In Japan, the Paynes hired a housekeeper. Soon boredom set in for Mrs Payne, so she began to study Japanese and picked up enough to teach Japanese businessmen how to speak and pronounce English properly. This led to Payne being interviewed on Japanese TV, which in turn, led to a job teaching English classes on her own educational TV program. After three years in Japan, the Payne family moved back to the United States, so Harry R. Payne could take a job in Detroit.
Not long after the family moved to the area, a friend suggested that Beverly (26) audition to co-host a new program at WJBK-TV Channel 2 in Detroit named Focus: Detroit. It was a public-affairs program that discussed issues important to Detroit's minority community, a largely ignored and underserved television demographic.
Payne was hired to begin on July 1, 1973 and teamed with experienced Channel 2 newsman Woody Willis for the Sunday morning program. Management wanted to see how she performed in the ratings rankings. Her numbers were positive.
In a move to capture a larger share of the housewife 18-to-49-year-old television audience, coveted by advertisers because they spend most of the household income, Channel 2 quickly promoted Payne to co-anchor the station's new 7 to 8 morning newscast and the noon news with Channel 2 veteran Vic Caputo.
Two years later, Beverly Payne was moved to the 6 pm newscast with Joe Glover, making her the first African American woman to co-anchor a prime time broadcast and gain celebrity status in Detroit. At the time, she was only one of four Black women in the country to co-anchor a daily, prime time newscast.
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Although Payne's meteoric rise appears to be seamless, she had a difficult hurdle to overcome. Detroit Free Press TV critic Bettelou Peterson explained in her column, "The housewife 18-to-49 demographic that Channel 2 wants to attract is also the most critical of women on the air.... Let a woman come across as aggressive and women resent her as do some men. Let a woman on the air seem too intelligent and she is disliked. But worst of all, let her look sexy, and she is unwelcome in the family living room where the housewife watches with her husband. Beverly Payne passes all the tests of being acceptable to men and women viewers. She projects an image of sincerity, trustworthiness, friendliness, and attractiveness."
Simply put, Payne was non-threatening to the Detroit viewing audience. Women began writing Channel 2 saying they watched solely to see what Beverly Payne was wearing. In response to that, Payne admitted in a fluff Detroit Free Press feature article that she spends "an inordinate amount of money on her wardrobe. I like simple clothes and designer clothes. I wear Halston and Geoffry Beene a lot. I see buying clothes and looking nice as part of my job."
When asked in the same interview if she found television glamorous, Payne candidly admitted, "The only time I feel glamorous is when I go to the bank.... People think television is glamorous, but there is incredible tension. We come across cool, but believe me, there is nothing glamorous about doing a live news show."
With television news celebrity comes great responsibility. News anchors are required to make personal appearances, host charity auctions, attend community service group events, and accept awards, that is, in addition to working their scheduled assignments. More often than not, the celebrity's personal life suffers.
Television news is a goldfish bowl inside a pressure-cooker. It requires its on-air talent to lead a somewhat schizophrenic life. Coming into people's homes everynight exacts a personal price. People feel like they know you which entitles them to violate the celebrity's privacy. Everywhere they go and everything they do in public is fair game for newspaper columnists. So even in their most private moments, celebrities have to be guarded with their behavior. Especially so for women.
The demands of celebrity must have weighed heavily upon Payne's domestic life, though she insisted "(her) chosen career was not responsible for the breakup" of her marriage. She and her husband Harry Payne Jr. divorced in mid-March of 1976 after twelve years of marriage. Beverly retained custody of their three sons Harry Payne III (10), Mark (8), and David (6).
In the year since Joe Glover was teamed with Beverly Payne, Channel 2's market research found they were reaching younger viewers without turning away their core audience. This news teaming had a calming on-camera chemistry.
In a business where your career hangs in the balance with every ratings report and the cold calculus of the station's earnings, Glover and Payne competed favorably for market share against Channel 4 in the ratings race, while Channel 7 remained far and away the ratings leader.
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| Beverly Payne being interviewed behind the scenes. |
All seemed fine until June 15, 1977, when Beverly Payne abruptly quit her $80,000/year job in protest over a live phone interview with the head of the Nazi movement in America. She was nursing a cold at home watching Channel 2 news when she saw her co-anchor Joe Glover allow a hate-filled rant against Jews, Blacks, and immigrants go unquestioned.
The 90-second interview with the national coordinator of the National Socialist White People's Party of America was allowed "to spew his hate over the TV2 airwaves without any balance." Payne criticized her colleague for not asking any probing questions and for the station not having booked a spokesperson from an opposing group for rebuttal. "I may have washed my career down the drain," Payne said in an interview, "but I have my integrity and my dignity."
Station manager Bob McBride refused to issue a public apology over the incident but also refused to accept Payne's resignation. The station continued to honor Ms. Payne's contract which had two years left to run. The station gave Payne a temporary leave of absence to allow Glover and Payne to soothe their egos.
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| Bob McBride |
Payne's fans stood solidly behind her, and they made it known to the station. Two weeks after her protest against WJBK, Payne returned to the Eyewitness News desk to co-anchor with Robbie Timmons while Joe Glover was on temporary assignment elsewhere. Station manager Bob McBride opened the Wednesday night broadcast apologizing to the audience for the offensive interview.
In September of 1979, Ms. Payne's agent negotiated a three-year contract with a substantial salary increase from $80,000 per year to $120,000. WJBK-TV management, not known for their generosity, realized Payne was too important to the station and its image. They did not want to take a chance on losing her to WXYZ-TV Channel 7, which had poached several of their top ratings earners in recent years like John Kelly, Marilyn Turner, and Al Ackerman.
Beverly Payne was the Channel 2 golden girl until November of 1979 when she was one of several journalists invited to a briefing session at the White House with cabinet members and President Carter. Channel 2's conservative management refused to let her attend calling the invitation "public relations puffery."
The decision was typical of WJBK management's failure to capitalize on an opportunity that would enhance Payne and the station's local stature. When she complained that if her co-anchor Joe Glover had received the invitation, the station would have sent him with an expense account. Her statement reopened old wounds. Management began to see Payne as a "troublemaker."
In November of 1980, the station sent Payne on a two-week charity mission to help feed starving Somalian children in Africa. She was able to raise $40,000 from Detroit viewers for the project. Her mission of mercy was filmed by a camera crew and later compiled into a WJBK-TV feature story. When Payne returned home, she was hospitalized at Mt. Carmel Mercy Hospital for dehydration and exhaustion. Her doctor ordered three weeks of rest.
When she returned to work, Payne announced her engagement to Guy Draper, a former chief of protocol in the Carter administration. The couple met at the Democratic National Convention in New York City. They wed on June 20, 1981, in Washington D.C. at St. Albans Church on the grounds of the National Cathedral. The bride wore a street-length, eggshell-colored lace gown. The reception was held at the Shoreham Hotel.
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| Beverly Payne and Guy Draper |
Payne decided to use her husband's surname on the air beginning July 6, 1981. WJBK management was bewildered and miffed after all the years and money they spent promoting Beverly Payne to their Detroit audience. Payne insisted on using her married name--Beverly Payne Draper. She continued to work at the anchor desk until December 1982 when WJBK-TV suspended her without pay for an unspecified reason. Rather than buckle under, she resigned her position after nine years with the station.
In 1985, Payne launched a new career as a consultant and official spokesperson for the Michigan Commerce Department. Two years later in March 1987, after six years of marriage to Andrew Gay Draper, Beverly divorced him and dropped his name from hers. The reason was once again held private.
In an unexpected turn of events, Detroit Mayor Coleman Young nominated Beverly Payne in February 1978 to serve as administrator of the Casino Gambling Commission and its $150,000 budget. The 35 person committee was charged with studying and drafting a recommendation whether Detroit should allow gambling casinos within the city limits. A proposal was written which the voters rejected in a special election.
Glad to be free from her gambling commission duties, Ms. Payne began a consulting firm for small businesses named Beverly Payne & Associates in June 1988. A year and a half later, Ms. Payne announced her engagement to Michigan Senator Morris Hood (D-Detroit). In no apparent hurry to tie the knot, they were married twenty months later in a private, civil ceremony performed by Recorder's Court Judge Geraldine Bledsoe-Ford.
At some point, Beverly Payne moved back to her hometown of San Francisco to be close to family. She passed away at home on November 12, 1998, of complications from cervical cancer at the age of fifty-four. At Ms. Payne's request, there was no memorial service. She left behind three grown sons, five grand kids, two sisters, one brother, and her mother Virginia Wroten.
Beverly Payne's contribution to Detroit television history is that her success opened doors for other women and minorities at news desks across the city: women like Diana Lewis, Doris Biscoe, Robbie Timmons, Kathy Adams, Linda Wright-Avery, Carmen Harlan, Kai Maxwell, and Terry Murphy.
"These women were transformed by the power of television. Deserved or not, a certain glamor and credibility is attached to these golden beings whose fate it is to be on-camera. It is magical!" wrote Detroit Free Press reporter Donna Britt.
We loved Beverly Payne and miss her. RIP. She made history and open doors for others to step through. I was one of the Registered Nurses that was fortunate enough to care for her upon her return trip from Africa. Mrs Njokanma was my name.
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