She could charm a snake; make a tiger purr; coax an ostrich to remove its head from the sand. The eyes, intelligent and mischievous; the smile, warm and wry; the voice, low and vibrant; and above all, the attitude, friendly and unguarded. It invites you to like her, to relate to her as though she's the really nice new girl who's just moved into your neighborhood and is destined to be your best friend.
And, in a way, 36-year-old Meredith Vieira is the new girl on the block: She recently moved up from CBS' low-rated and now-defunct magazine show, "West 57th," to her new perch in a higher-priced neighborhood - the prime location of CBS' long-running hit, "60 Minutes." She moved in when glamour-girl Diane Sawyer moved out to take up her queenly, million-plus residence at rival network ABC.And if first impressions count, one suspects that Vieira will change the "60 Minutes" neighborhood considerably. Put it this way: If Diane Sawyer is the Grace Kelly of television - the perfectly groomed Ice Queen, whose every gesture seems scripted - then Meredith Vieira is TV's Debra Winger - the slightly rumpled Girl Next Door who doesn't wear makeup and likes to dish with neighbors over the back fence.
And, say those who know her, the public Meredith Vieira and the Private Meredith Vieira are one and the same: "What you see on the air is what you get," says colleague Steve Kroft, who has worked with Ms. Vieira for the last several years, first on "West 57th" and now on "60 Minutes." "She's genuine."
Another former "West 57th" colleague, Jane Wallace, agrees: "One of her strengths on the air is her naturalness. And the person you saw in your interview with her? That's who she is."
Of course, it's taken a while for television executive and image consultants to catch onto the idea that viewers might actually like the combination of naturalness and unstudied intelligence embodied by Ms. Vieira. Over the dozen or so years she's been in the business, they have made several attempts to change her wholesome, good looks into a more sophisticated image.
It proved a disaster every time.
"I don't play sophisticated well at all, and they've found that out consistently," syas Ms Vieira, who could easily pass for twentysomething. "When I first started out in Providence (R.I.), I had to go for a makeover, but I looked ridiculous when I got back. So they stopped that.
"Then when I first came to New York, I looked very babyish and they spent hours trying to salvage this girl and give her a more mature look, more sophisticated. Well, I had this teased hair and so much makeup that I looked like a hooker. I think I really freaked out the news director. I looked ridiculous, so they stopped that," she says.
It happened again, the attempt to make her look more glamourous, just a couple of weeks ago when she was doing her first "60 Minutes" introduction. But fortunately, "60 Minutes" producer Don Hewitt stepped in: "He was smart enough to see it didn't work and he had them wash off the makeup." She pauses. "He would never say this, but the makeup made it almost look like I was trying to replace Diane. Trying to be glamorous. And it just doesn't work."
What does seem to work for Meredith Vieira is, well, just being Meredith Vieira.
Right now, the television star and relatively new mother (she is married to former CBS News political producer Richard Cohen, fired from CBS and now a free-lance producer, their son, Ben, is 11 months old) is sitting in her spacious CBS office with its great view of the city. "It used to be Walter Cronkite's office," she tells you, a fact that fills her voice with a hint of pride and excitement.
That, of course, was more than a dozen years ago, and if awards from the industry validate one's ability,
Ms.. Vieira has grown considerably as a reporter since her days at WJAR-TV in Providence a dozen years ago. Last year she won four Emmys for her work on "West 57th."
Still, she's the first to give credit to her producers on "West 57th" and "60 Minutes" for their reporting and legwork on the stories that air.
"I've got five or six stories going at once, so I don't have time to do the research and investigative work . . . But if I don't understand the piece in the interview, it's not going to be a good interview. You can't just mouth the questions. You have to have the comeback, have to know what's going on. But that's not the same as doing all the work. I'm a good student of what's handed me," she says.
Kroft says she's much more than that: "She's really a good reporter, a good enough reporter to work for The New York Times or the Wall Street Journal."
Ms. Wallace, now the host of "The Jane Wallace Show" on cable TV, says that Ms. Vieira "is the first woman who's worked on "60 Minutes" who knows what she's doing . . . Diane (Sawyer) didn't have anywhere near Meredith's experience. The craft comes when you have to fix a piece that's not working or goes off the track, and Meredith's an incredible craftsman."
She is also, according to Ms. Walalce, incredibly "tough over the long haul - in a positive way. She went through that period at `West 57th' when she miscarried three times and her father died. All in one year. And she never missed a beat, didn't miss a show."
But that year took a toll on Ms. Vieira; when she became pregnant with Ben, she says, she thought about taking a break from television.
"I had Ben in February (1989) and my contract with CBS was up in April. . . . I'd been here 10 years and I wanted to take a break, find out what I really wanted in my life. And then they offered me `60 Minutes.' And I thought, `Damn it. Why did you offer me that?' Because it was the one job I couldn't turn down," she says, laughing.
She took the job, but on her terms: "I went to them and proposed part-time work. I didnt press on the issues that most people do - like money - but I did in terms of numbers of stories, time away from family. And I made it really clear that Ben would be here when I wanted him here . . . I am totally convinced that women can't do it all. Life is full of priorities and my top priority is Ben. CBS was great about it."
Ms. Vieira is committed to doing at least 10 stories a season for "60 Minutes"; the other correspondents do 20. The question arises: Does this put Ms. Vieira on the so-called Mommy Track in her profession? That is to say, a second-tier track when compared to such high-powered and childless career women as Connie Chung and Diane Sawyer?
"Maybe. But it doesn't both me," she replies. "I don't care if I'm a high-powered career person, to be honest with you. I want to be a reporter. That's all I want to do. . . . I don't like the whole star system. I just like doing my job."
Her one foray, you might say, into the "star system" backfired when she posed in a short, pink taffeta dress for a sexy photo layout - with an article written by Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales - in a 1988 issue of Esquire magazine.