Born Leeza Kim Gibbons
26 March 1957 (1957-03-26) (age 53)
Hartsville, South Carolina, United States
Occupation Broadcaster
Years active 1976–present
Spouse(s) John Hicks (m. 1980–1982) «start: (1980)–end+1: (1983)»"Marriage: John Hicks to Leeza Gibbons" Location: (linkback:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leeza_Gibbons) (divorced)
Christopher Quinten (m. 1989–1991) «start: (1989)–end+1: (1992)»"Marriage: Christopher Quinten to Leeza Gibbons" Location: (linkback:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leeza_Gibbons) (divorced)
Stephen Meadows (m. 1991–2005) «start: (1991)–end+1: (2006)»"Marriage: Stephen Meadows to Leeza Gibbons" Location: (linkback:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leeza_Gibbons) (divorced)
Early life
Gibbons was born in Hartsville, South Carolina, and grew up in Irmo, South Carolina, a suburb of Columbia. She graduated from Irmo High School. She is daughter of Jean and Carlos Gibbons, who was a former state superintendent of education as well as antique shop owner. She has a brother, Carlos, Jr., and a sister, Cammy. Gibbons graduated from the University of South Carolina's school of journalism and mass communication. She is a member of the Delta Delta Delta sorority.
Career
Her past television credits include co-hosting local segments of PM Magazine for WFAA-TV Channel 8 in Dallas-Fort Worth during the early 1980s, hosting Entertainment Tonight and Extra, as well as hosting Leeza, her own NBC/syndicated talk show, which ran from January 1994 to September 2000. In the 1990s, she was the co-host of John and Leeza, a talk show with former co-host of Entertainment Tonight, John Tesh. After one season, Tesh was dropped from the show, and Gibbons hosted solo for the remainder of the series. She has also guest starred on several shows, including The Geena Davis Show, The Simple Life, The Simpsons, Home Improvement, and Just Shoot Me. She played a television reporter in the Robocop films and had a small role as a reporter in Soapdish. She also hosted a series that explores true stories of survival in Lifetime's What Should You Do?
In 1988, she was also the host of the Telethon show on New Zealand's TVNZ network, which she hosted alongside Christopher Quinten, whom she later married (see below). In addition to her television and radio career, Gibbons has received the Congressional Horizon Award for her work on children's issues.
In the 1990s, Leeza hosted the radio countdown show Blockbuster Top 25 Countdown with Leeza Gibbons. The show was created for Adult Contemporary and Hot Adult Contemporary formats. Leeza counted down the hits in the respective formats and included entertainment news and pre-recorded interviews. When Blockbuster Video stopped sponsoring the program in 1999, the show's name was changed to Leeza Gibbons' Top 25 Countdown. The Adult Contemporary version was cut to a top 20. In January 2001, the countdown aspect of the show was dropped and was renamed Leeza Gibbons' Hollywood Confidential, which focused more on entertainment news.
In early 2000s, Gibbons launched her mineral makeup line Sheer Cover with Guthy-Renker. Leeza says, "Sheer Cover is a not just a makeup product, it's a transformative experience for women who have serious skin issues like sun damage, birth marks, scars and acne or just for any woman who wants natural looking skin that glows with a healthy radiance."
On February 20, 2007, the ABC television network announced that Gibbons would be a participant in its Spring 2007 Dancing with the Stars reality show. She was eliminated from the competition on April 10, 2007. She was the third celebrity eliminated.
On November 14, 2007, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced the appointment of Gibbons to the board that oversees California's stem cell research agency. Gibbons fills a slot designated for a patient advocate for Alzheimers as the result of her nonprofit group, Leeza's Place, which is aimed at caregivers for persons with memory disorders. Gibbons' efforts with memory disorders grew out of her own family's experience with her mother who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and died in May 2008.
Gibbons replaced Meredith Vieira for a week of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire shows on June 23–27, 2008.
In May 2009, Gibbons' new book "Take Your Oxygen First: Protecting Your Health and Happiness While Caring for a Love One with Memory Loss" tells the story of Leeza's family's personal struggle with Alzheimer's disease after her mother's diagnosis and provides practical advice on how caregivers and their families can and must take care of their own physical, emotional and spiritual needs in order to give better care to their loved ones suffering with a memory loss disorder. The book was co-written by Leeza's Place Executive Director of the Leeza Gibbons Memory Foundation, Dr. Jamie Huysman and Dr. Rosemary Laird of the Health First Aging Institute in Florida.
