Take a look at Savannah Guthrie's career, from local news reporter to 'Today' show star

Savannah Clark Guthrie was born on December 27, 1971, in Melbourne, Australia.

When she was 2 years old, her family moved to Tucson, Arizona, which is where she grew up.

In 2017, Refinery29 called her "an unlikely role model for the laid-back dreamers."

"I wasn't much of a go-getter in my younger years," Guthrie told the outlet at the time. "In high school, I was kind of a slacker."

The anchor also shared that she "was never any good at sports."

Growing up, Guthrie regularly attended church.

Her family spent all of Sunday at the local Baptist church for Sunday school, morning service, choir practice, and night service.

"Faith was so woven into our daily lives, we liked to say that God was the sixth member of the Guthrie family," she wrote in a blog post.

Her parents wanted their children to focus on who they were, not appearances or athletic success.

When Guthrie was 16, her father, an engineer, died of a heart attack while working in Mexico.

After her husband's death, Guthrie's mother, Nancy, stepped up as the "rock" who held the family together, going back to work so her daughters could go to college.

Until then, Nancy had raised the family full-time. She later landed a job in public relations at the University of Arizona, which meant Savannah and her sister Annie could go to college tuition-free, the anchor told The Hollywood Reporter in 2016.

As for her father's death, Guthrie said it had made her more sensitive, gentler, and kinder.

"Of course it was terrible, and I think about him every day — but there's something about a dramatic event like that that makes you a bit more tender, a bit softer," she told Elle in 2013.

Guthrie followed her mother's advice and earned a journalism degree from the University of Arizona, graduating cum laude in 1993.

"It was only in college when I started taking journalism classes that the fire was lit, and I really wanted to accomplish things. Before that, I was happy to hang out with my friends and listen to grunge music and wear my chunky heels," she told Refinery29.

While studying, she was published in The Tombstone Epitaph, a community newspaper, and Arizona Illustrated.

After graduating, Guthrie got her first break as a reporter in a local newsroom of four in Butte, Montana. The station closed down 10 days later.

The closure threw Guthrie's career trajectory out the window. But it was the beginning of Guthrie's journey along the "long road" of TV's minor leagues, The Hollywood Reporter reported.

She returned briefly to Tucson before reentering the job market and getting hired as a reporter and anchor at KMIZ-TV in Columbia, Missouri.

For her work, she was awarded an "Excellence in Legal Journalism Award" from the Missouri Bar.

In 1995, she moved back to Tucson. For the next four years, she worked as a reporter and anchor for KVOA-TV, focusing on law and politics.

The KVOA reporter Lupita Murillo told Tucson.com in 2012 that it was a joy and pleasure working with Guthrie.

"We would always trade off stories; if I had a court story, and she had something to do with crime, we'd switch," Murillo said. "She was great even back then."

In 2000, as she was entering her late 20s, Guthrie moved to Washington, DC, seeking bigger challenges.

Inspired by Court TV's coverage of major trials, like those of O.J. Simpson and the Menendez brothers, she enrolled at Georgetown Law.

During stressful times, she relied on her faith.

"Each morning in DC, I'd wake up and read the Bible. In a little notebook, I started writing down verses that particularly spoke to me," she wrote in a blog post. "On nights that I worried about a tough exam or the future that felt so uncertain, I'd turn to those verses to help me sleep, or calm my anxious heart."

At the same time, she continued working as a freelance reporter for WRC-TV while attending law school, reporting on several big stories, including the September 11 terrorist attacks and the 2001 anthrax mailings.

While in law school, Guthrie won the International Academy of Trial Lawyers' Student Advocacy award for her work with domestic-violence victims, NBC News announced as part of her hiring in 2007.

She also topped the Arizona Bar Exam, beating 633 others, per The Hollywood Reporter.

For two years after graduating magna cum laude, Guthrie worked as a lawyer for Akin Gump Strauss Hauer and Feld on white-collar criminal-defense litigation.

Though this would be the extent of her law career, she said the legal training helped her in journalism.

In 2002, she joined Court TV as a freelance reporter.

In a 2019 graduation speech at George Washington University, she said leaving law was "one of the biggest, craziest jumps" she ever made.

"It wasn't a cliff; it was the federal courthouse here in Washington, DC," she said.

Months before she was due to start as a law clerk for a federal judge, she had an epiphany.

"It wasn't my dream," she said. "What I really wanted was to go back to my roots in journalism. I still had that nagging hope that one day I could really make it in television news."

Guthrie spoke with the judge. He asked why she didn't come work for him for a year, since it would help her career, especially since she didn't have a job lined up.

"And that's when I looked at him and told him: 'I know you're right. What you say makes perfect sense,'" she said. "'But I also know myself, and if I don't do this, right this minute, I will never have the guts again.'"

From 2004 to 2006, she was Court TV's legal-affairs correspondent.

She covered cases like the Zacarias Moussaoui trial, the Boston clergy sex-abuse scandal, and the Scooter Libby case.

While covering the 2005 Michael Jackson trial, Guthrie met her first husband, former BBC journalist Mark Orchard.

The two married in 2005 but got divorced in 2009.

"I was doing the best I could in my personal life, and my professional life was going better," she told The Hollywood Reporter in 2016. "So, you know, you just keep doing the thing that works."

Starting in 2007, Guthrie began appearing as a legal correspondent on some of NBC News' flagship programming, including "Today" and "NBC Nightly News With Brian Williams."

According to Jacqueline Sharkey, the former director of Arizona University's School of Journalism, Guthrie's law degree was invaluable for covering events like Supreme Court decisions and healthcare initiatives.

At the time, Palin refused interviews with a lot of media outlets, but she had a one-on-one with Guthrie about parents with special-needs children, per Adweek's reporting in 2008.

She covered the White House until June 2011 and was part of the NBC team that won an Emmy for its election night coverage.

"There's just so much news and information around the White House and Washington that you never can feel that you know it all," Guthrie told The Hollywood Reporter in 2016. "I always felt like I was cramming for exams. I loved it, and I hated it at the same time."

According to The Nation, Guthrie was positioned to the side of Chuck Todd, forcing her to lean in.

But that didn't stop her from being a sharp interviewer and holding her "subjects' feet to the fire."

During this stint, she worked closely with Todd.

They worked 12-hour days together in an office described by Todd as a "15-by-8 cell," and "a horror" by Guthrie. They're still friends, though, and Todd told The Hollywood Reporter in grim journalistic fashion, "We talk each other off the ledge."

It was while she was covering the White House that she met the Democratic political consultant Michael Feldman, a former aide to Al Gore, at his 40th birthday party.

"I met a man named Mike Feldman at a party, a political consultant who made me laugh. We fell in love," she wrote in a blog post.

Months before "Today" cohost Ann Curry made a messy departure, Guthrie was being looked at as a potential new host. An unnamed source told New York Magazine in 2013 that, unlike Curry's intense reporting style, Guthrie had "that girl-next-door quality."

When Curry left, "Today" lost 500,000 viewers, $40 million in advertising, and "Good Morning America" took its coveted first place in the ratings race.

Guthrie was also cast as "the other woman" who had pushed Curry out, New York Magazine reported at the time.

On her first day, the new role wasn't mentioned at all on air. She simply sat down beside Matt Lauer, the LA Times reported at the time. It was hours after the show that NBC put out a press release.

What made Guthrie valuable for "Today" was her ability to go from playing piano with John Legend to interviewing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the US Capitol.

Similar to predecessors like Katie Couric and Meredith Vieira, Guthrie could easily swing between the serious and the silly.

In 2013, Feldman proposed to her while they were on holiday in Turks and Caicos, and in 2014, they got married in Tucson.

At the wedding, they announced she was four months pregnant with their first child.

Each of the 80 guests received a handwritten personalized note, each with a monogrammed luggage tag, People reported, a nod to all the flights both Guthrie and Feldman have to take for their careers.

Even though she's interviewed the president and worked as a coanchor on a national network, nothing prepared Guthrie for being a mother.

"All the new-mother books and websites and mommy blogs in the world couldn't ease the helplessness I felt whenever Vale's blue eyes filled with tears," she wrote in Guideposts.

The anchor typically wakes up between 3 and 4 a.m. for morning broadcasts, The New York Times reported in 2017.

She prepares for the show while drinking coffee and having her makeup done. And according to Refinery29's Donna Freydkin, "she never yawns."

While it's demanding and intense, she is home by midday.

"As a working mom, that is a dream come true," she said.

The mornings also fly by, with barely enough time for a second coffee, as she and her cohosts work inside the studio, go outside to greet fans, race through different segments, and then return inside again.

But Guthrie is also aware of the downside of being in the public eye.

She told The Hollywood Reporter that the criticism she receives is often sexist.

"Everybody gets, 'You're biased,'" she said. "But you may also get, 'Why do you roll your eyes and make that face? Why does your voice sound so shrill?'"

"Honestly, I'm interested in fair criticism. I'm not perfect. I try really hard to stay neutral. But often that's not what you're finding on social media. You're finding people who are very opinionated and detect bias in anyone who does not share that opinion," she added.

Despite the social-media criticism, she's gotten support from NBC executives.

In 2016, as ratings for "Today" were on the rise, NBC News and then-MSNBC chairman Andrew Lack had much praise for Guthrie.

"One of the things I really do love about Savannah is she's game," he told Adweek in 2016. "She's up for the question, and damn it, give me an answer. I admire that about her."

As 2016 came to an end, "Today" was once more the most-watched morning show for 25- to 54-year-olds, as well as No. 1 for 18- to 49-year-olds.

Guthrie and Matt Lauer's strong chemistry was important in the "Today" ratings revival.

It didn't seem to be an act, either. While on maternity leave in 2017, Guthrie made a surprise reappearance to celebrate Lauer's 20th anniversary on "Today."

On that episode, she said, "I just want to say, we adore you. One of the things that is so wonderful about you is that from the second I walked in here, one of the things I noticed is that Matt knows every single person's first name and last name. He knows the name of their dog. He knows how their mother is doing."

She co-authored the book with Allison Oppenheim, the wife of then-NBC head Noah Oppenheim.

They wrote it because they wanted their children to know they could be "sparkly, but sparkle inside." It was a New York Times bestseller.

In 2019, Guthrie said she was "shocked and appalled" by allegations made by Brooke Nevils against Lauer in Ronan Farrow's book "Catch and Kill."

"I know it wasn't easy for our colleague Brooke to come forward then; it's not easy now, and we support her and any women who have come forward with claims," she said. "It's just very painful for all of us at NBC and who are at the 'Today' show. It's very, very, very difficult."

Guthrie and Kotb hosted "Today" together until Kotb's 2025 departure from the show.

Slate praised her for being efficient and clear, and pushing candidates to clarify and expand on their positions rather than revert to prepared lines.

During his 2020 reelection campaign, Trump sat down for a town hall on NBC with Guthrie, while then-presidential candidate Joe Biden sat down with ABC's George Stephanopoulos for a town hall in Philadelphia.

During the town hall, the president was pressed about the COVID-19 pandemic and QAnon conspiracy theories.

Still serving as a co-anchor on the "Today" show, Guthrie remains a staple of daytime TV, often hosting high-viewership events like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting.

Guthrie penned a collection of essays covering personal stories of joy and grief through the lens of her faith.

On February 1, Savannah's mother, Nancy Guthrie, was reported missing from her Tucson, Arizona, home after failing to show up for church.

The Pima County Sheriff's Department and the FBI immediately began a multi-agency search for the 84-year-old, treating the disappearance as a criminal case after finding evidence at her residence that suggested foul play.

Her family has shared that Nancy Guthrie has limited mobility and needs daily medicine.

As the search for Nancy Guthrie extended, NBC announced that Savannah Guthrie would not be part of the network's 2026 Winter Olympics coverage in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy.

On Wednesday, February 4, Savannah and her two siblings released a video on social media pleading with Nancy's potential kidnappers and asking for proof of life and information about her well-being.

In a Truth Social post, Trump announced he had talked to the "Today" co-anchor and reassured her of the law enforcement effort that was being done to find her mother.

"We are deploying all resources to get her mother home safely," he added.