George Stephanopoulos

George Robert Stephanopoulos (born February 10, 1961) is an American broadcaster and political adviser. He is currently ABC News's Chief Washington Correspondent and the host of ABC's Sunday morning news show This Week. Prior to joining ABC News, he was a senior political adviser to the 1992 U.S. presidential campaign of Bill Clinton and later became Clinton's communications director.

He is married to actress Alexandra Wentworth, with whom he has two daughters.

Early life

George Stephanopoulos was born in Fall River, Massachusetts, and grew up in suburban Cleveland, Ohio, the descendant of Greek immigrants. His parents followed the Greek Orthodox faith, and Stephanopoulos, whose father was a Greek Orthodox priest, had long considered entering the priesthood himself. However, when he was a freshman at Orange High School, he decided that he would rather pursue a different profession. Stephanopoulos attributes his experience as an altar boy, where he played a behind-the-scenes role helping the person in the spotlight, his father, as the formative experience that made him well-suited to political spinning.

Education

Stephanopoulos wrestled competitively in high school, though he was a poor wrestler. He reports being a short, chubby kid, and was very awkward in his high school years. While attending Columbia College, he says he "came into his own." Stephanopoulos received his bachelor's degree from Columbia in 1982, where he was a Truman Scholar, a legendary broadcaster for WKCR Sports, and Phi Beta Kappa. Graduating summa cum laude in political science, Stephanopoulos was the salutatorian of his class. He returned to his alma mater in 2003, serving as Columbia's commencement speaker.

Stephanopoulos' father had always wanted his son to become a lawyer, if not a priest, so he promised his father that he would attend law school eventually. Initially he took a job with a Congressman from Cleveland, and served as an aide in Washington, D.C. Nevertheless, his father persistently questioned him as to when he would attend law school, so Stephanopoulos agreed to attend law school if he were not offered a Rhodes Scholarship. Though he had been rejected for the scholarship during his senior year at Columbia, Stephanopoulos was successful in his second attempt.

While at Oxford, Stephanopoulos earned a master's degree in theology at Balliol College on his Rhodes Scholarship. He reported spending much of his time trying to root his political leanings in deeper philosophies that he studied while at Oxford.

Political experience

Stephanopoulos was, along with David Wilhelm and James Carville, a leading member of the 1992 Clinton campaign. His role on the campaign is portrayed in the documentary film The War Room. At the outset of Clinton's presidency, Stephanopoulos served as the de facto press secretary, briefing the press even though Dee Dee Myers was officially the White House Press Secretary. Later, he was moved to Senior Advisor on Policy and Strategy, when Dee Dee Myers began personally conducting the briefings. The move was largely viewed as a rebuke to Stephanopoulos' handling of public relations during the first six months of the Clinton Administration.

After leaving the White House, he became a political analyst for ABC News, as a correspondent on the ABC Sunday talk program This Week, World News Tonight, Good Morning America, and various special broadcasts. In September 2002, Stephanopoulos became host of This Week. In December 2005, ABC News officially named him Chief Washington Correspondent.

His 1999 memoir, entitled All Too Human: A Political Education, was published after he left the White House during Clinton's second term. It quickly became a #1 New York Times Best Seller. In his book, Stephanopoulos spoke of his depression and how his face broke out into hives due to the relentless pressures of conveying the Clinton White House message. Bill Clinton referred to the book in his autobiography, My Life, apologizing for what he felt in retrospect to be excessive demands placed on the young staffer.

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Aaron Sorkin modeled both Michael J. Fox's character Lewis Rothschild in The American President and Rob Lowe's character Sam Seaborn on The West Wing after Stephanopoulos. Fox based his portrayal on Stephanopoulos as well.

Stephanopoulos is also believed to be the model for the character of Henry Burton in Joe Klein's novel Primary Colors. Burton was portrayed in the novel's film adaptation by Adrian Lester.

Stephanopoulos was also the subject of the fourth episode of the first season of the hit TV series Friends, entitled "The One With George Stephanopoulos" (1994). When a delivery guy brings a pizza meant for "G Stephanopoulos," the girls decide to sit on their balcony and leer at a towel-clad George, who lives across the street.

In the first series of the sitcom 'Will & Grace', when a barman in a gay bar asks Jack and Will 'What's your pleasure?', they reply in unison: 'George Stephanopolous!'.

Stephanopoulos was the object of fan club (the George Stephanopoulos Fan Club) started by two Stanford University graduate students, and a related fanzine, the Stephanopouletter, which ran for 6 editions and had a worldwide subscription base of several hundred. The fan club founders were interviewed by numerous magazines and newspapers. Stephanoupoulos, who at the time was facing high media scrutiny, appeared discomfited by the attention and his assistant Heather Beckel told the Wall Street Journal that "it's kind of weird."

He is portrayed in a Simpson's Halloween episode, where he asks presidential candidates Bill Clinton and Bob Dole in a very effeminate voice to stop holding hands.

References

• Clinton, Bill (2005). My Life. Vintage. ISBN 1-4000-3003-X.