Michele Marsh, Longtime New York TV Anchor, Dies At 63

Michele Marsh, an Emmy Award-winning newscaster who was an anchor on nightly programs on the CBS and NBC flagship stations in New York City for more than two decades, died Tuesday at her home in South Kent, Conn. She was 63.

The cause was complications of breast cancer, her son, John Paschall, said.

Ms. Marsh was one of several women — Carol Jenkins, Pia Lindstrom, Carol Martin and Melba Tolliver were the others — who had by 1980 swept into anchor positions at all five of the New York stations that had late-night news programs. Ms. Marsh, at 25, was the youngest of them.

They joined a wave of women, including Pat Harper, Judy Licht, Rose Ann Scamardella and Sue Simmons, whom television audiences, used to all-male newscasters, welcomed in the 1970s.

Ms. Marsh spent 17 years at WCBS, alternating between stints as an anchor — with Rolland Smith, Ernie Anastos, Jim Jensen and John Johnson — and as a correspondent, depending on fluctuations in ratings.

In 1996 she was one of seven anchors and reporters dismissed in a housecleaning by the station, but she was shortly recruited by WNBC, where she anchored with Chuck Scarborough for a time. She left the station after she lost her anchor slot in 2003.

Michele Marie Marsh was born on March 9, 1954, in suburban Detroit to Howard Marsh, an insurance salesman, and the former Gloria Gadd.

Her first marriage, to Nathaniel Price Paschall, ended in divorce. In addition to their son, John, she is survived by her second husband, P. H. Nargeolet.