Today, Jane Pauley turns 57 years old.
So where is she?
I kinda miss seeing the classiest news anchor in the business on TV these days and hope she returns in some new venture soon. Back at a time when I still had crushes on girls, Jane Pauley was one of my biggest ones. She replaced Barbara Walters on "Today" when she was just 25. I'd watch her on "The Today Show" in junior high school when she had this long, blonde hair, and just be transfixed by her perfect diction and great wit.

She started out with Tom Brokaw then was paired with Bryant Gumbel and while these men could not be more different, Pauley had great chemistry with both. When NBC decided to try and make Jane share the spotlight with Deborah Norville the show in 1989, she quit after 13 years. This resulted in a viewer revolt that took the show years to recover from. They under-estimated the loyalty of Pauley's audience and just how nice it was for people to have her part of our lives. She went on to co-anchor "Dateline NBC" for more than a decade - the first successful newsmagazine in that network's history - then quit to take on a syndicated talk show that only lasted a year.
Since then,. nothing!
Happy birthday Jane, we miss ya.