Howard was a film actress and soap opera star before breaking into journalism.​

In 1960 she scored the first major interview with Soviet Premier

 Nikita  Khrushchev at the United Nations. She was hired by ABC news as a

 reporter  and subsequently became the anchor for ABC's noontime news 

broadcast,  "The NewsHour with Lisa Howard." Her two specials on Cuba, in 

1963 and  1964, were the most substantive coverage of Castro's revolution 

in the  early 1960s. She died in 1965.