Posted on Sun, Feb. 20, 2005
Ambition, smarts and, OK, looks, too
Alycia Lane would like people to know she's an anchor with depth. And it's not just the pretty face that rocketed up those ratings.
Admit it, when you watch Alycia Lane deliver the evening news on Channel 3, you're not thinking about her intellect.
It doesn't cross your mind that she holds a master's degree from one of the top journalism schools in the nation. Or that her reporting skills have impressed even old-school news professionals, who still value substance over style.
No.
You're asking yourself whether she looks more like Eva Longoria or Courteney Cox. And she knows it.
Now, Lane wishes we'd move on.
It's been 17 months since the 32-year-old assumed the KYW anchor chair alongside 48-year-old Larry Mendte. Together they've lifted the station's ratings high enough to make it the No. 2 newscast for the first time in a decade.
It's been more than a year since local newspapers dubbed her Philly's anchorbabe, a Latina bombshell, and the sexiest face in town.
"It's flattering, of course," she says. "But I'd like to think people are listening to what I'm saying, too."
There's no denying that Lane's beauty has helped her television career. But, she says, it's also been an obstacle, sometimes leading people to assume she's more about looks than journalistic talent.
"I don't think anything's ever just been handed to me," she says. "I paid my own way through college. I bartended, I was a student assistant. I just finished paying off $60,000 in student loans two weeks ago. I've worked hard, I've been determined, and I don't settle."
It's a drive that began in high school, where she first learned how to turn defeat into triumph.
"I tried out for softball and didn't make it. I tried out for soccer and didn't make it. I tried out for everything," says the petite brunette who grew up in Lake Grove, an upper-middle-class community on Long Island.
"Then, I decided I really wanted to be a cheerleader. So I tried out. I tried two times and didn't make it. Before the third time, I decided to go to the garage where some friends of mine, who'd made the squad, practiced. I hung out and practiced with them. I practiced so much that the third time I tried out I made JV and varsity."
Lane, the third of four children born to a Puerto Rican mother and a father of Welsh descent, says academic achievement was stressed by her parents and by her maternal grandmother, who lived with the family.
Lane's mother, Petrita, never got a chance to go to college. But her father, Marlin, who worked for Macy's until his recent retirement, has an engineering degree. And her grandmother, Alejandrina, who spoke very little English, encouraged Lane to work hard in school.
"As a first grader, I was reading sixth-grade books," Lane recalls. "I was a straight-A student, in high school I was a member of the Honor Society, on the yearbook committee, things like that."
In other words, a goody-two-shoes.
"On the cheerleading squad there were two groups," Lane says. "There were the party girls who drank wine coolers at 16, and goody-goodies like me. They used to call me 'Fairy Mary' because I was so straight."
At the State University of New York at Albany, Lane majored in Spanish literature and Spanish, which she did not speak at home.
"My mother spoke to my grandmother in Spanish a little, but she only addressed us in English," Lane says. "So I never learned it at home. But I was very close to my grandmother. I used to spend a lot of time in her room with her while she watched the novelas on Spanish television. I remember learning some Spanish words from her, before she died when I was 121/2. She had a hard time with English. Remember that show CHiPs? She used to call it Sheeps."
At times Lane, who has dark eyes, dark hair and light skin, surprises people when she refers to herself as Latina. But, she says, she grew up well-versed in her mother's Puerto Rican traditions.
"Oh, our house was Latin all right. Especially when my tias and tios [aunts and uncles] would come over," Lane says. "There'd be strong coffee and lots of talking, and they'd make pasteles [cakes] and things like that."
Having graduated SUNY with honors, she had no problem getting accepted into the acclaimed Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. But halfway through the one-year writing program, Lane decided to switch to broadcasting.
"I saw that TV was so immediate, and the use of pictures with words was so creative," she says.
Her advisers, however, were reluctant to let her switch disciplines.
"There were only eight people in the television class, and I was already so far behind," Lane says. "The other students had already done internships and everything."
But she persisted, and finally got in.
"At first, I was in no-man's land," Lane says. "I didn't know anything. I didn't know what a VO-SOT [voice over-sound on tape] was. I didn't know what B-roll [back-up video] was."
Chuckling, she adds: "I know it sounds stupid, but I've lived a lot of my life following that cheerleading lesson. Just work hard, and you'll be fine."
Looking back, Lane's mother says it's ironic that Alycia (pronounced Ali-SEE-A) settled on a career in television, because as a girl she was bashful. So shy, in fact, that she quit taking ballet lessons because the recital terrified her.
"But when Alycia wants something," Petrita says, "she's tenacious."
Lane's first reporting job, at News 12 in the Bronx, was a baptism by fire.
"It was a total start-up situation," Lane recalls. "You carried the camera, you did the reporting, you did the editing, you even did your own TelePrompTer. It was boot camp."
Lane still suffered from stage fright. Even today, her stomach knots when she's asked to speak to large groups.
"But for some reason it's different in front of the camera," she says. "I know people are watching, but I can't see them looking at me."
Within months of her debut, Lane's reports were noticed by Gregg Willinger, an agent with a reputation for spotting new talent.
"I'd never heard of him, but my friends told me he was a big deal, so I signed with him," Lane says. "Two days later, I had an interview in Miami. Two weeks later, I had a new job."
With little more than a year of professional experience under her belt, Lane found herself in one of the fastest-paced markets in television news.
First, she reported for WSVN, the city's Fox affiliate, known for its "run and gun" format. Then, in 2001, she joined WTVJ, the NBC station, where she covered hurricanes, the anthrax attack on the National Enquirer, and the story of Elian Gonzalez, the Cuban boy who was returned to his father after his mother perished attempting to emigrate.
"She was a pure street reporter," says Don Browne, who at the time was president and general manager of WTVJ and now is chief operating officer of Telemundo. "She was respected in the newsroom for always going the extra mile, for getting that one extra fact."
Browne, who has coached and mentored stars such as Katie Couric and Ann Curry, says it's surprising that Lane is confronting the stigma of being just a pretty face.
"It's funny because back when I coached her, she was almost apologetic about her face time in front of the camera," he says. "I can't tell you how we had to encourage her to do more stand-ups. But, the bottom line is, it is a visual medium."
Lane herself laughs at the fact that Philadelphians have made such a fuss over her appearance.
"I mean, in Miami I was the ugly duckling," she says. "Have you been to Miami? The women there are incredible."
Eventually, Lane settled into the weekend anchor spot at WTVJ and married minor-league baseball player Dino Calandriello.
Miami became her home, but her ambition still stirred.
"If I stayed there, I knew it was going to be a very slow climb to the top," Lane recalls. "Very slow, like somebody was going to have to drop dead."
And, Lane adds, her marriage was in trouble.
"I remember having conversations with my ex, saying I wanted to reach a higher level in my career. But he wasn't very supportive in that, so I was pretty frustrated."
After three years together, Lane and Calandriello called it quits, and she began to think about leaving.
"My agent said, 'If you send out your audition tapes, you'd better be ready to move,' " Lane says. "And at that moment, I realized I was. I wondered, 'What am I doing? I have to move on with my life.' "
In addition to Philadelphia, Lane was offered jobs at WABC in New York and KABC in Los Angeles, the top two markets in the nation. And a position with the ABC network's overnight newscast World News Now.
"The network offer was great, but I'm not 25 anymore," Lane says. "I'm not willing to sacrifice everything to do a correspondent's job. I'm a big believer in balance."
So Lane accepted the coanchoring position at Channel 3.
In November, just 14 months after her arrival, the station's Nielsen ratings spiked. Its 11 o'clock newscast jumped to the No. 2 spot, behind Channel 6, for the first time since 1994. And Lane says she's achieving that balance, especially now that she has fallen in love again and plans to marry North Carolina businessman Jay Adkins, 31, this summer.
However, Lane's inauguration into full-time anchoring has not gone without controversy. When she first appeared, she got e-mails calling her snooty. Stiff. A cold fish.
And last spring she was criticized for participating in two weepy interviews with Dr. Phil McGraw about her painful divorce that aired during the newscast.
Television columnists called the segments emotional cheesecake. But Lane's confessionals doubled KYW's ratings during crucial May sweeps, and she does not apologize.
"The only people who criticized me for that were other media," she says. "I got hugs on the street after that. I got 500 e-mails, and only one of them was negative."
In fact, Lane believes those segments may have marked the moment that viewers truly began to warm up to her. KYW even plans to air a follow-up segment this month, showing Lane and Adkins getting prenuptial advice from the talk-show shrink.
Now, Lane says she feels at home behind the anchor desk. During newscasts she's strictly business, striking a serious tone when needed and lightening her mood when the news is bright.
Outside the studio, her thoughts have turned toward her wedding to Adkins, whom she met 11 months ago at a beach party in Miami.
"It's going to be something small, maybe at a resort or an inn," she says, adding that it's the second marriage for both of them.
An Air Force veteran who served in Saudi Arabia in 1994, Adkins once managed 28 Waffle House restaurants and currently owns two insurance firms and a real estate company in Charlotte.
After they're married, Adkins plans to split his time between Philly and Charlotte, "until my businesses are 100 percent established," he says.
As for the future, Lane says she is content here.
"I'm 32, I've bounced around a lot already. I've moved some 20-odd times. I think I'd like to just stay put."
Meanwhile, Lane is determined to convince viewers she deserves their respect.
"So, I'm getting involved in the community, staying informed, going out and meeting people, hoping they'll see I'm not a ditz."
Which is proving easier said than done.
On a recent afternoon, Lane began her workday by checking her e-mail messages. One woman wanted to know what hair salon she uses.
Another asked: "What shade of lipstick did you wear on Jan. 14?"
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Contact staff writer Tanya Barrientos at 215-854-5728 or tbarrientos@phillynews.com.
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02-23-2005, 01:58 AM
Alycia Lane's commentary on Philadelphia Women
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