Danuta Pfeiffer

Danuta Pfeiffer (née Rylko, formerly Soderman) (born February 22, 1949)[1] is an author and a retired journalist. She is best known for co-hosting The 700 Club with Pat Robertson and Ben Kinchlow from 1983 to 1988.

She was born in England after World War II to a father who was from Poland and worked as a sculptor. Her mother was a nurse and English.

Danuta Rylko and her parents moved to the United States shortly after she was born. She grew up in northern Michigan, near Bellaire.[2] She began her career in San Diego, California as a newsreader on the radio, and was co-host of SunUp San Diego on KFMB-TV from 1976 to 1983.[3]

Rylko was hired by the Christian Broadcasting Network after becoming a born again Christian.[4] She was hired to be their reporter in Jerusalem, but was instead made co-host of The 700 Club days after arriving at CBN's headquarters in Virginia Beach, Virginia.[5] She later wrote: "But no one ever asked me about my politics. I was converted by association from my liberal democratic feminism to conservative Republican fundamentalism. I felt like a wolf in sheep’s clothing adapting somewhat awkwardly to becoming one of the sheep."[2]

She was the first journalist to report the story of the John Anthony Walker spy ring. She interviewed Walker's daughter, Laura Walker Snyder, for CBN. During the interview, Snyder accused her father of bullying and pressuring his children into becoming spies.[6]

She married Swedish businessman Kai Soderberg in 1983,[3] six months after joining The 700 Club.[1] Soderman was a suicidal alcoholic and the two divorced after she moved back to California.[4][5] She was fired by Robertson in 1988 after he found out that Soderman had been married and divorced two times before.[2]

She stopped being a Christian after her experiences at CBN and went back to San Diego where she hosted Danuta Time, on KSDO radio in the late 1980s and was a news commentator on KUSI-TV in the early 1990s.[7] She moved to Colorado, where she wrote a newspaper column for the Colorado Eagle,[8] before moving to Oregon in 1994 to be closer to her family.

There she met and married her second husband, Robin Pfeiffer, a winery owner, in 1994.[4] Since 1994, she has been co-owner, with her husband, of Pfeiffer Winery in Oregon.[2] In 2016, she supported Bernie Sanders's presidential campaign.[4]

Pfeiffer has written a book called Chiseled: A Memoir of Identity, Duplicity, and Divine Wine (2015) about her life in general as well as her time with CBN.[2][4]

Her most recent book is Libertas, the first book in a trilogy (three-book series) called A Pocket Full of Seeds, which is a 19th century historical fiction about runaway slaves who went on the difficult Oregon Trail to seek freedom in the Northwest of the United States.[9][10]

Bibliography

  • Watersafe Your Baby in One Week (as Danuta Rylko), 1983
  • Dear Danuta: Cries and Whispers of Searching Hearts (as Danuta Soderman), 1986
  • A passion for living (co-authors: Danuta Soderman & Kai Soderman), 1987
  • Chiseled: A Memoir of Identity, Duplicity, and Divine Wine (as Danuta Pfeiffer), 2015
  • Libertas, Book One in the Pocket Full of Seeds Trilogy, (as Danuta Pfeiffer), 2021

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "CHRISTIAN TV'S 'LINK' TO GOD". Chicago Tribune. June 2, 1986. Archived from the original on January 1, 2022. Retrieved August 30, 2020.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 "Book of revelations Former televangelist's tell-all holds nothing back". The Register-Guard. February 27, 2015. Archived from the original on January 1, 2022. Retrieved August 30, 2020.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 "CATCHING UP". John Farina. The San Diego Union-Tribune. (January 14, 1985 Monday). (retrieved via Lexis)
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 "'SunUp's' Danuta Spills Secrets of '700 Club,' Own Life". Times of San Diego. June 3, 2015. Archived from the original on August 14, 2020. Retrieved August 30, 2020.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 "WHATEVER HAPPENED TO. . . DANUTA SODERMAN, OF THE 700 CLUB?". The Virginian-Pilot. August 18, 1997. Archived from the original on November 16, 2019. Retrieved August 30, 2020.
  6. ↑ "DAUGHTER SAYS JOHN WALKER PRESSED CHILDREN TO BE SPIES," By Susan Rasky, New York Times (June 18, 1985, Tuesday, Late City Final Edition). (retrieved via Lexis)
  7. ↑ "Blade-Citizen Is No Place for Opinions, Apparently". Los Angeles Times. June 8, 1992. Retrieved August 30, 2020.[permanent dead link]
  8. ↑ "The clarity that comes from crisis." Danuta Soderman, The San-Diego Union Tribune, (January 25, 1994 Tuesday) (retrieved via Lexis)
  9. ↑ "logo-lockup". Archived from the original on 2022-01-11. Retrieved 2022-01-10.
  10. ↑ "Oregon Reads: Dozens of local authors to attend Authors & Artists Fair at Lane Events Center". The Register-Guard. December 5, 2021. Archived from the original on January 10, 2022. Retrieved January 9, 2022.

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