl of Philadelphia broadcast news at one point and whose name lives on in infamy in this city. I was the little girl who looked up to her; my father adored her; my mother felt her to be a good career example. Thus was the face that fooled everyone, including herself. This biographer's work is extremely thorough and very well written. Every paragraph is captivating. I couldn't put it down -- and I knew how it ended.