70-mile-long Massachusetts peninsula in the early 1980s. Since then the couple has been through many ups and downs, raising three children together and dealing with countless career changes and life challenges (Richard, 66, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when he was 25). But the Cape has been a constant in their lives. “I like the Cape because it’s scruffy,” says


Vieira. “I would love to be refined, but I’m not. I wouldn’t fit in in the Hamptons. I fit in here; it just feels comfortable.” On a typical day at her family’s airy, light- filled cottage overlooking the water, Vieira


is likely to be reading a book on the couch, watching the tide come in and the sailboats go out. When the children were little, the house was full of happy chaos. Now that they’re grown (Ben is 25; Gabe, 23; and Lily, 21) and scattered around the world, it’s calm—the perfect place to unwind before heading back to daytime TV. On Sept. 8, she will debut as host of The


Meredith Vieira Show, which she hopes will entertain as much as it will inspire. In addi- tion to game-show elements and celebrity guests, the hour-long weekday program, produced and distributed by NBC Univer- sal, will feature human interest stories and community calls to action. In one recurring segment, Vieira will pair a service dog with a family in need. In another, the show’s Pick Me Up Truck will roam the country looking for ways to lend a little sup- port, whether by donating books to schools or con- necting someone to a job. “I want a show that, in its own little way,


YOU COULD CATCH THE SHOW!


Enter for a chance to win a two-night stay in New York City and a pair of tickets to The Meredith Vieira Show at parade.com/meredith.


on-camera as she is off,” says Sirop. “She’s a kisser, and we joke that her lips carry more germs than a door handle, because she’s probably kissed 100 strangers before coming to work.” Originally, Vieira wanted to film at her house in New York’s Westchester County, “because I would never have to get dressed up,” she jokes. “My husband said, ‘Forget about it.’ But I said, ‘Then at least I want the authenticity of my furniture.’ The cats and the dog ruined it, and I just want people to see this is how I live, and probably the way a lot of people live.” So while the show will be filmed at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, the set has been designed to look like her family room. “I want people to feel they are, in a sense, coming into my home,” she says. “It’s a safe place where you talk, you laugh, you cry.” That deep sense of camara-


derie is a reflection of Vieira’s own values, honed growing up the youngest of four children (she has three brothers) whose


From top: Vieira in her early 20s; at her wedding to Richard Cohen, June 1986, flanked by her parents; with Richard and their children (from left), Ben, Lily, and Gabe, in March 2013. “My family has always been the driving force,” she says.


10 | AUGUST 24, 2014 © PARADE Publications 2014. All rights reserved


will make a difference—without being up on a soapbox,” says the multiple Emmy winner, who has been brainstorming ideas with her executive producer, Rich Sirop. The pair also worked on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, which Vieira hosted for 11 years through a suffering economy. “When times were really bad, you could change someone’s life just by playing that game,” she says. Vieira is in well-charted waters—she spent nine years on The View and five on Today, before leaving in 2011—but this is her first time anchoring a program with her name on it. “For somebody who has been in front of the camera a long time, I’m really shy. I didn’t even want to call it The Mer- edith Vieira Show,” says the host, who sug- gested V as an alternate title. “That’s what my friends call me, and maybe if it succeeds, it can be V eventually.” The name game aside, Vieira has been adamant about having the show reflect who she really is. “Meredith is exactly the same


parents, both first-generation Portuguese- Americans, were a doctor and a homemaker. She credits her father’s dedication to helping people (“Most of his patients were Portu- guese immigrants; his waiting room would be packed, and he didn’t leave until he’d seen every single one”) and her mother’s “spunk” with giving her a strong foundation. “My mother was kind of women’s lib before there was women’s lib,” she says. “I think she liked being a homemaker, but she wanted me to think the way a guy would.” In 1982, when she was a reporter for CBS


News based in Chicago, Vieira met Cohen, then a CBS News producer. The pair hit it off, but she noticed a “sadness” about him. When he told her on their second date that he had multiple sclerosis, she could have walked away (another woman had), but she chose to stay. Some years later, “he wanted me to go to a doctor’s appointment with him,” Vieira recalls. “There were two or three guys there in wheelchairs, young men. So if [I was] ever going to run … But I thought, ‘I’m not going to live my life worrying about


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