Everyone knows the feeling of being thrown into the deep end. But what do you do when you’re tossed in without knowing how to swim—or even what swimming is?
For Joan Lunden, the answer has always been clear: you either sink or float. That mindset propelled Lunden, now a part-time resident of West Palm Beach, into the national spotlight as co-host of Good Morning America (GMA) from 1980 to 1997. In her latest memoir, Joan: Life Beyond the Script, she reflects on life’s grand transitions and how she’s faced her own with grace, guts, and the kind of candor that only comes from spending thousands of hours on live TV.
“I’m really into chapter titles, and I’m really, really into quotes,” says Lunden. “There’s a quote in the book that you don’t have to see the whole staircase; you just have to take the first step. That’s so important for people to hear. When I left GMA, I couldn’t see the whole staircase. And I took a bunch of steps here and there to figure out which staircase I actually wanted to go up.”
There have been many reinventions across Lunden’s 76 years, some professional, others personal, most shared on camera in some way…