An Interview with Lisa Ling

It's ironic that you're shooting me in bed," Lisa Ling says, laughing amidst the reams of red satin our photographer has tucked around her petite body. "It's my favorite place to be. I dream about it all day—I even eat dinner in bed!"

Pining for solitude seems out of sorts with Ling's apparent gregarious nature. On this crisp autumn day, she has already completed her morning duties as co-host of ABC's talk show, The View, swapping convictions with Barbara Walters and bantering cheerfully with the studio audience during commercial breaks. But while today finds Ling in good spirits, her life hasn't always been a bed of rose-colored sheets. In 1996, she and her family suffered the first of two traumatic, life-altering blows when her cousin, Alison Pierce—or, more affectionately, Ali—succumbed to liver cancer. Only 14 years old, Ali bravely battled the disease for years as her parents, John and Mary, and two younger brothers did what they could to keep her comfortable.

"While Ali was sick, I saw her all the time—at least once a month," says Ling, looking back on the frequent flights between her home state of California and her cousin's in Massachusetts. "I never would have gotten to know this girl had she not been sick because she lived so far away, and my life was so enriched by having the time that I got. It really made me closer to all of my family."

But this newfound closeness took on bittersweet dimensions when, less than a year after Ali's passing, the family suffered the second hit. Ling's uncle, who had what she calls an "inexplicable bond" with his daughter, had decided to run the Boston Marathon in an effort to raise money for the Ali Pierce Endowment Fund, established to support pediatric cancer research. Then, while training in a mini-marathon a week before, John Pierce collapsed just a few yards shy of the finish line, dead of a heart attack.

"Right after John passed, I was in a total stupor," his widow, Mary Ling Pierce, says today. "But one of the things I said was that as John approached the finish line, his body stopped but his spirit soared over and joined Ali. I was never fearful that she was alone; I was comforted to feel that her dad was with her." Taking her cue, Ling adopted a similarly strong, positive attitude in her efforts to come to terms with the family's overwhelming loss.

"My aunt is extraordinary; she is my hero in every way," says Ling. "She channeled all of her energy into raising the best boys possible. And not to undermine people's grief, but if you channel it in a different direction it can help in the healing process." For years, Ling sought out an appropriate place to direct her own grief. She finally found it when the foundation, established in Ali's honor, secured 10 slots for the 2001 Boston Marathon. The fundraising effort was announced in February—just two months before the race.

"I don't know why, but I just said, 'I'll do it,'" explains Ling. "I wanted to do something, and I thought I would love to run in my uncle's honor and finish what he was never able to do." She did just that and, despite a truncated training period, finished in an impressive four hours and 34 minutes. And even better, she discovered solace through both the therapeutic, physical exertion of the race and in raising approximately $100,000 for the fight against cancer by utilizing her spot on The View as a publicity platform.

In retrospect, Ling finds humor in the fact that making her voice heard above the din of her boisterous The View co-hosts—Star Jones, 38, Meredith Vieira, 48, Joy Behar, 56, and of course Walters, 70—wasn't always an easy feat. "To have to be so forceful with my voice runs contrary to everything I was taught growing up," says Ling. She also admits she still got nervous after more than three years on the show. "Coming from an Asian culture, I was always taught to respect my elders, to be a better listener than a talker. But if I didn't think it was a challenge I wouldn't have done it."

A quick glance at her resume confirms that Ling has always chased challenges. At age 16 she landed her first job as a television host on Scratch, a nationally syndicated teen magazine show, and within two years moved on to become a reporter for Channel One News, an educational news network aired in classrooms across the country. Soon she was traveling internationally to cover war and politics, ultimately reporting from more than 30 countries.

"My most memorable overseas experience was in Afghanistan," she says. "I saw boys who looked about 10 years old carrying weapons larger than they were. They had no light in their eyes; they looked like they could shoot me right then and there with no remorse whatsoever. And I never saw one woman's face." A few years later, Ling accepted an offer from Channel One to become a full-time anchor and left her studies at the University of Southern California despite being one year shy of earning her degree.

"I wished she'd finished school," admits her mother Mary Ling, who was visiting her daughter in New York City and watching a taping of the show on the morning of PT's photo shoot. "But Lisa didn't want to go to class just for the sake of getting a degree. I admire her for that."

Admiration is a clearly mutual sentiment when observing the mother-daughter pair, despite Ling's parents' "tumultuous" divorce when she was 7. She and her younger sister, 25-year-old Laura, moved in with their father, Douglas Ling, a China-born aviation supervisor whose conservative heritage sometimes made growing up in progressive California a challenge. "I was the only kid in school whose parent did not sign the sex education permission slip," Ling says. "The word 'sex' was not in my dad's lexicon."

Her mom, who lived nearby, called every day and visited regularly. "Even though I didn't grow up with her, she was a very integral part of my life." And they've become even closer in recent years, as Ling recognized regular turbulence in her own romantic relationships and began seeing a psychologist to discern the source of her fears of abandonment.

"My therapist asked about my upbringing and my mother and her upbringing and people I didn't know anything about," explains Ling. "So I started asking questions." She subsequently learned that her grandfather, now deceased, ran a number of brothels in Taiwan in the 1930s and '40s and had three wives—his first being Ling's maternal grandmother. Ling is now writing a book on her family history, and has even traveled to Taiwan to do research, her mother in tow.

"When she first told me she wanted to write this book I felt a little resistant," Mary Ling confesses. "I choose to block my memory of my childhood because it's a past I don't really want to know. But Lisa said it would be very healthy for us and actually, it hasn't been too bad."

Her daughter does recognize that dredging up the family's past has been painful, but maintains that the experience has been therapeutic for everyone. "When you take the time to understand why your parents did the things they did, you stand a good chance of learning more about your own behavior. We are such a product of our upbringing and environment."

As for Ling's own environment, it changed drastically after she announced her departure from The View. Now based in Washington, D.C., she is traveling internationally to create hour-long documentaries on issues such as China's AIDS crisis and the conflict in Colombia for National Geographic Explorer on MSNBC. And though it was hard to walk away from the strong friendships she's fostered at ABC, she's ecstatic about her return to investigative reporting.

"I've been so disenchanted with the apathy amongst young people for what's going on around the world," Ling explains. "Our generation will inevitably assume the problems our country is faced with, and we are so ill-equipped to do so. My hope is that I can somehow raise the level of consciousness about world events." And given her youth—she's only 29—single status and carpe diem philosophy, there's no time like the present to be trotting the globe.

"Our time on Earth is so random," she concludes. "Try to accomplish things you have always dreamt of while you can. I know it sounds cliché, but the biggest lesson I have learned is that life is precious; enjoy it while it lasts."