Robbin Bain Dies: Former NBC ‘Today’ Fashion & Beauty Expert Was 87
Robbin Bain, who was the fashion and beauty expert on NBC‘s Today during the early 1960s, died in Southampton, NY, on October 21. She was 87.
Her daughter Lara McLanahan told Deadline that she had been battling breast cancer.
Known to viewers as “Today Girl,” she joined the NBC show in 1961 to discuss fashion, cosmetics and other female-led topics. She worked alongside the host John Chancellor and news anchor Frank Blair. However, she only stayed in the role for two months, leaving the show after she became pregnant with daughter Dina.
“I was the only woman, with the exception of the makeup woman, on the set,” she recalled during a 2012 TV reunion of “Today Girls.”
Deborah Norville and Robbin Bain during the “Today” show’s 60th anniversary episode
TV icon Barbara Walters, who died last year, was also a “Today Girl” early in her career after joining the show in 1961 as a writer and researcher.
Bain, who hailed from Flushing, New York, was born on August 10, 1936, as Barbara Jane Bain. She changed her name to avoid confusion with the actress Barbara Bain.
In 1959 she won the brewery-sponsored Miss Rheingold beauty pageant. Her prize was a then massive $50,000 and she spent the next year making many personal appearances in the United States and Europe.
“It was not a body thing,” she told The New York Daily News in 2000. “Personality and wholesomeness were very important. You had to look very approachable to the guys sitting at the bar or going to the supermarket.”
As a model she appeared in ads for Helena Rubinstein and Revlon. She also appeared on TV as one of the four “Portrettes” who introduced Jackie Gleason in his variety show The Jackie Gleason Show.
In 1961, she appeared as a panelist on game show To Tell the Truth, alongside Betty White.
After her brief stint on Today, Bain became an interior designer.
She is survived by daughters Lara and Dina Nemeth; her third husband Alexander Guadieri and stepson Alexandre, plus six grandchildren.
