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A Roller Coaster Ride From Morning to Night : Television: Deborah Norville has re-emerged as co-anchor of ‘America Tonight’ on CBS after a trouble-filled tenure at NBC’s ‘Today’ show.

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

Deborah Norville comes sweeping into the small offices at “America Tonight,” her new CBS newsmagazine, apologizing for being late. Dressed in a coat-dress and brown pumps, her blond hair short and tousled, Norville looks looser and much happier than her days as anchor on “NBC News at Sunrise,” where she regularly looked perfect at 4 a.m.

Back then, in makeup and set hair, polished nails clicking away at her computer, the rising star gave controlled answers in her first national interview (for People magazine) that revealed little of herself--other than that she thought it was a “tragedy” that more American women didn’t sew their own clothes. (The statement was hooted at by NBC News employees.)

“Well, what do you want from me?” she says, laughing at the recollection. “I was 28 years old, you were from People magazine, and I was scared. When I left WMAQ (the Chicago station where she had been an anchor), people there told me, ‘Walk close to the walls at NBC--they’ll be out to knife you.’ ”

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As it turned out, it was NBC’s own management that inadvertently did her in.

Touted as the next “golden girl” in broadcasting when she joined the network in 1987, Norville was given the newsreader job on “Today” in 1989 in a move to attract younger viewers. But co-host Jane Pauley thought management was trying to push her aside, so she quit the morning program. Norville took over, but many viewers saw her as “the other woman” who had forced Pauley out, and the show’s ratings tumbled. Norville left on maternity leave in 1991 and didn’t return.

Now the 35-year-old Norville has re-emerged as co-anchor of “America Tonight,” which is being given a 15-week summer tryout. She has won praise from TV critics for her early work on the show, and even if the program does not win a permanent berth on the schedule, CBS News President Eric Ober says, “Deborah is a strong, smart reporter and anchor. She’s got an unlimited future here with us at CBS News.”

On top of her professional happiness, Norville and her husband, businessman Karl Wellner, are expecting their second child in December.

“I’ve gone through the loop-de-loop roller coaster ride in my career, and I’m still standing,” Norville says proudly. “My experience on the ‘Today’ show was personally devastating. I was totally unprepared for what happened, and I didn’t know if I would ever work in television again after all the publicity. Instead, I’ve survived. I wouldn’t wish my experience on anybody, but I think it has made me a stronger person and a better journalist.”

At the height of the “Today” show debacle, Norville says, reporters trailed her in New York and all the way back to her childhood in Dalton, Ga. “There was one man--from a respectable publication--who bought a news documentary I’d made in college and asked a plastic surgeon to look at it to see if I’d had a nose job. If he’d called me, I could have told him this nose is my own.”

She believes the depiction of her as “the other woman” was unfair and sexist. “If it had been a man, I don’t think they’d have written about a ‘younger, blonder’ anchor taking over,” she says.

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After her departure, she kept a low profile for a while--even living with her family in France for three months--then accepted an offer from ABC radio to host a talk show out of her home. Unseen by her listeners, her looks not a focus, she thrived.

“I enjoyed talking to listeners, offering my opinions and having my son, Nicholas, nearby,” she says. “Doing the show restored my self-confidence.”

In 1992, CBS News hired Norville as a correspondent for the newsmagazine “Street Stories.” Although she had won Emmys in Chicago for her hard-news reporting, her hiring was greeted with skepticism at CBS by those who knew her only by her looks and from the “Today” show drama.

“I was very surprised by what a good reporter she is,” said Howard Rosenberg, an investigative producer for “60 Minutes” who worked with Norville on several “Street Stories” assignments (and is no relation to The Times’ television critic). “She is smart, she’s well-prepared and she asks the right questions. And she’s nice. Everywhere we went, people asked her for autographs. On one story we did, a bunch of postal inspectors lined up after the interview to get her autograph!”

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“Street Stories” died, but in May CBS named Norville and Dana King, formerly anchorwoman on ABC’s weekend “Good Morning America,” as the co-anchors of “America Tonight,” which premiered June 1. The show has had a tough time in the ratings in its kamikaze time slot opposite ABC’s top-rated “Home Improvement” and the NBA playoffs on NBC, but CBS executives say they are pleased so far. With three newsmagazines already on the fall schedule, however, the best that “America Tonight” can hope for is a mid-season return.

Norville likes to do upbeat, human-interest pieces, although she says these are not the only kind of stories she wants to do. “This is not a nation of pessimists, deflated by defeat,” she explains. “If I spot a wedding party when my husband and I are out driving, I make him stop the car so we can see. Journalists ought to focus on the weddings, metaphorically, as well as the car wrecks that we see.”

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Norville reported 10 stories before the show premiered, and she says it is difficult dealing with “mommy guilt.” Her 3-year-old son calls her work “mommy movies.” But the other day he said he wished she wouldn’t make “so many ‘mommy movies.’ ”

“This is my work, and it includes travel, but it’s tough on all of us here with small children,” Norville says. With a second child, she expects the tug will be stronger. But she plans to continue working during her pregnancy and to return to CBS after a maternity leave.

TV news chews up its female stars so rapidly that one TV critic, noting Norville’s debut on “America Tonight,” compared her to Lazarus, who was raised from the dead in the Bible. “I’m a little young for that,” she says, laughing. “I love reporting, and I love this show. After what has happened in my career, I’ve found it’s best not to sweat out the future.”

* “America Tonight” airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on CBS (Channels 2 and 8).

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