Few reality television series participants have actually parlayed their brief 15 minutes of fame into a lasting career of note, but Elisabeth Hasselbeck was the exception to that rule. The Providence, RI native first came to national attention as a contestant on the 2001 “Australian Outback” edition of “Survivor” (CBS, 2000- ). Hasselbeck wisely combined her sudden visibility with a background in fashion and design, and landed several hosting jobs, all of them culminating in the biggest break of all – being voted into a permanent co-host seat on the immensely popular morning program “The View” (ABC, 1997).Born May 28, 1977 to Kenneth and Elisabeth Filarski, Hasselbeck enjoyed an athletic childhood, which included membership in a state championship-winning softball team. She graduated from St Mary’s Academy Bay-View in 1995, before heading to Belize to be a teacher. A trip to Italy for further studies followed before Hasselbeck settled in Massachusetts to attend Boston College. While there, she studied Fine Arts (with a focus on large scale paintings and drawings), and captained her Division-1 softball team in two Big East championships. She also met future New York Giants quarterback, Tim Hasselbeck, while at college. The couple would later tie the knot in 2002. Hasselbeck graduated from BC in 1999.
Before attaining reality and daytime television stardom, Hasselbeck was a shoe designer for Puma (and spent some time in Belize researching products for the company). During this period, she also gained her first television experience with The Style Network’s “Stylemakers” series, which she hosted from 1999 to 2002. In 2001, she was selected to join fifteen other contestants in the Australian Outback for the second season of “Survivor.” A physically and mentally competitive player, Hasselbeck lasted until the “final four,” but was bested by Tina Wesson (Hasselbeck was later invited to participate in the “All-Star” edition of the show, set in the Pearl Islands, in 2003, but declined).
Following her “Survivor” experience, Hasselbeck returned to television, first as the host of another Style Network series, “The Look for Less” (2002- ) and several MTV programs, and then as the star of commercials for Procter & Gamble and Reebok.
In 2003, Hasselbeck took part in an entirely different challenge – trying to replace the departing Lisa Ling as co-host of “The View.” The selection process was played out on-air, with Hasselbeck and fellow host hopefuls Rachel Campos and Erin Hershey co-hosting the show on a trial basis for a week. In the end, a “tribal council”-style vote from the other hosts won her the job.
Hired to provide the program’s newly vacated “twenty-something” perspective, Hasselbeck also contributed a conservative side to the predominately liberal-leanings of fellow co-hosts, Meredith Vieira, Star Jones and Joy Behar. In 2004, she became something of an official Republican poster child after speaking at the Republican National Convention, where she addressed her other main passion – the prevention of breast cancer. Hasselbeck worked with several charities during her tenure on “The View,” including The Susan G. Koman Breast Cancer Foundation, Habitat for Humanity and the World Scholar-Athlete Games.
In 2004, a joyful Hasselbeck announced to viewers she was pregnant, and in early 2005, gave birth to daughter, Grace Elisabeth. After a brief maternity leave, she returned to “The View” and also was honored by her alma mater with the Boston College Distinguished Alumni Award.
