Forty years ago, America was shaken to the core by the erratic on-air behavior and subsequent tragic death of one of its most famous newscasters.
A rambling NBC News broadcast led by Jessica Savitch on October 3, 1983 sparked claims that the quadruple Emmy Award winner went on the air while high on cocaine.
Just 20 days later, Savitch drowned after a car driven by a lover, New York Post vice president Martin Fischbein, plunged into a canal, killing them both.
The death appears to have been an accident, although the New York Post later claimed that she may have been killed by investigating an Italian banking scandal.
Savitch, who was married twice, childless and reportedly suffering from a serious drug addiction, was just 36 years old.
The 40-year anniversary of the shocking events has sparked a new online discussion about Savitch’s troubled life and shocking death.
On October 3, 1983, during an NBC News Digest segment, Savitch was broadcast speaking incoherently. The host slurred her words and veered off course during the report, prompting many to speculate that she was high on cocaine while she was on the air.
In 1988, five years after Savitch’s death, a gripping biography called Almost Golden by Gwenda Blair claimed that Savitch was an “unstable and pathetic” egomaniac bent on fame.
Another book on Savitch, Golden Girl, alleged that the $315,000-a-year news anchor snorted “mountains” of cocaine “from morning to night.”
Author Alanna Nash wrote, “I was so paranoid at the time that sometimes I didn’t go to work.”
“But this was someone who had more than a drug problem. He had a severe personality disorder.
Just before he died, he was in terrible physical shape. His weight was low, his hair and nails were uneven, she had festering drug sores and his hands were shaking.’
And it’s that alleged drug addiction that triggered Savitch’s most notorious moment, just weeks before his shocking death.
On October 3, 1983, during an NBC News Digest segment, Savitch was broadcast speaking incoherently and stumbling over his words in a strange sing-song voice while discussing then-President Ronald Reagan and gun laws.
He tragically died on October 23, 1983 after having a meal with a friend who accidentally walked into a canal during a heavy storm.
His speech and cadence appeared normal later that night, and some speculated that any drugs he may have taken had worn off.
Savitch blamed the problems on a teleprompter malfunction. His agent at the time offered another excuse, claiming that Savitch was feeling the effects of the painkillers he was taking because he had to undergo facial reconstructive surgery after a boating accident.
But rumors of drug abuse persisted, with biographer Gwenda Blair claiming that the incident had effectively ended Savitch’s career, just a year after she was voted America’s Sexiest Newscaster.
NBC correspondent Linda Ellerbee said she asked the network to intervene: “You have to do something. This woman [Savitch] he’s in trouble.’
Ellerbee said a network vice president responded: ‘We’re afraid to do anything. We fear that it will be killed in our time.
The charismatic journalist, 36, was named the ‘sexiest’ anchor in the country in 1982, as well as the fourth most trusted news anchor.
She had come to NBC News under a cloud, after colleagues at her former station, KYW in Philadelphia, sent a recording of her throwing a huge tantrum because the pages of her script were delivered in the wrong order.
But Savitch and his fans were never able to find out what the future held for his career, thanks to his sudden death.
The news anchor and Fischbein, 34, who Savitch had been dating for two weeks, had enjoyed dinner at a restaurant called Chez Odette in New Hope, Pennsylvania.
They drove about 600 feet over an area of dirt and gravel, and passed two warning signs, with Fischbein taking a wrong turn and suddenly pulling off the road.
The car fell 10 feet into the Delaware Channel and landed upside down.
There were signs that the couple had tried to break down the doors to escape the sinking vehicle. The rear window had been smashed, showing the gruesome wreckage.
An autopsy showed that both Miss Savitch and Mr Fishbein died of drowning. There were no drugs in his system; they had both only had a small glass of wine that night.
Investigators thought the driver may have mistaken the towpath for an exit road after leaving Chez Odette.
Walter Everett, the New Hope police chief, said at the time: “It was raining, it was bad weather.” Visibility was very bad.
A more sinister version of events was offered by New York private investigator William Callahan, who suggested that Savitch had been murdered.
He claimed that his investigation into the death of Italian banker Robert Calvi had put his life in danger.
Callahan says Calvi was murdered after costing his Milan-based bank $250 million, suggesting that Savitch had attracted the killer’s attention by digging into his life.
The local coroner dismissed the story, saying he had not heard such a theory about Savitch’s death.
In the years before her death, the broadcaster had been beset by personal tragedies.
Savitch in his Northwest Washington apartment with his dog Chewy
She had a myriad of jobs after finishing college: as a researcher for CBS radio, a reporter at KHOU-TV, and later as an anchor for KYW-TV.
An autopsy showed that both Miss Savitch and Mr Fishbein died of drowning. There were no drugs present in their systems.
Miss Savitch was born in 1947 in Wilmington, Delaware, and is said to have had a keen interest in watching the news with her father from the age of seven.
Executive Producer David Fanning and Jessica Savitch
American broadcast journalist Jessica Savitch of NBC News, while reporting on the “Great Debate” between Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter in Pennsylvania.
She divorced her first husband, Mel Korn, after just 11 months of marriage, reportedly after he found out about her drug problem, and then quickly remarried to a gynecologist, Dr. Donald Payne.
Five months after their wedding, she found him hanged in his Washington DC home.
Miss Savitch was born in 1947 in Wilmington, Delaware, and is said to have had a keen interest in watching the news with her father from the age of seven.
Her first journalism job was while she was still in high school: she was a newsreader and DJ under the name ‘honeybee’ at the WOND radio station in Pleasantville, New Jersey.
He then went on to study communications at Ithaca College, graduating in 1968.
In 1977, he got a job at NBC as a congressional correspondent for $500,000 a year. He was in the network until his death six years later.
She had a myriad of jobs after college: as a researcher for CBS radio, a reporter at KHOU-TV in Houston, and then as an anchor for KYW-TV in Philadelphia.
In 1977, he got a job at NBC as a congressional correspondent. He was in the network until his death six years later.
She was praised throughout her television career, even when she had to fill in on-air slots. Her KYW producer, Cliff Abromats, once said, “She [Savitch] he was very well on his feet.
‘She could think fast and ask the right questions, and she had the ability that many lack, to listen to the answer.
“Jessica would never be lost when someone said the unexpected.”
