Arts & Entertainment

Whitman Grad Giuliana Rancic Talks Red Carpet With Patch

E! News anchor, who grew up in Bethesda, will once again cover the Oscars this year.

Giuliana Rancic is once again gearing up to interview big-name celebrities on the red carpet during this year's Oscars. She's an anchor and managing editor for E! News, an author and the star of a reality television show.

But before she launched her career in entertainment news, Rancic was a student at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, where she grew up. In a recent e-mail interview, Rancic tells Patch about her hometown and the entertainment news business. She'll once again cover the red carpet this year along with E! News managing editor and lead anchor Ryan Seacrest (who is also the executive producer of E!'s award show coverage.)

Patch: What’s your fondest memory of Bethesda? What’s usually on your to-do list when you visit home?

GR: I have the best memories of growing up in Bethesda. After classes would let out at my friends and I would hit the stores and food court at either Montgomery Mall or White Flint Mall. I used to spend a big portion of my weekends at White Flint Mall since my father, Eduardo, has a high-end men’s clothing store called Bruno Cipriani in the mall.

Patch: What drew you to entertainment reporting?

GR: As many people know, I was born in Naples, Italy, and moved to the United States when I was a little girl. I became enthralled with television journalism before I could even speak English – my parents couldn’t afford a tutor, so I learned the language by watching TV. After high school, I attended the University of Maryland, where I received a B.A. in journalism. I earned my master's degree in journalism from the American University in D.C., and while I was a student there, I worked for a Capitol Hill news bureau covering a number of stories related to the Pentagon, Supreme Court, White House and State Department. I quickly learned that hard news was not right for me and directed my attention to entertainment reporting.

Patch: What are the best and worst parts about reporting live from the red carpet?

GR: The best part is that it is exciting and pretty much anything can happen! But, that’s also the worst part sometimes, too! Two years ago on E!'s "Live From the Red Carpet" Primetime Emmy Awards, my IFB device stopped working. It was a major problem because that's how the producers communicate with Ryan [Seacrest] and me, and when it stopped working, I had no clue when they were coming to me or when Ryan was asking me something live on air. It ended up working again, but that was a scary couple of hours. I was definitely panicking!

Patch: What has been your most memorable red carpet moment so far?

GR: Several years ago, I was working an Oscar afterparty for E! and I was interviewing Tom Hanks live. We were having a great, fun conversation and then all of the sudden Halle Berry shows up on the red carpet out of nowhere holding her Oscar that she had just won. I knew I had to get an interview with her because she had just won the Oscar! I didn't want to ditch Tom Hanks, so I invited Halle over to join my interview with Tom Hanks. I actually introduced two of the biggest Hollywood stars to each other, and viewers got to see a very intimate moment on live TV. In the end what started out as an uncomfortable moment became one of my best to date.

Patch: How do you think will make this year’s Oscars unique or different from past years?

GR: I think this year’s Oscar show will be cooler and hipper than years past. The two hosts, James Franco and Anne Hathaway, are the youngest hosts to ever take on the hosting role at the Oscars, and I can’t wait to see what they have in store for us.

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