Ruth Ashton Taylor (April 20, 1922 – January 11, 2024) was an American television and radio newscaster, with a career in broadcasting that spanned over 50 years. She was the first female newscaster on television in Los Angeles and the West Coast. She received many awards and honors, including a Lifetime Achievement

Emmy Award The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the year, each with their own set of rules and award categor ...

and a star on the

Hollywood Walk of Fame The Hollywood Walk of Fame is a landmark which consists of 2,813 five-pointed terrazzo-and-brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along 15 blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in the Hollywood, Los Angeles, Hollywood dist ...

Early life and education

Ruth Arlene Montoya was born on April 20, 1922 in

Long Beach, California Long Beach is a coastal city in southeastern Los Angeles County, California, United States. It is the list of United States cities by population, 44th-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 451,307 as of 2022. A charter ci ...

. Her mother, Flora Ashton, opened Sis Ashton's Cafe in

Signal Hill, California Signal Hill is a city in area in Los Angeles County, California. Located high on a hill, the city is an enclave completely surrounded by the city of Long Beach. Signal Hill was incorporated on April 22, 1924, roughly three years after oil was ...

, after her husband, Ruth's father, Julian Montoya, abandoned the family in 1926. Young Ruth soon took the Ashton surname as her own. She graduated in 1939 from

Long Beach Polytechnic High School Long Beach Polytechnic High School, founded in 1895 as Long Beach High School, is a four-year public high school located at 1600 Atlantic Avenue in Long Beach, California, United States. The school serves portions of Long Beach, including Bixby ...

and completed her undergraduate degree at

Scripps College Scripps College is a private liberal arts women's college in Claremont, California. It was founded as a member of the Claremont Colleges in 1926, a year after the consortium's formation. Journalist and philanthropist Ellen Browning Scripps pr ...

. She relocated to New York City thereafter, receiving a

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...

journalism Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the "news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree of accuracy. The word, a noun, applies to the journ ...

from

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

in 1944.

Career

Following her graduation, she took a job as a news writer at

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...

radio, taking a place among the original members of the documentary unit of

Edward R. Murrow Edward Roscoe Murrow (born Egbert Roscoe Murrow; April 25, 1908 – April 27, 1965) was an American Broadcast journalism, broadcast journalist and war correspondent. He first gained prominence during World War II with a series of live radio broa ...

. When she first began as a writer and producer there, she had no thoughts of going on air as, to her knowledge, it simply wasn't done in major news markets. According to Ashton, CBS management didn't want to broadcast women because they "just didn't like those squeaky voices". However, by 1949, she was on the air, interviewing such notable individuals as

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...

. Eventually, she was transferred to a religious program, and, disappointed by her exclusion from news broadcasting, she left CBS radio in New York and returned to Los Angeles. In 1951, she became the first woman on television news on the

West Coast of the United States The West Coast of the United States, also known as the Pacific Coast and the Western Seaboard, is the coastline along which the Western United States meets the North Pacific Ocean. The term typically refers to the Contiguous United States, contig ...

when she took a job with Los Angeles' KNXT-TV (now KCBS). Although originally hired to cover the "Women's Angle", she indicated in interviews that the lack of conventional roles for women in broadcasting had given her considerable freedom in the stories she selected to cover. In 1958, she left briefly to work as a public information officer at a college before returning in 1962. She officially retired in 1989, but continued occasionally contributing into her 70s. As a news reporter and program host, she became an influential figure on subsequent female journalists, with numerous industry awards and a career that included notable interviews with such diverse people as

Jimmy Carter James Earl Carter Jr. (October 1, 1924December 29, 2024) was an American politician and humanitarian who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party ...

and

Jimmy Durante James Francis Durante ( , ; February 10, 1893 – January 29, 1980) was an American comedian, actor, singer, and pianist. His distinctive gravelly speech, Lower East Side New York accent, accent, comic language-butchery, jazz-influenced son ...

Later life and death

Ashton Taylor

turned 100 A centenarian is a person who has reached the age of 100. Because life expectancies at birth worldwide are well below 100, the term is invariably associated with longevity. The United Nations estimated that there were 316,600 living centenarian ...

on April 20, 2022, and died in

San Rafael, California San Rafael ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for "Raphael (archangel), St. Raphael", ) is a city in and the county seat of Marin County, California, United States. The city is located in the North Bay (San Francisco Bay Area), North Bay region of th ...

, on January 11, 2024, at the age of 101. Survivors included her two daughters from her first marriage; her stepson; her grandson and granddaughter-in-law; and her great-grandson.

Honors and awards

During her time in broadcasting, Ashton Taylor became a widely known and celebrated figure. In 1983, ''

The Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper in the U.S. and the larges ...

'' indicated that she had a reputation as "one of the best newspeople in television". A 2007 article in the ''Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media'' described her as "one of the most recognizable people on radio and television in Los Angeles". Ashton Taylor received a Star in the

in 1990. Other notable honors include a Governors Award for Lifetime Achievement bestowed by the

Academy of Television Arts and Sciences The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS), also colloquially known as the Television Academy, is a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of the television industry in the United States. A 501(c)(6) non-profit or ...

and a Diamond Achievement Award from

Women in Communications The Association for Women in Communications (AWC) is an American professional organization for women in the communications industry.Kopecki, Dawn (1996). "Makeover gives group new identity, no staff". The Washington Times. It was formed as Theta ...

(1984).

References

External links

2008 interview
CBS
Ruth Ashton Taylor interviews
Governor of California

George Deukmejian Courken George Deukmejian Jr. ( ; June 6, 1928May 8, 2018) was an American politician who served as the 35th governor of California from 1983 to 1991. A member of the Republican Party, he was the state's first governor of Armenian descent. B ...

on KCBS Los Angeles, 1990 {{DEFAULTSORT:Taylor, Ruth Ashton 1922 births 2024 deaths American television journalists American women television journalists American women centenarians Radio personalities from Los Angeles Scripps College alumni Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism alumni