Marlene Sanders - Biography

Marlene Sanders (born January 10, 1931) began her broadcast journalism career in 1955 working for Mike Wallace of CBS, as his local producer. In those days, women were usually in the newsroom solely to perform secretarial functions.

Sanders is a female pioneer in broadcasting and she has a number of firsts to her credit: the first woman to cover the Vietnam war from the field; the first woman anchor of a nightly newscast for a major network; and eventually the first woman vice president of the ABC News division.

Sanders later became an Emmy Award–winning correspondent, writer, producer and broadcast-news executive.

Sanders is the mother of Jeffrey Toobin (with husband Jerome Toobin who died in 1984), lawyer, author, and CNN legal analyst.