In Hamilton, her mother found work as a secretary at the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, while her father, who suffered from health problems, "came and went".
[4] In 1954, CBC Television's new Hamilton affiliate, CHCH-TV opened and Davidson, who had been working in a factory, applied for a job and was hired as an assistant on a cooking show.
[4][3] Davidson caused controversy while the Canadian media was reporting on the tour of the country by Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada, that began on 18 June 1959.
The CBC received angry phone calls from viewers, her show lost sponsors, Conservative Members of Parliament expressed their outrage to Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, and Davidson was suspended from the programme.
[1] In addition to losing her hosting position on Tabloid, her revenue from doing commercials on Canadian television also dried up and her children were taunted at school.
According to Here’s Looking at Us: Celebrating Fifty Years of CBC-TV, Davidson also faced public criticism "for telling Pierre Berton in an interview that a woman who was still a virgin at age thirty was 'unlucky.
"[9] She was hired to do commercials for Lux soap and by Westinghouse Broadcasting to be the sidekick of Mike Wallace on a new talk show he was hosting titled PM East/PM West.
A long segment with Davidson interviewing Boris Karloff survives in the sole video-recorded episode, which is available for viewing at the UCLA Film and Television Archive.
Hot Line was the first television show to use the recently invented ten-second broadcast delay to amplify viewer phone calls on the air.
[12] Late on Sunday night, 6 June 1971, an American talk show titled Joyce and Barbara: For Adults Only made its debut in syndication.
Davidson's husband's nationally successful talk show served as a lead-in for it, her co-host was Barbara Howar and Bette Davis was the guest on the premiere.