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Both authors conclude that Savitch had no one to blame for her troubles but herself. Instead of seeking help or a change of assignment, she slipped ever deeper into the embrace of drugs -- mostly cocaine, but also pills -- and a retinue of sycophants. Her first marriage lasted ten months; her second ended after five months, when she found her husband hanging lifeless in the basement of their Washington town house. Her self-abuse finally became evident to millions when she slurred her way through a harrowing 43-second NBC News Digest. Three weeks later, Savitch, 36, and a date, New York Post Executive Martin Fischbein, accidentally drove into a canal in New Hope, Pa., and were killed.
"She had reached the top only to be dismissed as a bimbo," Blair writes. But with film and television rights to both biographies already snapped up, Savitch is sure to be remembered as the woman who brought the dark side of Hollywood to broadcast row.