Member-only story
TV Shows I’ll Never Forget
Being on O’Reilly caused a memory blip
Have you ever appeared on a major national TV show that reaches an audience of millions? I have, many times, but there are two appearances that I’ll never forget.
One of those unforgettable appearances was on the hugely successful “O’Reilly Factor.” At the zenith of his TV career, O’Reilly was commanding in stature (6'4" in height) and had over 4 million viewers on some evenings. I can’t remember what the topic was, but it was the first time I was to appear with Bill O’Reilly, and I didn’t know what to expect.
What I knew was that Fox had a talented hair lady, but did no makeup. “Please come prepared with your own makeup on,” was the curt command from the assistant producer (AP) that did the pre-interphone phoner to screen me.
HLN had an extraordinarily talented woman who did hair and makeup, as did MSNBC when they were in their New Jersey studios. I loved appearing on any of their shows because I looked marvelous. Yes, looks matter on TV, but that’s no secret to anyone.
TV hosts have full-service prep from someone (usually a woman) who does hair and makeup, including free haircuts. It’s a question of two things; union rules and how much the show wants to spend on each.
The old Court TV show with Nancy Grace did only makeup and, occasionally, one of the women I had worked with before would do my hair on the sly. I always hoped she wouldn’t get caught.
Court TV locked up the small bottles of water for guests and grabbed mugs after each show, so they wouldn’t have looked favorably on her providing extra hair services. I believe, but I don’t know for sure, that one young woman may have been fired for missing mugs.
