Up for auction "News Anchor" Matt Lauer Hand Signed 8X10 Color Cardstock Photo. 

ES-4958E

Matthew Todd Lauer[1] (/laʊər/; born December 30, 1957) is a former American television news anchor. He was the co-host of NBC's Today show from 1997 to 2017, and a contributor for Dateline NBC. Following allegations of his inappropriate sexual behavior (including anal rape), Lauer's contract was terminated by NBC in November 2017 after NBC reported receiving "a detailed complaint from a colleague about inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace" and added that the network had "reason to believe this may not have been an isolated incident". With NBC, he hosted the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade from 1998 to 2017 and co-hosted the opening ceremonies of several Olympic Games. He was also previously a news anchor for The Today Show from 1994 to 1997, anchor for WNBC in New York City and served as a local talk-show host in various cities (including co-hosting various local versions of PM Magazine) and entertainment news segments for HBO. Lauer was born in New York City, the son of Marilyn Lauer, a boutique owner, and Jay Robert Lauer, a bicycle-company executive. Lauer's father was of Romanian Jewish ancestry, as seen on the Today Show's Finding Our Roots. Lauer said, "My dad was Jewish. My mom is not. So I was not raised anything. I do feel a desire now to find something spiritual. Getting married and wanting to have kids has something to do with that."  Lauer earned his undergraduate degree from Ohio University at age 39 in 1997; he had studied at the school's Scripps College of Communication, School of Media Arts and Studies. He had previously dropped out of the same institution in the spring of 1979 to begin his television career, after he was hired as a producer of the noon newscast for WOWK-TV in Huntington, West Virginia. By 1980, he had become an on-air reporter for the station's 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts. He then started to move around the East Coast, hosting a number of daily information and talk programs.[9] He was a co-host of PM Magazine in several cities, beginning in Richmond (1980–1981), then Providence (1981–1984), and then New York City (1984–1986). After the New York edition of PM Magazine was canceled by WNYW in 1986, Lauer and co-host Jill Rappaport worked on a new show for the station, Made in New York, which ran for fifteen weeks. This was followed by Lauer gaining his first national television exposure, as he joined Robin Leach in co-hosting ABC's short-lived daytime series Fame, Fortune and Romance, a spin-off of the syndicated Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Lauer then returned to local television, hosting programs in Philadelphia and Boston for a two-year period between 1987 and 1989, during which time he also anchored entertainment news segments for HBO. In September 1989, Lauer returned to New York City, this time to WWOR-TV, where he hosted 9 Broadcast Plaza, a three-hour live interview program. He departed that series as it took a turn in booking "tabloid" guests and topics, and for what he relayed as a refusal to live-read ads on the show for Dial-a-Mattress.[16] WWOR-TV replaced Lauer with Richard Bey, and 9 Broadcast Plaza eventually morphed into The Richard Bey Show. In 1990, he was hired by the Kushner-Locke Company to host a pilot called Day in Court, executive-produced by veteran producer David Sams, who helped to launch The Oprah Winfrey Show into national syndication. The program was retitled Trial Watch when it went to series, and ran on the NBC network for two seasons. NBC hired Robb Weller as host over Lauer when the program was picked up as a daily series. The same year, he filmed a pilot for the World Wrestling Federation's bodybuilding spinoff, the World Bodybuilding Federation for USA Network known as WBF BodyStars, though WWF owner/chairman Vince McMahon later decided to host the program himself. In 1991 Lauer appeared as the co-host (along with Willow Bay) of Etc., Etc., a show on the Travel Channel.