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Phyllis George, who accomplished 1 amount of fame as Miss The usa 1971 and another a single 4 several years later, when CBS hired her to affix the if not all-male cast of “The NFL These days,” died on Thursday in Lexington, Ky. She was 70.

Her family stated the trigger was polycythemia vera, a rare blood most cancers that had been diagnosed 35 yrs ago.

Hired like a co-host of CBS Sports’s weekly pregame football show — which showcased the significant-profile hosts Brent Musburger and Irv Cross and also the gambling commentator Jimmy Snyder, or Jimmy the Greek, as he was known — Ms. George straight away turned by far the most notable lady in sportscasting.

But with her magnificence-queen track record and her modest tv résumé, she was criticized for missing the standard sportscaster credentials. She was not a previous sportswriter, like Mr. Musburger, and she or he was clearly not a retired football player, like Mr. Cross.

She responded to her critics by saying that she knew more than enough about sports activities, Particularly soccer, to obtain by.

“I’m from Texas,” she advised Men and women magazine in 1976, “and down there you Adhere to the Texas Longhorns as well as the Dallas Cowboys or else Helpful site you don’t belong.”

She was unquestionably a pioneer. To quite a few young Women of all ages who hoped to get careers in sportscasting, viewing her sharing the studio desk with Mr. Musburger, Mr. Cross and Mr. Snyder and speaking about the working day’s games was inspiring.

“Often It's important to see it to be it; You will need to know something is a vocation selection to be able to aspire to it,” Hannah Storm, an anchor at ESPN’s “SportsCenter,” wrote in an electronic mail. “Meaning an individual has to be initial. That was Phyllis George — a true trailblazer.”

Ms. George was very best known for her interviews with athletes. A noteworthy instant took place in 1975, when Roger Staubach, the Dallas Cowboys’ stoic quarterback, unexpectedly confessed to her: “I like intercourse up to Joe Namath. I similar to it with a person man or woman, my wife.”

Late that season, her very first with “The NFL Now,” she recalled staying concerned that she had been chosen by CBS to Engage in a token role.

“I informed Brent I had been no specialist,” she told The Orlando Sentinel. “But each and every 7 days, what you’ve obtained to grasp is that I get Increasingly more to do mainly because my confidence is increasing and their assurance in me is escalating.”

Nevertheless, it was difficult currently being a girl within a male bastion decades in advance of growing figures of ladies obtained broad respect at different networks.

“We talked recently about the ‘me far too’ motion,” her daughter, Pamela Brown, senior White Dwelling correspondent for CNN, mentioned within an interview. “She reported, ‘Pam, I went as a result of all of it’ — the many sexist remarks and how in the course of industrial breaks she’d have an concept and one of several men would steal it like it ended up his.”

She remained with “The NFL Right now” for 3 seasons in advance of being changed throughout the 1978 year by Jayne Kennedy, One more previous attractiveness queen. The next calendar year, Ms. George married John Y. Brown Jr., who experienced created the Kentucky Fried Hen chain and was elected governor of Kentucky in 1979. She was the main Girl in the state for four several years.

Phyllis Ann George was born on June twenty five, 1949, in Denton, Texas. Her father, Robert, owned an oil distributorship. Her mother, Diantha Louise (Cogdell) George, was a homemaker. Ms. George attended the College of North Texas but didn't graduate.

She took piano classes for much more than a decade, aspiring to the career to be a classical pianist. That did not transpire, but she performed piano at the local and condition pageants that culminated in her currently being crowned Pass up The usa. With the talent part of the Competitiveness, she performed “Raindrops Keep Slipping on My Head.”

When Ms. George was introduced as being the pageant winner and commenced her runway walk, she nodded to the judges and her crown fell from her head.

“I thought, ‘You can’t leave it there,’ so I bent down and carried it,” she advised The Push of Atlantic City in 2013. “I had flowers along with a scepter in one hand plus a crown in the opposite.”

Her 1st important job in television was like a co-host of “The brand new Candid Digital camera” in 1974, teaming up with the original “Candid Digital camera” creator, Allen Funt. CBS Sports activities employed her shortly soon after and started to offer her assignments, quite possibly the most notable getting “The NFL Nowadays.”

Bob Wussler, the president of CBS Athletics, reported he planned to seek the services of a girl who would offer a human fascination angle that male commentators did not.

“She’s a warm, desirable, incredibly great specific,” Mr. Wussler advised The Sentinel. “She provides the standard twenty five-calendar year-outdated-lady-fan style of component, which I feel is crucial.”

Soon after currently being changed by Ms. Kennedy for 2 seasons, Ms. George returned to “The NFL Right now” in 1980 and stayed until finally 1984. Early another 12 months, she changed Diane Sawyer as an anchor of “The CBS Early morning Information” with Bill Kurtis. She was once more criticized, this time for not getting a journalism history. Following eight months, she resigned.

She went on to host a chat exhibit over the Nashville Network, write guides and begin two corporations: Hen by George, a maker of marinated clean rooster-breast entrees, which she marketed to Hormel, plus a line of cosmetics and pores and skin-care products and solutions, Phyllis George Beauty, marketed by way of HSN.

Together with her daughter, she's survived by her son, Lincoln Tyler George Brown, and two grandchildren. Her marriages to Mr. Brown and Robert Evans, the Hollywood producer, ended in divorce. (Mr. Evans died in Oct.)

Interviewed because of the Kansas Town Star in 1995, Ms. George recalled that despite the challenges she faced at CBS Sporting activities, she might have carried out it again. But, she claimed, she must not have done “The CBS Early morning Information.”

“They didn’t Engage in to my strengths,” she explained. “They didn’t play to anything I'd. They simply left me sitting there. To show up for 8 months, as I did, was the toughest issue I’ve ever carried out.”