Jeanne Beker
Television Personality

Jeanne Beker is a television personality, author and newspaper columnist, who covers fashion and lifestyle news for CTV, FashionTelevisionChannel and The Globe and Mail.

She first launched her career as an actor, landing a role in the CBC Television sitcom Toby in 1968. She subsequently entered the theatre program at York University, and then went to Paris to study mime under Étienne Decroux. She then returned to Canada, working for CBC Radio as an arts and entertainment reporter in St. John's while pursuing her theatrical career.

Beker returned to Toronto in 1978, producing daily lifestyle and entertainment features for 1050 CHUM. She launched CITY's ground-breaking music magazine show The NewMusic in 1979 as co-host with J. D. Roberts, and also became an entertainment reporter for CityPulse. She briefly hosted Rockflash news segments on MuchMusic when that station was launched, hosted MovieTelevision, produced segments for Entertainment Tonight, and in 1985 she became host of FashionTelevision, the role with which she has been most famously associated. In 1995, she launched @Fashion, the Internet's first-ever fashion website, for American communication giant MCI.

From 2001 - 2002, Beker had her own limited edition fashion lines, "Jeanne Beker", for Eaton's, and "Inside Out by Jeanne Beker", with Sears Canada. In addition, she was an honorary chair of Toronto's annual Fashion Cares, one of the world's largest HIV/AIDS fundraising events. She is also on the honorary board of Gilda's Club and has been involved with numerous charitable organizations over the years. In 2006, she was honoured with the prestigious "Crystal" lifetime achievement award by Women in Film and Television.

In addition Beker is the editor-in-chief of FQ Magazine and SIR, published by Kontent Group in Toronto. A CityTV documentary series entitled Cover Stories debuted in 2006, following Beker and the Kontent Group team as they publish each issue of FQ.

She is also the author of three books:

  • Jeanne Unbottled: Adventures in High Style
  • The Big Night Out
  • Careers in Style

Beker has served as a judge on Canadian reality television show Canada's Next Top Model for the past three years and appeared in an episode of the Rick Mercer Report that aired on November 3, 2009.