Wednesday, January 21, 2015

KTVU's 'Mother Of All Mysteries'; Why Did Elaine Corral Quit?; Channel 2 'Urban Legend' Stories Grow By The Day

 At the Jack London Square studios it's still regarded as the "mother of all mysteries." So much unknown intrigue that it's an ongoing urban legend.

This much is certain.

Suddenly and emphatically, inexplicably too one night, KTVU anchor, Elaine Corral quit on the air.

Without any rhyme or reason. Without any formal or non-formal notice to management, nor even her closest friends as to why. We heard to pursue an acting career but almost everyone agrees that didn't seem right --now or even today, Corral, or Corral-Kendall hasn't had a really steady movie career. Moreover, Corral was a 20-year-plus news anchor veteran --the timing couldn't have been fraught with more questions than this move and only added to the mystery.

 Even today, Corral has never spoken publically about the specifics of her resignation--after all, she was making a high, six-figure salary and was one of the Bay Area's most popular TV news anchor. Was it her business relationship working with co-anchor, Dennis Richmond. Were there issues that came up that might have led to her quitting so suddenly. Nobody knows. Not a single person--even those close to Corral who swear they have no idea other than what was offered.

A former KTVU staffer told me it caught everyone off-guard. "We have gatherings every once and awhile to shoot the shit and talk about the 'good old days' and this, (Corral's resignation), always comes up--Nobody really knows--It's KTVU's urban legend."

Several Bay Area media has attempted to get more information from Corral to no avail, even off the record which gave much more impetus to various stories circulating that Corral's decision involved something far more murkier. Corral signed a confidentiality agreement and was said to get a hefty amount of money from KTVU as a parting gift. That figure too is a mystery: some said over a half-million, some said significantly more. "A lot more", offered a KTVU veteran.

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38 comments:

  1. Rich, every time I see her name, I wonder if she's related to KCBS mid-day anchor Rebecca Corral. Any connection?

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    1. They are related...sisters, I believe.

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    2. I stand corrected. They are sisters-in-law. Thanks to those below who remembered better than I.

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  2. My guess is it had something to do with Richmond. Didn’t Barbara Simpson and Leslie Griffith also quit under similar, although not identical, circumstances?

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  3. 8:09 I think Rebecca is Frank's sister (he was an ND & EP at KPIX)....and used to be married to Elaine.

    I could be wrong--but I think that's what I remembered hearing back in the day.

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  4. Elaine was married to former newsman Al Corral who is the brother of Rebecca...

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  5. This is a great urban legend but my favorite is still the one about the media figure who died in a horrible crash and was rumored to be of a different gender. This Corral deal sounds very mysterious....

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  6. I heard from my college professor who also working as a reporter at the time at one of the local stations, said Elaine was ousted because she was a "bonafide bitch."

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    1. I have known a small group of people (who worked outside of the media) who crossed paths with her in her KTVU days, and they too said that she was a rude character.

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  7. I would bet it had something to do with Richmond.

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    1. Agree. That man has a lot of smoke following him.

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  8. The reaction to the "mystery" was amazing.

    I went to high school with Elaine, in Daly City. My class was two years older than hers, and I barely knew her. I ended up at KGO, and don't recall ever seeing her after my graduation.

    After her surprise announcement colleagues, people from other stations, and former school-mates (from whom I hadn't heard in decades), clamored for my "inside scoop," on what happened.

    I had the impression that some were a little miffed at my "I don't know," as if I were hold out.










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  9. Did "someone" pull a Cosby?

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  10. Elaine isn't Rebecca's sister.

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  11. In the months leading up to her departure, her on screen demeanor had become very sullen -- it was obvious that she was very unhappy with her job. After a while, It became painful to watch, to the point where I started avoiding her newscasts. An unfortunate and sad ending for a very talented newsperson.

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  12. Only one reason a big company can hardly wait to give a big payout to a woman. SEX. Somebody must have pressured her..she threatened to sue. The walk away was pure disgust on her part.
    I cant fill in who put the harassment on her.

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    1. What a stupid sexist comment from not-quite-right Stan.

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    2. Since Rich didnt post one correct answer,then I can also point out how wrong you are this way: For a woman to get any huge company to agree to some huge instant golden parachute,must take hard evidence of sexual harassment. Especially then.
      If you think facts of life is sexist,then I guess the problem is with you.

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  13. I'll bet there are at least two people who do know why she left; Dennis Richmond and Barbara Simpson. Dennis may not find any personal benefit from talking, considering the topic would not be himself, and I can imagine Barbara saying 'Why stir up all that old stuff? Let sleeping dogs lie!"

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  14. Rich, is this breaking news?

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    1. "This breaking news just in: Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead."

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  15. Is that cameraman Belva Davis's husband?

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  16. Don't know why she quit, but she seemed professional and good-humored. I remembered a story she did about drinking coffee. She transformed from dragging, dog-tired, disheveled to instantly live, peppy, talking a mile-a-minute. It was hilarious.

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    1. She has an extreme fear of heights. The story she did where she went to the top of one of the Golden Gate Bridge towers was classic! Gotta give her credit for trying that, and on camera no less.

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  17. I remember the stunned look on Ibanez's face on-air the night she quit. I thought the local press covered this at the time. Dennis & Elaine were co-anchors in name only. They reported the same amount of stories and had equal numbers of lead stories. But Dennis was always considered the lead anchor by management, and they paid him accordingly. Elaine pressed the issue a few times, but management always came back with Dennis is our guy, you're number 2 even though your workloads and on camera time is equal.

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  18. Too bad nobody ever surreptitiously recorded Corral's anchor-desk conversations during breaks, like that infamous bitching match between the two KABC-TV anchors, Paul Moyer and Ann Martin, that was making the rounds of the Web a while ago.

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  19. A couple of years ago, Elaine and her husband, real estate developer Jeff Kendall, opened a frozen yogurt shop in Tracy called "Yippee Yogurt" at 2982 W. Grant Line Road adjacent to the Walmart shopping center, of which my wife and I were frequent visitors. The shopping center is owned by Kendall, so the overhead must have been pretty low. I think it was more of a hobby for her and her husband as opposed to a money-making venture. Elaine frequently could be seen in the shop working the cash register, along with her husband. They would commute from Walnut Creek to run the shop, alternating days with another woman who I believe was her sister-in-law who commuted in from San Jose. I knew it was Elaine but never brought up KTVU or the fact that I recognized her. I wonder if anyone else did -- she looked so different than she did in the KTVU days. She now has very bleached-blond hair and I would say she's definitely had some cosmetic surgery. Despite being popular with locals, in an almost KTVU-like exodus fashion, one day the shop mysteriously closed. At first a sign in the window said "closed for a seasonal break," but the shop never reopened and still sits vacant with a "for sale" sign in the window.

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    1. Perhaps Richmond happened into their shop one day!

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  20. Elaine's departure was one of the strangest Anchor exits in Bay Area media history. At the time Elaine and Dennis were the absolute shit in this market. If there was any friction between her and Dennis they hid it well. They had excellent chemistry on the air. How anyone could walk away from a six figure teleprompter gig leads me to believe it had to be something epic..

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  21. No one has mentioned that the real reason she left had something to do with her husband either a personal issue or a business issue. I knew someone close to the source.

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  22. You know its Richmond..he chased off Leslie and Elaine. He is an angry man.

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  23. Can you say anything more about this having to do with her husband?

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  24. It's funny how so many "anonymous" people seem to know so much about what "really" happened. It's all unfounded speculation.

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