Last updated July 5, 1998

Barbara Beck

Vital Signs

Hometown: Jackson, Michigan (although she talks more about New Orleans, Louisiana being her home)
Birthday: October 2
Nicknames: Barbie, Babs, Puddles Beck, Debbie
Pre-Morning-News Doings: Registered nurse, French teacher
Family: Daughter Jennifer; dogs Pearl, Gloria; new hubby James
KTLA.com page about Barbara

About Barbara

Barbara anchors the 7-9 hours along with Carlos. Barbara is like the mother to the guys on the show, always trying to keep them out of trouble (unless, of course, she's the one causing the trouble). She takes special interest in stories about animals, and hosts the "Pet of the Week" segment that airs at the end of the 7:00 hour every Tuesday.

On June 12, Barbara eloped with James Bradley! Congrats to the newlyweds! KTLA's web site has a page all about the wedding and about how Barbie surprised the Morning News folks with the news.

Running jokes about Barbie

Recently, a shocking tidbit of information came out about Barbara that she had been hiding from us all along! It seems that she has a hidden character inside her, a little girl named Debbie, which only comes out when the cameras are off. But, during a session one day when the folks were taping promos, Debbie came out to complain that her coffee cup was much smaller than Carlos's. Luckily for us viewers, the cameras were still taping, and Lenn Goodside surprised us with a clip of Debbie one morning. Barbara looked about ready to die, she was so embarassed :)

Barbara sometimes slips into her southern accent (revealing her New Orleans heritage) which makes everyone on the show (along with me and a significant portion of the viewers, I'm sure) melt. Once in a great while, when the guys are being really silly, she'll look right at the camera and cross her eyes, in an exasperated look. She hasn't done either of those in a long, long time though.

Barabra plays the role of Colleen Williams (an anchor on LA's NBC station, KNBC channel 4) when Sam does his newly-established "Paul Moyer Quote of the Day" jokes. (Colleen anchors the 5 PM and 11 PM news with Paul.)

Remember the "nuclear jacket"? Way back in what seems like the dark ages, in the second year of the show, Barbara wore a jacket that was a really really shiny silver color. During the first block of news stories, the last story was about a condor, and the clip of the condor showed it hiding in its carrier. Barbara said something like "It's hiding because it saw my jacket." After she said that, everyone else started teasing her about the jacket too. I can remember Neil bringing in a big piece of tinted plastic or plexiglass and setting it in front of her and Carlos to reduce the glare. And Jennifer wore sunglasses during one of her traffic segments.

During the 5-year anniversary show, one lady in the audience asked Barbara what happened to the jacket. Barbara said that she threw it away.

Other on-screen appearances

Barbara has appeared in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (a great role, she got lots of screen time) and a little film you might have heard of, Independence Day. The sound bite "I'm on the air in four minutes." comes from her L&C appearance.

Other tidbits

Barbara's motto is "It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission," although when anyone brings that up she denies it. :)

Her favorite French expression is "C'est pas du beurre!" (which means "That's not butter!"). I don't remember where that came from, though.

Her favorite lipstick color is bronze shimmer.