Vera sootworm
Moderator draws a line
Vera Russwurm has been successful on TV for 45 years. Now she says goodbye to the ORF. She is keeping a low profile about her future.
© imago/SKATA
Vera Russwurm, once the youngest presenter on Austrian television, will end her show on ORF at the end of the year.
The Austrian presenter Vera Russwurm (63) says goodbye to ORF after 45 years and will end her popular talk show “Vera” at the end of the year. The reported the “Kronen Zeitung” in its Sunday edition. Born in Vienna, she is also known in Germany. In the 1990s she was part of the advice team for the show “Ja oder Nein” and was one of the few presenters in big evening shows at the time.
“Let’s see what’s coming…”
“I’m happy that my audience has been loyal to me for so long,” the “Kronen Zeitung” quoted the presenter as saying. That is not a matter of course. “And I’m thankful that I’ve had the opportunity to make life-affirming, positive shows with my own handwriting for so many years.” Russwurm has been on ORF in various formats since 1978 and has also had a career on German TV. Regarding her future, she said: “They say the best always comes last! Let’s see what comes up…”
Her program “Vera” always runs on Fridays from 9:20 p.m. on ORF 2. In it she talks to celebrities and non-celebrities about their personal success stories and life paths. That should be over by the end of the year.
As a young mother, she concentrated on her homeland again
Russwurm actually wanted to be a doctor, but was discovered as a medical student for television. She was the first young presenter on Austrian television. In 1986, together with Hans-Jürgen Bäumler (81), she presented the ZDF/ORF co-production “What if”. Other major TV shows such as “Hello Fernsehen” or “Family Festival” followed, which were broadcast in both countries. Russwurm was one of the few moderators of the time.
“Professionally, the biggest challenges were certainly the big 100-minute live shows that I moderated in the 80s and 90s on ORF, ARD and ZDF. Most of these were co-productions between ORF and a German broadcaster – with at that time still around 30 million people in front of the screen,” Vera Russwurm recalled last year in an interview with “News.at”. From 1990 to 1994 she was on the advice team on Joachim Fuchsberger’s (1927-2014) show “Ja oder Nein”. Also present were Alice Schwarzer, Sepp Maier and Thomas Hegemann. After the birth of her first daughter, she increasingly worked in her homeland again. With her own production company, she brought out numerous weekly talk formats – most recently “Vera”.
She explained her decades of success at “News.at” as follows: “Probably because I’ve remained myself all my TV life, which means I come across as authentic and because I can do what I do too. It may sound strange, but it is sitting down and talking or asking something doesn’t make a talkmaster,” said Russwurm. You should definitely have “spontaneity, honest interest in others, charm and a good dose of mother wit” for the job.