How do you measure a lifetime?
By the hours or the days or the years?
You measure the memory.
You treasure the moment.
You remember all the blessings you’ve been given
And thank the good Lord above
For every moment you’ve been loved,
Every hour, every day that you’ve been livin’.
That’s how you measure a lifetime.
—“HOW DO YOU MEASURE A LIFETIME” BY KATHIE LEE GIFFORD
I have always been fascinated to hear the stories of how people first met. A moment that seems insignificant sometimes turns into a momentous shift in one’s destiny.
I had one such moment early in the summer of 1982. I had just moved to New York City to begin my year at Good Morning America. It was four in the morning, and I was preparing to tape an ALPO commercial with a stinky basset hound. How this assignment was going to help develop me into a world-class anchor of a major network’s morning show, I had no idea, but there I was, walking down a hallway.
I passed a dressing room where a man, an on-air guest, was leaning over a sink, apparently putting in his contact lenses. What I noticed first, I have to be honest, was the physique of this mystery man. He had the single greatest set of buns I had ever seen.
I had recently undergone a procedure called radial keratotomy, which involved a doctor putting liquid cocaine on my cornea and proceeding to make small radial cuts with a razor blade. This was pre-LASIK, and it resulted in twenty-twenty vision for the first time in my life.
“Have I got an operation for you,” I said to the unrecognizable man with his face in the sink.
“Yeah—with a fool on either end,” he replied.
I just chuckled and continued on my way to the studio.
Later I learned that the magnificent “tight end” belonged to one of the most famous athletes/sportscasters in the world—Frank Gifford.
I don’t actually recall our very first face-to-face meeting, but obviously when I did meet him I discovered that his face rivaled his gluteus maximus. Even at fifty-two years old he was matinee-idol handsome. And sweet and modest. We liked each other instantly, but I was twenty-nine and getting divorced and he was on his second marriage with three children and a grandchild.
From insider gossip at Good Morning America it was widely believed he was miserable in his marriage at the time, but Frank never spoke unkindly about his wife to me. He was elegant and classy and concerned for my well-being. He knew that journalism was a new frontier for me, as it had been for him a few years earlier, and he was always the first colleague to offer his advice and support. I was truly grateful to him.
On my birthday, August 16, I received a gift from someone—a bottle of champagne with a card that read, “Happy birthday to us, happy birthday to us, happy birthday dear Kathie Lee, happy birthday to us! Love, Frank.”
I had no idea until then that we shared a birthday. But I soon learned from spending time with him that we also shared values, had similar senses of humor, and followed the same faith.
He was honest that he had fallen away from his Pentecostal beliefs years before and no longer went to church. But he still prayed and totally believed that Jesus was the Son of God. He was completely comfortable talking to me about my faith, which I welcomed in a new and different environment.
We began a beautiful friendship that deepened through the next four years as Frank experienced loss and tragedy and heartbreak in his personal life. Anytime he was facing a difficult situation he called me to see if he could take me to lunch or dinner. I felt privileged that he would seek my comfort and company.
I had started dating someone in 1984 who Frank didn’t like at all for me. He didn’t like the way this boyfriend treated me and kept asking why I stayed in such a roller-coaster relationship with a man who obviously didn’t love me.
“Please tell me you’re not going to marry him,” he’d say.
“I might,” I’d reply with a laugh. “It’s none of your business.”
Finally, after my boyfriend and I broke up for the ninth time in two years, Frank and I went for a walk, and he said to me, “You are going to hang out with me until you’re over this guy.” I walked away from him after he said this, but even after a block I could still feel him watching me, so I turned and looked back. Sure enough, he was still standing down the street, staring at me.
“I mean it, Kath,” he yelled. “I’m not going to let you go back to him.”
I was in a terrible romantic rut. The kind where one day you’re euphoric and the next you’re miserable. But I couldn’t seem to find the strength to get out. Frank was determined to be the strength I needed, and he kept his word. His marriage to his second wife had deteriorated and was in the final stages of divorce. He was faithful to continue to be my friend and accompany me to whatever was going on in my life—whether it was personal or professional.
Finally, one day he called to see how I was doing. I asked, “Did you get the invitation for that dinner ABC is throwing for Walter Annenberg?”
“Yes,” he answered.
“Are you going to take me?”
“I can’t, Kath, I’m sorry. I’m leaving town for Palm Beach, then I’m headed to Santa Fe. I’ll be gone about a week.”
“Okay,” I answered, “then I’ll just go with some other tall, dark, and handsome guy.”
He laughed. “I’ll call you when I get back.”
“Okay.” I laughed, too, and hung up the phone.
Ten minutes later my phone rang again.
“Okay, I’ll take you.”
I smiled.
The night of the dinner he picked me up and gave me a small box. I couldn’t imagine what was in it. I opened it to find the most beautiful Rolex watch with an unusual brown face.
“Why?” I looked at him.
“Because it’s the color of your eyes.”
That night we slow danced for the first time, and I experienced what it was like to actually be in his arms. I could sense all our colleagues’ eyes on us—they were as surprised as I was with what seemed to be happening. Something changed in me that night, but it wasn’t until weeks later that I finally knew what it was.
It was the summer of 1986, a year after I began cohosting the Morning Show with Regis Philbin. I had purchased a small house in the Hamptons and had just moved in over Memorial Day. Every Friday morning after the show ended, Frank would pick me up in his Jaguar and drive me out to the Hamptons for the weekend. We’d have lunch at my house and then he would drive to his attorney’s home. He’d stay there until Sunday when he’d take me back to the city.
I couldn’t wait for Fridays. I’d rush out of the studio and there he’d be. Like clockwork.
One weekend the US Open was being held at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Southampton. Frank and I had been invited to an opening night party at a beautiful home in Bridgehampton.
Just after arriving he said, “I’m gonna say hello to a few people. I’ll see you in a bit. You okay?”
“Sure,” I said. It wasn’t as if we were dating, so I didn’t expect him to hang out with me the whole night.
Ten minutes later he was suddenly next to me.
“Okay,” he said, “I’ve done my duty, and now I’ve come home.”
He never left my side the rest of that night.
The guests began to play with a device called the Music Box, a precursor to karaoke that allowed you to sing a famous song and record it onto a cassette tape, which you then got to keep. Frank and I chose “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers.” I started by singing the Barbra Streisand part, “You don’t bring me flowers. You don’t sing me love songs.” And then Frank sang, “YouhardlytalktomeanymorewhenIcomethroughthedoor attheendoftheday.”
I had never met anyone who could sing perfectly in tune yet was completely incapable of staying in rhythm. It was hysterical, and each time we sang the song it became increasingly more hysterical. He just couldn’t for the life of him keep the beat.
At one point I fell off the sofa, crying with laughter. I just lay there and couldn’t stop.
He was laughing, too, and as he reached down to lift me to my feet, I looked up at him and thought, I never want to spend another day of my life without him in it.
Frank asked me to marry him on August 10, 1986, in Atlantic City, where Regis and I were performing at the Trump Plaza. On Saturday, October 18, I became his wife in a small quiet ceremony on the beach in Bridgehampton at his attorney’s house.
We only had one day together as Mr. and Mrs. Frank Gifford before he had to announce a Monday Night Football game at Giants Stadium. We raced off to Gurney’s Inn in Montauk followed furiously by the paparazzi who had been hiding in the dunes trying to grab a shot of the ceremony. They failed.
It’s always so sweet to remember back to how we met, became friends, and then joined together as man and wife. I’m sure there are people in your life that you have meet-cute stories about too. Take the time to remember them, even if they happened long ago. I know doing so will sweeten your day.
Frank Gifford was my husband for almost twenty-nine years. None of my memories of him have faded. I can even still smell him. I know I always will.