MINNEAPOLIS - Eleanor Mondale, the vivacious daughter of former Vice President Walter Mondale who carved out her own reputation as an entertainment reporter, radio show host and gossip magnet, has died at her home in Minnesota. She was 51.
Family spokeswoman Lynda Pedersen said Mondale died Saturday. She had been diagnosed with brain cancer years earlier.
"Joan and I must report that our wonderful daughter, Eleanor Mondale Poling, after her long and gutsy battle against cancer, went up to heaven last night to be with her angel," the former vice president said in a statement emailed to friends. "Thank you for all your friendship, you will hear more about plans to celebrate her life soon."
Mondale had been off the air at WCCO-AM in Minneapolis since March 19, 2009, when she announced that her brain cancer had returned a second time. She had surgery to remove the tumor Aug. 12, 2009, at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and a posting on her CaringBridge website declared the surgery a success.
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Mondale, the middle of three children born to Walter and Joan Mondale, stumped for her father in his failed campaign to unseat President Ronald Reagan in 1984. She also helped in 2002 in her father's last campaign, when he took the ballot slot of Sen. Paul Wellstone, who died in a plane crash just days before the election.
A striking blonde known on the party circuit when she was younger, Eleanor Mondale also attracted gossip. In 1998, CBS News reported that Mondale was one of four women Monica Lewinsky expressed resentment toward in taped conversations because of attention President Bill Clinton paid to them. (Mondale issued a statement saying her relationship with the president and his wife, Hillary, was "purely a friendship.")
Mondale started as an aspiring actress, with bit parts in TV's "Three's Company" and "Dynasty." She got her start in broadcasting as an entertainment reporter at WCCO-TV in Minneapolis in 1989. After stints at Minneapolis radio station WLOL-FM, on cable television at E! Entertainment and ESPN and network TV on CBS' "This Morning," she returned to Minnesota in 2006 to co-host a weekday morning show on WCCO-AM with Susie Jones.
"I was terrified of her at first, she was so big, but you talked to her for a minute and you realized she was just as regular as you could expect," Jones said. "She was uncanny, she was unpredictable. She sparkled. She was gorgeous inside and out."
