Bree Walker | |
---|---|
![]() Walker at Common Cause Media Conference 2008 | |
Born | Patricia Lynn Nelson February 26, 1953 Oakland, California, U.S. |
Occupation(s) | Actress, Talk Show Host, News Anchor |
Known for | work at WCBS-TV and KCBS-TV |
Spouses | Robert Smith Walker (m. 1980–1990)Jim Lampley (m. 1990–1999) |
Children | 2 |
Bree Walker (born Patricia Lynn Nelson; February 26, 1953) is an American radio talk show host, actress, and disability-rights activist. She gained fame as the first on-air American television network news anchor with ectrodactyly. [1] Walker worked as a news anchor and reporter in San Diego, New York City, and Los Angeles.
Walker was born in Oakland, California, and raised in Austin, Minnesota. She inherited ectrodactyly, a rare genetic condition which causes missing digits and syndactyly, which causes fused digits.
After graduating from the University of Minnesota, Walker worked as a disc jockey in Kansas City, New York City and San Diego, where she went by Bree Bushaw, her first husband's name. [2]
She started her television career in 1980 at KGTV in San Diego as a consumer advocacy reporter. Established and well into her career at KGTV, Walker decided to go public with her ectrodactyly after previously keeping her hands hidden inside a pair of glove-like prosthetic ones. With them now clearly visible, she continued her newscasting career at KGTV.
Walker has also dabbled in acting, appearing as herself in the end-of-the-world science-fiction thriller, Without Warning (credited as Bree Walker-Lampley but referred to on screen as Bree Walker), and as television reporter, Wendy Sorenson, in The Chase . She also guest-starred on an episode of the PBS children's series, Reading Rainbow , to talk about her disability.
While watching the 2003 season of Carnivàle , an HBO television series about a Depression-era carnival traveling through the Dust Bowl, Walker noticed that no cast member had ectrodactyly. She requested, created, auditioned and won the role of Sabina the Scorpion Lady. [1] Her portrayal of Sabina appeared in three episodes during the 2005 season. She showcased her webbed hands as the series probed public attitudes toward persons with highly visible disabilities. She based Sabina on characters she knew existed in the 1920s and 1930s carnival sideshows with names like "Lobster Girl" or "Lobster Boy." These were typically the best jobs people with ectrodactyly could have, with most others being hidden away.
Walker furthered her acting career in 2006 by appearing as an inspirational woman with ectrodactyly on the fourth-season premiere of Nip/Tuck . [3]
Walker shares the on-camera narrator duties with Jon Elliott for the feature-length documentary film, Save KLSD: Media Consolidation and Local Radio, which was first screened in April 2012. It looks at the shrinking number of corporations that control the majority of what Americans watch and listen to on TV, radio, newspapers, and magazines. It was over four years in the making and was produced by Jon Monday and Jennifer Douglas, distributed by mondayMEDIA. She is also in the film as an expert, speaking at a media reform conference. [4] [5]
In June 2007, it was announced that Walker had purchased Cindy Sheehan's 5-acre (20,000 m2) "Camp Casey" site in Crawford, Texas for $87,000, in response to Sheehan's May 26, 2007 announcement that she would be selling the property and ending her antiwar activities. Sheehan handed the deed to Walker during her June 9, 2007, broadcast of "The Bree Walker show." [6] Walker has preserved the property as a peace memorial and garden and keeps it open to antiwar protesters. [7] It is featured prominently on Walker's website. [8]
Walker has been married and divorced three times. She has a daughter named Andrea Layne Walker (born August 12, 1988) with her second husband, independent film and video producer Robert Walker, and a son named Aaron James Lampley with her third husband, news anchor and sportscaster Jim Lampley. [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] Her surname is taken from her second husband.
She and her children were featured on an episode of TLC's My Unique Family; she refuses to answer questions about rumors that she has silicone lip implants. [15] Her son and daughter both have ectrodactyly; she reacted very strongly on her blog to Oprah Winfrey's implication that a "normal" child would have all their fingers and their toes.
Walker was nominated and inducted into the San Diego Women's Hall of Fame in 2010 a collaboration between Women's Museum of California, Commission on the Status of Women, University of California, San Diego Women's Center, and San Diego State University Women's Studies. [16]
James Lampley is an American sportscaster, news anchor, film producer, and restaurant owner. He was best known as a blow-by-blow announcer on HBO World Championship Boxing for 30 years. He also had covered a record 14 Olympic Games on U.S. television, most recently the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China.
KCBS-TV is a television station in Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West Coast flagship of the CBS network. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division alongside independent outlet KCAL-TV. Both stations share studios at the Radford Studio Center on Radford Avenue in the Studio City section of Los Angeles, while KCBS-TV's transmitter is located on the western side of Mount Wilson near Occidental Peak.
KNSD is a television station in San Diego, California, United States, serving as the market's NBC outlet. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations alongside Poway-licensed Telemundo station KUAN-LD. KNSD and KUAN-LD share studios on Granite Ridge Drive in the Serra Mesa section of San Diego; through a channel sharing agreement, the two stations transmit using KNSD's spectrum from an antenna southeast of Spring Valley.
KGTV is a television station in San Diego, California, United States, affiliated with ABC and owned by the E. W. Scripps Company. The station's studios are located on Air Way in the Riverview-Webster section of San Diego, and its transmitter is located on Mount Soledad in La Jolla.
KFMB-TV is a television station in San Diego, California, United States, affiliated with CBS, The CW, and MyNetworkTV. Owned by Tegna Inc., it has studios on Engineer Road in the Kearny Mesa section of San Diego, and its transmitter is atop Mount Soledad in La Jolla.
KUSI-TV is an independent television station in San Diego, California, United States. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside Fox affiliate KSWB-TV. KUSI-TV's studios are located on Viewridge Avenue in the Kearny Mesa section of San Diego, and its transmitter is located southeast of Spring Valley. The station operates translator K03JB-D in Temecula.
Cindy Lee Sheehan is an American anti-war activist, whose son, U.S. Army Specialist Casey Sheehan, was killed by enemy action during the Iraq War. She attracted national and international media attention in August 2005 for her extended antiwar protest at a makeshift camp outside President George W. Bush's Texas ranch—a stand that drew both passionate support and criticism. Sheehan ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2008. She was a vocal critic of President Barack Obama's foreign policy. Her memoir, Peace Mom: A Mother's Journey Through Heartache to Activism, was published in 2006. In an interview with The Daily Beast in 2017, Sheehan continued to hold her critical views towards George W. Bush, while also criticizing the militarism of Donald Trump.
KOGO is a commercial AM radio station in San Diego, California. The station airs a news/talk radio format and is owned by iHeartMedia, Inc. The station's studios and offices are located in San Diego's Kearny Mesa neighbourhood on the northeast side.
KERO-TV is a television station in Bakersfield, California, United States, affiliated with ABC and owned by the E. W. Scripps Company. The station's studios are located on 21st Street in Downtown Bakersfield, and its transmitter is located atop Breckenridge Mountain.
Lee Ann Kim is a first-generation Korean American who was an anchor and general assignment reporter for KGTV Channel 10, the San Diego, California ABC television affiliate. She worked at KGTV from 1996 to 2008. She was also the executive director of Pacific Arts Movement until 2016. Pac-Arts presents the annual San Diego Asian Film Festival, an event she founded in 2000 with the Asian American Journalists Association of San Diego. She has been married to Louis Song since 1997, with whom she has two sons.
Jon Elliott is an American liberal talk radio personality, formerly featured on Air America Radio.
Kimberly Hunt, an Emmy Award winner, is a San Diego news reporter, chief anchor, and managing editor, for KGTV. During her career, Hunt has interviewed sitting Presidents, Oprah Winfrey, and other military, political and business leaders. She has reported live from the Academy Awards, Super Bowl games, political conventions, and other events.
Anne M. State is a former American television news anchor, currently weeknight anchor for KGTV, the ABC station in San Diego, California. State was formerly at KOIN-TV, the CBS affiliate in Portland, Oregon from July 2014 to April 2015, and was one of the two principal news anchors at WBBM-TV in Chicago from 2008 to 2010.
Robin Carolle Brantley, known professionally as Robin Robinson, is a longtime Chicago television news anchor best known for her 27 years as main news anchor at Fox-owned WFLD-TV in Chicago. She can now be heard on the radio at WBBM (AM) as a fill-in anchor/reporter and WVON as host of her own show, 'Robin's Nest.'
Jennifer Colleen Douglas is an American writer/producer and activist. She has worked in film, video, television, radio, print and Internet projects. She is the writer and co-producer of the 2012 documentary film, Save KLSD: Media Consolidation & Local Radio.
Ectrodactyly, split hand, or cleft hand involves the deficiency or absence of one or more central digits of the hand or foot and is also known as split hand/split foot malformation (SHFM). The hands and feet of people with ectrodactyly (ectrodactyls) are often described as "claw-like" and may include only the thumb and one finger with similar abnormalities of the feet.
Sandra Maas is an Emmy Award winning American journalist, newscaster, filmmaker and women’s rights activist. She has worked in the San Diego, California area since 1990 and is the founding host of the Trailblazing Women video series for the Women’s Museum of California.
Mona Kosar Abdi is an American multimedia journalist. She graduated from the University of California, San Diego where she earned a BA in International Studies, Political Science, and Communications.
Natasha Zouves is an Emmy-Award winning American broadcast journalist. She is a network anchor and investigative reporter at NewsNation. She was honored as a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford, and holds a masters from Johns Hopkins in Biotechnology Enterprise & Entrepreneurship. Zouves was previously a news anchor and reporter for KGO-TV in San Francisco, California.
John Michael Tuck was an American journalist. He was best known for his work on television in Southern California where he had anchored for television stations in San Diego and Los Angeles.