O'Brien is the peppy, telegenic newscaster who co-hosted CNN's American Morning until mid-2007. She's now the host of the In America documentary unit on CNN.

The daughter of an Irish-Australian father and a black Cuban mother, O'Brien grew up on the North Shore of Long Island. Along with her five siblings, she was accepted to Harvard, but dropped out when she snagged a radio producer's job at Boston's WBZ-TV. National attention arrived at age 30 when O'Brien hosted MSNBC's web culture/new technology show The Site; in 1999, she moved to the world of network news when she began anchoring Weekend Today for NBC News. In 2003, O'Brien decamped to CNN and spent more than three years co-hosting American Morning. After shopping with Laura Bush in Moscow, traveling to Cuba with the Pope, and grilling FEMA's Michael Brown, in 2007 CNN president Jonathan Klein dropped O'Brien, siting sagging ratings. She's now a correspondent for CNN's documentary series In America.

O'Brien is married to investment banker Charles Bradford Raymond (he goes by "Brad"), a partner at Thomas Weisel Partners. They have four children. [Image via Getty]