Meet Faye Emerson, who became network TV's first female late-night host in 1949 -- nearly 40 years before Joan Rivers

Deadline

Joan Rivers is widely considered the first female late-night host with Fox's The Late Show, premiering in 1986. But in 1949, Emerson hosted The Faye Emerson Show on CBS. Her late-night shows came before late-night pioneers like Steve Allen and Jack Paar. Her show was recently preserved with the help of CBS Entertainment president Kelly Kahl and Maureen Mauk, a former Fox executive turned academic who wrote her thesis on Emerson. "Emerson’s show was considered radical for its time as it combined political conversations, such as U.S. relations with China, war with Korea, nuclear arms, and equality for women with guests such as Frank Sinatra, Frank Lloyd Wright, Tennessee Williams and Édith Piaf," says Peter White. Emerson even hosted Allen as a guest years before he launched what would become The Tonight Show. “Faye was a woman ahead of her time, and so is Samantha. Samantha Bee has never been afraid to speak up on politics and use her platform to do the right thing and say the right thing," says Mauk. "She was a stealth feminist just like Samantha Bee. You know, I think late night, especially cable, has evolved towards satire and political parody, but as far as some of the coverage and political hotspots of covering what was happening in the world on that day, they’re very similar."