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Rose Ann Scamardella |
Rose Ann Scarmardella is a former anchorwoman of WABC-TV's Eyewitness News in New York City.
A graduate of Marymount Manhattan College in 1968, Scarmardella was originally a personnel director of a shipping company. In 1974, she was hired by Eyewitness News producer Howard Weinberg, after she was interviewed on the program. Weinberg was responding to concerns about diversity in the WABC-TV newsroom and complaints from the then-News Director that he could not find an Italian-American correspondent.1.
After coaching from Weinberg, Scarmardella started off as a reporter and later became an anchor for the broadcast. She was mostly known as a co-anchor with Ernie Anastos on the weeknight 11pm edition of Eyewitness News during the late 1970s and early 1980s. She remained in that position until leaving WABC-TV in 1983.
She returned to New York local television in May 1999 to present a two-part special report on the plight of Albanian refugees in Brooklyn for WNYW-TV's Ten O' Clock News.2
Infamously, Scarmardella was the inspiration for the name of Gilda Radner's character "Roseanne Roseannadanna" on Saturday Night Live in the late 1970s.
She went on to teach at the Salisbury School in Salisbury, CT during the 1990s and into 2000.citation needed
After that time, Scamardella co-hosted a television show, Crossroads Magazine, with Father John Gatzak; it is produced in cooperation with the Office of Radio and Television of the Archdiocese of Hartford and airs on two Connecticut television stations, CW20 and MyTV9.citation needed She left in 2007.