What ever happened to: NY anchor and talk show host Rolonda Watts 

On a warm late June day, Rolonda Watts and I meet at a restaurant near her home in Harlem. Arriving early, she is wearing a loosefitting, brilliantly colored blouse, her blond hair tightly pulled back. The last time I had seen her was possibly the last time you saw her too, on her talk show, "Rolonda," which ended in 1997, but she is easy to recognize anyway. Whether it's the self-evident star-power or charisma, one doesn't survive almost 45 years in show business without either. "Ro" — which she says everyone calls her — is still very much Ro. 

There's also this: From 1980 until 1993, she was one of the most recognized reporters and anchorwomen on New York television news, and among the first Black female anchors in the city to arrive in the immediate wake of TV trailblazers like Melba Tolliver and Carole Simpson. Her peers included Carol Jenkins, Carol Martin, Roz Abrams and Sue Simmons. But it was Watts — "vivacious" the gossip columnist Liz Smith once called her — who especially seemed destined for some bigger stage. 

As weekend co-anchor and reporter at WNBC/4 and at powerhouse WABC/7, she was a star in local news for the better part of that decade, then became co-host of a Lifetime talk show, later a correspondent/anchor on "Inside Edition." That national stage officially arrived Jan. 17, 1994, with her coronation as "the next Oprah!" — as her producer (who awkwardly happened to be Oprah's) prematurely declared. 

There would be no next Oprah, who finally stepped down in 2011, while Watts' own TV talk career ended at around a thousand episodes after four tumultuous seasons. "Rolonda" initially took the high road (early episodes were on gun control, AIDS, domestic abuse) but the former host now insists she pulled the plug before her show was forced into the gutter along with "The Jerry Springer Show" and other "trash" talkers of the mid-'90s. 

Afterward, she relocated from New York to Hollywood where she guest-starred in dozens of TV series, with extended cameos on a few ("Sister Sister," "The Bold and the Beautiful"). There would also be lead roles on some TV movies, including ones where she played Josephine Baker and Dorothy Dandridge. Watts found the most reliable paycheck in voice work — commercials, series, movies, you name it. (For more than a decade she's been Professor Wiseman on the PBS series "Curious George.")

A self-described "re-inventionist," she also published a novel, "Destiny Lingers," in 2016. It was conceived as a pulpy beach read but also a distant reflection of the author's own life. Maya Angelou, a close friend of her family, blurbed it. 

Then, not long ago, Watts, 64, returned to New York for the most surprising career pivot of all, as a stand-up comedian. A few days after we spoke, she was headed to Las Vegas to open for Luenell Campbell. Watts explains that her comic sensibility resonates with those who still remember her from the old days in New York (she says they usually do) or can relate to her marital status — unmarried, happily so.

 And this: She also currently stars in the ALLBLK streaming network sitcom, "Partners in Rhyme," with MC Lyte. 

During our conversation — edited for length and clarity — we kept getting back to that word, reinvention. It's easy to see why. 

I read you grew up literally in the woods outside Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

 [Laughs]. It's not like it was a shack in the woods. It was a contemporary Japanese house that my father and another architect built, and a creek actually ran through it. But we did live in the trees. My father [Roland Watts] was a hippie — and very handy. He built everything.

And mom? 

 She [Velma Gibson Watts] was associate dean of the Wake Forest Medical School and my father was chairman of the fine arts department at Winston-Salem State; they were very, very strong in the educational community. 

And your grandparents [Garnelle and Maurice Love Watts] helped establish Ocean City Beach, Md., one of the first Black beachfront resort communities in the nation? 

 Yes, and we had a summer home there — that's where the book takes place. Spent my summer there, and the rest of the summer working … and going to New York. 

For? 

Broadway shows! That's when I fell in love with Broadway … and acting.

You went to Spelman College, and then? 

I applied to Columbia Journalism School just to get to New York. I remember a dinner with my father on 42nd Street, where I told him, I'm here to star on Broadway, and [he said] ''Good luck little girl …' I later went on a casting call where the line wrapped around the building [and] said, 'Forget this.' I went back to school and fell in love with journalism. 

First job was a TV station back home in Winston-Salem, then co-anchor at public TV's New Jersey Network, and finally — or rather quickly — you arrive at Ch. 4. 

Sue Simmons had always been my idol — I just dreamed of working with her since Columbia. Then one day I was crashing a story when the phone rang, and I said I was too busy to talk. [Veteran TV reporter] Lou Young — who was also at the New Jersey Network and sat in the cubicle across from me — said who was that? I said 'some guy named William Morris' [the giant talent agency.] He said, 'Call that guy back!'

I assume you did. 

I did and they said KNBC wanted me to come out to Los Angeles to be a reporter, and I said no — the biggest stories were happening right here in the metropolitan area. Then the president of the NBC owned-and operated stations called up and said, 'Well, what do you WANT to do?' I said, 'Work with Sue Simmons. And that's how I ended up working with Sue. I would fill in for her sometimes and also did [local] cut-ins for the 'Today' show — news, weather, sports. I was also a reporter and weekend anchor.

Why leave Ch. 4 for Ch. 7?

Well let me tell you that story, and it's a juicy one. There was this producer on the [Ch. 4] assignment desk — and I won't name names — and one day he was looking for me in the newsroom. For some reason he couldn't find me, and yelled out, 'Where's that [sexual expletive].' Chuck Scarborough, Sue Simmons and Al Roker stormed into the news director's office — that was Jerry Nachman — and said this should not be allowed in our newsroom. I remember Al saying, if he's calling Rolonda that, what's he going to be calling my wife next? Jerry didn't like the confrontation and supported the assignment editor. He subsequently got rid of me. We later met at a convention in San Francisco and he said, 'Firing you was the worst decision I ever made. I want to apologize …' I said, 'Thank you, because I wouldn't have had the career I had at ABC if it hadn't been for you.' [Laughs]. Years later, we became very good friends. [Nachman, a legendary — and controversial at times — figure in New York news circles, died in 2004 at the age of 57.]

 You certainly did land on both feet at Ch. 7. 

It was the beginning of the live era in local TV in the early '80s — when those "Eyewitness News" vans started popping up all over town — and I was known for my live shots. That's where my acting training came in handy. I could go live all day long. It was a new skill and we were all learning how to do it but I loved it — you're out on a wire. 

What was your specialty? 

I think I did good death, good murder — or that's what my friends told me. I always tried to make the viewer feel something, to make a story more human.

Then, there was your long run as weekend co-anchor with Jay Scott among others? 

I was constantly having to fight for equal time on the broadcast. He was getting all the lead stories every night and I would have to fight for fairness. It was tough to deal with but we made it work. [Scott, who has long since left the station, couldn't be reached for comment.]

Why didn't you get promoted to the weeknight broadcasts? 

I asked the same question many times! As women and minorities, it was a constant battle, and it rose to the level of you having to be taken seriously and treated fairly. The general manager [Walter Liss, who died in 2022] wasn't crazy about me either. I dyed my hair blond and my agent told me he went nuts. I said, 'Well, you tell him since he's only hiring blond people, I want to keep my job.' But he wasn't going to move me from the weekends.

There is a complicated and interesting twist in your story at this point in the early '90s. Oprah Winfrey is threatening to leave her syndicator, King World, and the talk show grind altogether. The CEO of King World, Roger King, knows he's got a big problem, and you are the solution.   

[Liss] always renewed my contract but he made it clear that he wasn't a big fan of mine, while Roger — who did a lot of business with the station — had noticed that. He offered me a job, but I said I'm a journalist, not a talk-show host. Besides, you already have Oprah. What do you need me for?

So long story short, he hires you for King World-owned 'Inside Edition' instead — then asks you once again to start the talk show?

Two things were going on. Les Brown's talk show [also owned by King World — Brown was and remains a successful motivational speaker] wasn't working with the audience, and Oprah was threatening to leave, and she represented 75% of his revenue. He needed a secret weapon. One day he walked in before I was getting ready to go on the air, and told me he needed me to do the talk show. Two weeks later, I was. I do remember when they first took me to the set, and I saw someone pull down Les Brown's name over it and then attach mine. I thought to myself, don't forget that. Some day they'll be taking down your name too. 

King and you did get along pretty well, right? [Once the most powerful man in television, King died in 2007 at the age of 63]. 

He was amazing. We could sit around and tell stories about Roger all day — oh my God, like the time he stole a cab. He did crazy things, like that other time at a [syndication] convention where he rode onto the stage with tigers! But he was a truly good friend and he believed in me. You never know what someone can see in you that you can't see in yourself. 

At the time, he called you The Next Oprah, then four years later, it was all over. What happened? 

Jerry took off ['The Jerry Springer Show,' which had launched in 1991] and it got to a point where I had to do [what he was doing]. There was one episode where a guest spit on another and I was like, I can't work like this. I stopped the taping. We had a big editorial meeting and some producers were extremely upset. But I said you can always get another job, but my name will always be out there. [The cancellation, she says, was a "mutual" decision.] 

At that point, acting beckoned once more? 

It was the first time in a very long time that I wasn't tied down by a contract and I had done well with the money, and thought, here's a chance to do something new and satisfy that 12-year-old girl who was still in me. [The trades] said that if you're Black and over 30 [she was 38] you're not going to work in Hollywood. But I was totally committed, classes and everything, and lived in the Hollywood Hills right under the sign. 

You've called yourself an 're-inventionist' because — if I understand this correctly — you believe each of us is born with many gifts, not just one? 

We're packed with gifts if we have the courage to use them [and] if you don't go within [to find them] you go without. When there were slow times in my acting career, or I hit some roadblocks, I'd say, let me go write my book now, or teach. There are other things I can do and I did them — a podcast, a radio show, comedy …

What do you think your family friend, Maya Angelou [who died in 2014] — or as you call her, Auntie Maya — would have made of this career of yours? 

She taught me to have grace in difficult situations, and to use your talents. She lived her life as an example of tolerance and grace, but she was also quick to correct you — that no battle is won from the sidelines. She'd be pretty darned proud of me, but ask me where the sequel [to the novel] is. Maybe that'll be my next move while I'm waiting for the big break on Broadway.