Undaunted, she nailed the next two hours of celebrity banter, and "they offered me a contract the next day," says Asner, 33. Three years later, she coanchors the network's E! News Daily with Steve Kmetko and will soon host a new prime-time biography show, Revealed. "She's a babe," says Kmetko, "with a brain and a sense of humor."
And a sense of proportion. De-spite E!'s often breathless accounts of celeb shenanigans, "it's just image," says Asner. "I appreciate people's talent, but I never get envious. Nothing is ever as great as it appears." The daughter of a software designer and a furniture sales-woman, Asner grew up in Tempe, Ariz., a self-described "gawky kid" with a "mustache and unibrow." Says her sister Denise Hanson, 38: "I used to kinda feel sorry for her."
Not so much anymore. Asner, whose 1992 marriage to actor-producer Matthew Asner—son of TV veteran Ed—ended four years later, is now dating Traffic director Steven Soderbergh, though she declines to talk about it. She enjoys Hollywood hobnobbing, but says life at home in L.A.—where she unwinds playing video games—still beats it: "I'm the first to realize the celebrity world is fluff."
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
