NBC's First Female Page Dead at 85

Gloria Clyne, NBC's first female page who went on to spend 55 years at the company, died at her home in Greenwood Lake, N.Y. on Wednesday morning.

Clyne started as a “guidette” in 1944 when she was 18 and spent 55 years running scripts, giving tours and greeting famous guests around the halls of 30 Rock.

Because of a wartime shortage for young males, Gloria was hired with three other girls as “guidettes” to give NBC guided tours. She roamed the halls with Eleanor Lebenthal and Eva Marie Saint while bumping into the likes of Milton Berle, Eddie Cantor, Chet Huntley, David Brinkley and funnyman Johnny Carson.

In her later years at NBC, she eventually moved up and became a production assistant. She was even a segment producer for the then up-and-coming weatherman, Al Roker.

A longtime devotee to NBC, Clyne posed in a page uniform last week in front of the iconic 30 Rock, the home of NBC. She told the New York Post in a 2010 profile, “It feels good to be a page again. This jacket certainly fits.”

She left the network in 1999 with a salary of $47,000.

“I never got rich, but it was a priceless experience,” Clyne told the Post. “I spent my life there.”

A service will be held Friday at Riverside Chapel at 180 W. 76th St.


 

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