Star Jones

Starlet Marie "Star" Jones (previously Star Jones Reynolds; born March 24, 1962) is an American lawyer, journalist, writer, television personality, fashion designer, and women's and diversity advocate. She is most well known as one of the original hosts of the ABC weekday morning talk show The View, on which she appeared from 1997 to 2006. She was also one of sixteen contestants of the fourth installment of Celebrity Apprentice, coming in fifth place.

Early life

Born Starlet Marie Jones in Badin, North Carolina, Jones grew up in Trenton, New Jersey with her mother, a human services administrator, and her stepfather, a municipal security chief.

Jones graduated from Notre Dame High School, Lawrenceville, New Jersey. She earned a B.A. degree in Administration of Justice at American University, where she was initiated into the Lambda Zeta chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.. Jones earned a J.D. degree from the University of Houston Law Center in 1986, and was admitted to the New York state bar in 1987.

Star Jones (TV series)

Star Jones is a talk show hosted by former prosecutor Star Jones. A guest-driven live broadcast (with taped segments) covering recent stories from the worlds of pop culture, entertainment, crime, and justice, it premiered on August 20, 2007 on Court TV. On January 31, 2008 TruTV announced the show would be canceled. The last episode aired on February 1, 2008.

The premiere included a discussion of the pros and cons of the CBS reality series Kid Nation and an interview with actor Isaiah Washington. Geraldo Rivera, Shaun Robinson of Access Hollywood, Dr. Marc Lamont Hill, and former CBS morning host Rene Syler were additional guests. Jones ended the program with an "open letter," a regular segment in which she addresses the audience with a closing statement a la Jerry Springer.

In his review in Variety, Brian Lowry described Jones as "utterly off-putting . . . delivering yet another reminder that Oprah Winfrey's skills aren’t easily cloned." He referred to her "scant facility for moderating but an unerring knack for uttering non sequiturs" and added, "It's possible, of course, that Jones and her team will gradually revise the formula to better suit her limitations, but at this point, what she cloyingly refers to as "the Star treatment" is, in reality, strictly a third-class affair . . . Jones appears poorly cast and will need a TV makeover to linger beyond Court's name switch to TruTV in January."