Ruth Ashton Taylor, the West Coast’s first female news anchor, celebrated her 100th birthday in San Rafael last week.
Taylor started in radio at CBS in New York after graduating from Columbia University. She became the first female anchor on the West Coast in 1951 when she was hired in Los Angeles at KNXT, which is now KCBS. She officially retired in 1989.
The Marin Independent Journal said Taylor’s daughter, Susan Conklin showed a clip of her mother’s interview with then Gov. George Deukmejian in October 1990, after he ordered an LGBTQ pride flag to be taken down shortly after it was raised on the Capitol on Coming Out Day.
“She just nails him and it was really great,” Conklin told the paper.
Taylor was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1990 for her work—and was also given a Governor’s Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.