Personalities, Podcast

Tandy Culpepper Talks To Veteran Entertainment Journo Steve Kmetko About His New Podcast StIll Here Hollywood

In the nineties and early aughts, Steve Kmetko was arguably the preeminent entertainment reporter in Hollywood. Upon arriving in Los Angeles in the eighties, he began work as a general assignment reporter at KNXT-TV, now KCBS-TV, before becoming the station’s entertainment reporter.

Subsequently, Steve was hired to be co-anchor of E! News Daily. There, he traveled the world covering major international events such as the Cannes Film Festival. Domestically, he covered such award shows as the Golden Globes, the Oscars, and as well as others.

But Steve’s idyllic Hollywood career came crashing down faster than you could say Humpty Dumpty. During contract negotiations at E!, Steve was summarily dismissed over a controversial matter involving an email sent on a company computer.

After Steve’s meteoric rise on the red carpets of Hollywood, Steve found himself out of work, and more or less drummed out of town. In time, he returned to Chicago to take care of his ailing parents. Steve accepted the fact that his days as a Hollywood journalist were behind him.

Until now.

A Hollywood producer flew to Chicago and persuaded Steve to host a new podcast. Thus was Still Here Hollywood born.

In this episode of The Hollywood Beat, Tandy Culpepper talks to Steve about his triumphant return to Tinseltown.

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Steve’s interview with Hollywood icon, the late Bette Davis for her film, The Whales of August.

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Published by Tandy Culpepper

I am a veteran broadcast journalist. I was an Army brat before my father retired and moved us to the deep South. I'm talkin' Lower Alabama and Northwest Florida, I graduated from Tate High School and got botha Bachelor's degree and Master's in Teaching English from the University of West Florida, I taught English at Escambia County High School for two years before getting my m's in Speech Pathology and Audiology from Auburn University. Following graduation, I did a 180 degree turn and moved to Birmingham where I began ny broadcasting career at WBIQ, Channel 10. There I was host of a weekly primetime half-hour TV program called Alabama Lifestyles. A year later, I began a stint as a television weathercaster and public affairs host. A year later, I moved to West Palm Beach, Florida and became bureau chief at WPTV, the CBS affiliate. Two years later, I moved to Greensboro, North Carolina where I became co-host of a morng show called AM Carolina. The next year, I moved cross-country and became co-host and story producer at KTVN-TV in Reno, Nevada. I also became the medical reporter for the news department. Three years later, I moved to Louisville, Kentucky and became host and producer of a morning show called today in WAVE Country at WAVE-TV, Channel 3, the NBC affiliate. Following three years there, I moved to Los Angeles and became senior correspondent at the Turner Entertainment Reportn, an internationally-syndicated entertainment entertainment news service owned by CNN. I went back to school afterwards and got an MFA in Creative Nonfiction at Goucher College in Towson, Maryland, a suburb of Baltimore. Oh, yes. I won a hundred thousand dollars on the 100 Thousand Dollar Pyramid, then hosted by Dick Clark.

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