Time To Move On -- Bryant Gumbel Wraps Up 15 Years As The Anchor Of `Today'

NEW YORK - With more than 3,000 "Todays" under his belt, he's got just one to go.

That's just one more morning for Bryant Gumbel to say, "This is `Today' on NBC." Then he'll be gone, having served as "Today" anchor for fully one-third of its life, almost one-third of his own. Tomorrow, he bids farewell to the show he took over on Jan. 4, 1982, a 33-year-old wunderkind from NBC Sports.

"It's a nice time to leave," Gumbel says. Now 48, "I'm still relatively young. And we will have been in first place for over a year. In 15 years, we will have won more than we lost. Things are going very well. I can't be accused of jumping ship."

Indeed, "Today" can expect continued smooth sailing.

In an orderly transition, "Today" news anchor Matt Lauer will vault to the other side of Studio 1A, landing in the anchor chair beside Katie Couric. Weathercaster Al Roker will still be working the crowds outside on Rockefeller Plaza.

What's next?

But whither Gumbel? Your guess is as good as his, he insists, relaxing in his office where the books and teddy bears he collects in seemingly equal abundance will soon be boxed up, destination unknown.

"I really want him to stay at NBC," says the network's news president, Andrew Lack, "and I've talked to him pretty extensively about things he could do here. But I know that there are other ardent suitors out there, and they may have something more attractive for him."

ABC? CBS? CNN? Some sort of syndicated show? Gumbel won't talk specific options he's considering, but likens his everybody-wants-him plight to that of a free agent in sports.

"You don't want to make the bad choice, the wrong choice, that has you winding up with" - he thinks for a split second - "the Jets! Then, you turn around and you're 1-and-10 and everybody's booing you.

"I don't feel any compulsion to have a decision made by Jan. 3," he says, "but if any time I take off is going to be haunted by this same kind of ambivalence and anxiety, it's not going to be time off. So I don't envision myself dragging this on through February and March."

Note: As he speaks, Gumbel looks anything but ambivalent and anxious. Not that you'd expect to ever see him sweat.

His "Today" tenure has been marked by cool authority, an easy crispness in diction and dress. While forgoing flash, he has never been less than the leading man who always knew what to say, and said it. He has been steadfast, morning after morning, even as he lent the show an anything-might-happen edge.

And yet a favorite Gumbel expression is "time to move on." You hear it on the air. You hear it talking to him face-to-face. There'll be no sitting still. When one show is over, he says, you move on to the next. When a segment is dying - whether you're on the air with a Mujahedeen but he can't speak English or you're interviewing Rae Dawn Chong - you keep going. Then you move on.

Now, Gumbel is about to move on for real.

"It's rare when you can choose to leave," he says, reflecting on the topsy-turvy world of TV. "More often than not, you're carried out on your shield."

Weathering storms

Good point. Along with all his other "Today" accomplishments, Gumbel survived to fight another morning.

He survived his early years on the show, when the ratings weren't so good (during his first months, ABC's "Good Morning America" was regularly trouncing "Today," which on occasion also fell to CBS' morning show).

He survived his notorious 1988 memo bashing "Today" co-workers and policies. Written at the behest of his executive producer, it was supposed to be a confidential assessment. But six months later, someone leaked it to the press. The memo made headlines. Gumbel came off looking like a jerk.

Then, a few months after that, he weathered the storm when Deborah Norville joined the program and, in effect, pushed the beloved Jane Pauley out.

(Soon enough, of course, Norville was out, too, whereupon Katie Couric, the new arrival, put the mess in perspective when she described "Today" as being "like a family - the Manson family.")

But we know all that stuff. We know he's had a record-breaking run on a show that, more than any other, can be called an institution.

The private Gumbel

What don't we know about Gumbel - the private Bryant Gumbel? Let's ask his "Today" colleagues.

"That image of Bryant as tough, crusty, unemotional? He couldn't be more opposite," says Lauer. "He's the sort of guy who cries when they give someone a standing ovation at a hockey game."

"Here's this macho guy," says Roker, "but you bring a bird into the studio, and he's under the desk. The greatest dilemma for Bryant Gumbel would be unlimited golf on a bird-infested golf course."

"When he yawns," confides Couric, "he sounds like a wild animal."

Another thing: He loves a bit of mischief.

One morning a couple of weeks ago, "Today" viewers found Gumbel and fill-in anchor Maria Shriver opening the show in an early-morning drizzle in front of Rockefeller Center's giant Christmas tree.

"We've got a little moisture out here," Gumbel told viewers.

"Raindrops are fallin' on our heads," said Shriver.

Greeting over, they tossed the show to Lauer back in Studio 1A.

The next moment, Gumbel was heading back to the studio himself, charging through Rockefeller Center's underground concourse. But suddenly, he threw on the brakes and dodged behind a pillar, listening for Shriver's clicking steps.

Moments passed as he awaited her approach through the catacombs. Then, with split-second timing, he pounced. "Arrrrgggghhh!"

Shriver screamed.

"Three for three!" crowed Gumbel, lest anyone mistake this for his first strike of the morning. "Three for three!"

Another couple of minutes and he and Shriver were safely in the studio, telling viewers about O.J. Simpson and ice on the moon.

Demanding respect

"I never, ever dreamed I'd do the program 15 years," Gumbel says later in his office. "Never. Never, never, never, never. Never! As in: never. When I started out, the betting line was: Will he last a year?"

But the man who hired him, Steve Friedman, insists there was no gamble. When asked his level of confidence that the young black sportscaster could fill the giant shoes of "Today" predecessors like Dave Garroway, Hugh Downs and Tom Brokaw, Friedman fires back with "100 percent!"

"I didn't see anybody in live television who could do it any better than Bryant Gumbel. And I still don't."

Friedman, now president of Savoy Pictures programming, volunteers what he calls "the key element to Bryant's on-air persona: He is maybe the only television personality I've ever worked with who really doesn't care if you like him. But he demands that you respect him."

And that is where the misunderstandings crop up.

After a half-century, the viewing public has become conditioned to TV personalities - both in and out of news - who equate being effective with being affectionate. Consequently, the audience is used to being constantly wooed by the people they see on the air.

Gumbel plays against such expectations. He is not bucking to be your TV friend. "I've never put a huge premium on trying to grin and laugh and joke," says he, no Tickle Me Bryant.

His colleagues say the Gumbel you see on the air is the real thing: Gumbel revealing Gumbel. But only up to a point. Then he draws the line and fiercely guards what lies beyond. Not always successfully, of course.

Appearing recently on Oprah Winfrey's show, for example, Gumbel crossed his line when reminded of a "Today" visit by the tennis star Arthur Ashe, then in a late stage of the illness that would kill him. As Gumbel recalled his friend, a tear welled up in the corner of his eye and, for a moment, his voice quavered.

Judged by the conventional standards of TV deportment - it's good to let the viewer sample your inner self - Gumbel at that moment may have never seemed more human, more accessible. Now, he shrugs it off.

"I'm never very proud when my emotions take over," he says. "That basically says I'm not controlling everything that I can."

Hard questions

The control factor is never more evident than when he conducts interviews. He is all business, no playing to the galleries.

"You're trying to elicit information, and you should also try to cultivate an amiable image?" says Gumbel, a bit exasperated. "For the life of me, I'm not sure how you can do that."

An interview with Jimmy Carter, on hand to plug his new book "Living Faith," serves as vintage Gumbel.

At one point, he was asking the former president to defend the efficacy of praying. This is how he phrased the question: "You write that you prayed more during your four years in office than basically at any time in your life, and yet I think it's fair to say - and I hope this doesn't sound harsh - you are consistently viewed as one of the more ineffective presidents of modern times.

"What do you think that says, if anything, about the power of prayer?"

His eyes flashing, Carter let Gumbel know he sure enough thought the question was harsh. Then, beginning with the apt rejoinder, "It depends on what you're praying for," he went on to answer with eloquence and grace.

"He was clearly taken aback," Gumbel concedes. "It was a hard question, but I don't think it was anything he was ill-equipped to handle."

On the contrary. The probing interview served Carter as well as the viewers, even if some of them took the encounter as more evidence that Gumbel is - you know what's coming - arrogant. It's his scarlet "A," the label he can't shake.

"The people who say Bryant is arrogant don't watch him on a regular basis," Roker insists. "But they've heard stories. It's like that old joke: I don't know much about him, but I hear he killed a guy."

That image of Gumbel as somehow disrespectful will travel with him to his new job, whatever it is. So will the viewers who understand that by his refusal to suck up, he demonstrates respect.

But before he goes, look for a sentimental sendoff from the "Today" gang he leaves behind.

"I'm expecting we'll do a `Mary Tyler Moore Show' group hug," says Couric, thinking about tomorrow. Then, kidding around but maybe not entirely, she does a run-through of that familiar theme song: "Love is all around . . . ."

It would drive Gumbel nuts.