Sally Jessy Raphael

In her two-and-a-half-hour interview, Sally Jessy Raphael talks about her childhood, including an appearance on the show Quiz Kids as a girl and taking acting classes as a child. She discusses attending Carnegie Mellon University (then Carnegie Tech) before transferring to Barnard College, and moving to Puerto Rico when she married after college. She details her first on-air radio and television jobs, both in Puerto Rico, and subsequent jobs on-air in Miami. Raphael discusses moving to New York and continuing her work in both radio and television, and her eventual move to NBC Radio’s Talknet, an overnight call-in show. She then moves on to talk about her television talk show, Sally aka The Sally Jessy Raphael Show, including how it came about, her goals for the show, memorable guests and the viewing audience, how she handled sensitive topics, and how and why the show came to an end. Raphael also shares the origins of her signature red glasses. She concludes by talking about what makes a good talk show host, and her greatest career achievement and regrets. Adrienne Faillace conducted the interview on May 21, 2019 in Pawling, NY.