Who

The stiff-jawed blonde broadcaster was a CNN staple until she was shown the door in 2007.

Backstory

A Miss Teenage America finalist, Zahn attended college on a music scholarship before jumping into TV news. She worked her way up the local news ladder from Dallas to Boston to LA, going national in 1987 when ABC hired her on Good Morning America. Zahn moved to CBS in 1990 and remained there for nine years, before accepting an offer from Roger Ailes to join Fox News as the host of her own show, The Edge with Paula Zahn. But two years later, after Ailes discovered that she'd been in discussions with CNN—and had received a $2 million a year job offer—he gave her the boot and sued her for breach of contract, bidding her adieu with the warmest of compliments: "A dead raccoon could get higher ratings."

Zahn spent six years at CNN—ominously, her first day there was Sept. 11, 2001—but she never seemed to find an audience, and less than stellar ratings sent her bouncing from one show to another including American Morning, Live from the Headlines, and finally Paula Zahn Now. None took, and after months of speculation over her fate, in July 2007 Zahn was unceremoniously tossed overboard by CNN president Jonathan Klein in favor of the younger, friendlier Weekend Today host Campbell Brown. Worse still was that news of her ouster was leaked to the press before Zahn had been formally notified by her bosses.

Personal

Zahn and husband Richard Cohen split in 2007, after she was caught cheating with Paul Fribourg, the CEO of ContiGroup. (She reportedly kept a diary detailing her affair, which Cohen found.) The two are now in the process of divorcing and Zahn is also suing Cohen for $25 million for allegedly mismanaging her money. The couple has three children: Haley, Jared (he goes by JB), and Austin.

Habitat

Since the break-up, Zahn has been living in a full-floor apartment on East 76th Street that she rents for $40,000 a month. She used to live at 927 Fifth Avenue, best known as the home of Lola and Pale Male, the red-tailed hawks who lived on the building's roof until they were evicted by the co-op board in 2004.