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Gifford, who lives in Greenwich, turns 63 on Tuesday. The television host, singer, songwriter, comedian, and actress was born Aug. 16, 1953, in Paris.
Gifford's first television exposure was that of Tom Kennedy's singer/sidekick on "Name That Tune," from 1974 to 1978.
She also appeared in television advertisements for Carnival Cruise Lines beginning in 1984.
She is best known for her 15-year run (1985 to 2000) on the talk show "Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee," which she co-hosted with Regis Philbin. She has received 11 Daytime Emmy nominations and won her first Daytime Emmy in 2010 as part of the "Today" team.
In the late 1990s, she began working in musical theater. She contributed a number of musical numbers to "Hats," and wrote and produced "Under The Bridge," based upon the children's book "The Family Under The Bridge" by Natalie Savage Carlson. In 2008, Gifford and David Friedman wrote a junior high school musical entitled "Key Pin It Real."
On April 7, 2008, Gifford began co-hosting, the fourth hour of "Today" alongside Hoda Kotb. She also occasionally appears on the first three hours of "Today" and is a contributing NBC News correspondent. As of 2014, the fourth hour of "Today" with Gifford and Kotb has averaged 2.148 million total viewers, an increase of 26 percent over the 2008 ratings.
She is a recipient of the Mousecar Award, a silver Mickey Mouse statue award that was personally designed by Walt Disney himself.
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