Arthel Neville

Biography

Arthel Neville was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, and graduated from St. Mary's Dominican High School in New Orleans. After graduating, she traveled to New York City to pursue acting and modeling. She landed commercials and a recurring role on the soap opera Days of Our Lives before returning to New Orleans. She enrolled in prepharmacy at Xavier University before switching to journalism at Southern Methodist University. She transferred to the University of Texas at Austin, where she was able to earn a bachelor’s in journalism while also working as a reporter.

She began her career as a general assignment reporter at KVUE-TV while a junior at the University of Texas at Austin School of Journalism.

Career

The first female African-American on-air reporter at KVUE-TV, her general assignment beat took her to the streets of Austin covering live breaking news, politics, education, health, and human-interest stories.

Neville’s first job after graduation was in New Orleans as a reporter/anchor for WWL. In 1988 she moved back to Texas for a one-year stint as a reporter for Houston's KHOU-TV. Neville returned to New Orleans as an anchor/reporter for WVUE.

In 1991 she landed the host spot on Extreme Close-Up, a one-on-one celebrity interview show that she co-produced for E! Entertainment TV. During three years with the program she logged over 200 interviews with stars ranging from Will Smith to Tom Cruise to Sharon Stone to Sade (singer), becoming the nation’s first high-profile black female entertainment reporter. During this period she also covered live entertainment events for the network and occasionally filled in as a guest host on their signature show Talk Soup (hosted by Greg Kinnear). In 1994 she beat out over 1,000 hopefuls to launch and anchor Extra for Warner Brothers studios, becoming the first African-American woman to host a nationally syndicated entertainment news magazine program. Neville remained with Extra until 1996 when the program was revamped. In 1997, she teamed up with L.A. sportscaster Fred Roggin to host The Arthel & Fred Show, a syndicated daytime entertainment news program that lasted only one season. A year later, Neville left Los Angeles for New York and became a senior correspondent on the Fox Network’s syndicated news magazine Fox Files, and at Fox News Channel as an anchor, correspondent, host of Celebrity Spotlight, and weekly contributor on The O’Reilly Factor.

Neville co-hosted the Miss Teen USA 1993 pageant with Dick Clark, and the Miss Universe 1994 pageant in Manila, Philippines with Entertainment Tonight's Bob Goen. She has also appeared on Days of Our Lives, Monk, Girlfriends, Moesha, Cybill, Living Single, and The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.

In 2002 Neville joined CNN to become the host of TalkBack Live with Arthel Neville, becoming the first African-American woman to host her own signature show on the news network. The show presented news of the day and featured live interaction with audience members and guests, in-studio, and via satellite, phone, and internet. While at CNN, she also anchored morning and daytime news, and co-anchored weekend news with Anderson Cooper from CNN’s Atlanta and New York City bureaus.

In 2003 Neville was recognized by the University of Texas at Austin for her outstanding contribution to broadcast journalism. She received the Texas Exes’ Outstanding Young Texas Ex Award, which is bestowed upon four University of Texas alumnae under the age of 45 who have reached a level of excellence in their respective fields.

Later, Neville co-hosted Fox’s Good Day Live with Steve Edwards and Debbie Matenopoulos, hosted Celebrity Hobbies on the DIY Network, and served as a correspondent for the 2005 revival of the syndicated news magazine A Current Affair. On that show, she garnered much acclaim for her coverage of Hurricane Katrina in her hometown of New Orleans. She herself lost her family home and many of her relatives were displaced. She subsequently established "Arthel's Angels", a nonprofit hurricane relief website. In March 2006, she joined the Fox News–produced syndicated news magazine Geraldo at Large as the West Coast bureau chief and correspondent. She also served as guest co-host on The View in the fall of 2006.

On August 1, 2008, Neville became the lead anchor for the Fox 5 Morning News, a four-hour weekday newscast on KSWB-TV in San Diego. Within a year, she made an impact on the San Diego community as evidenced by her nomination by San Diego Magazine for their 2009 Woman of the Year Award.

In addition to her anchoring duties for Fox and KSWB-TV, Neville was a recurring guest on HLN Showbiz Tonight. In May 2009, Neville's show Conversations with Arthel Neville, a one-on-one celebrity interview show produced through her company, began airing on My Channel on Sky TV (British Sky Broadcasting), Fox's sister network in the United Kingdom to 9 million homes in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and the Channel Islands, as well as parts of Germany, France, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark, and Italy.

In June 2010, Neville returned to Fox News Channel as a news anchor on America's Newsroom, America's News Headquarters, and Happening Now, a contributor on The O’Reilly Factor and Red Eye w/Greg Gutfeld, and fill-in anchor on America Live with Megyn Kelly. She also served as a correspondent from New Orleans for the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina for Studio B with Shepard Smith and Fox Report.

Neville is currently the weekend anchor at Fox News Channel with Saturday and Sunday newscasts of America's News Headquarters. On October 28, 2016, Neville was honored at the University of Texas at Austin as a Texas Exes 2016 Distinguished Alum.

In 2017, Neville started projects outside of and in addition to her news career. She launched her accessories line Arthel Neville Design, featuring handbags adorned with her quotes promoting female empowerment.

Neville also was announced as the host of the show "Sing Like A Star" by Tegna, Inc.. The interactive, weekly cross-platform singing competition is filmed in Neville's hometown of New Orleans in conjunction with WWL-TV and debuts September 16, 2017.