Samantha Zinn

Samantha Jane Zinn (August 15, 1993 - November 30, 2020) was an American actress. She was the daughter of Vote for the Girls franchise and Caprice & Ella creator Ava Zinn and socialite Amanda "Mandy" Davidson. Zinn anchored WFTW-FTV's midday and 4 p.m. newscasts with Melinda Long and the NBC affiliate's 5 and 6 p.m. broadcasts with Lucas Ward.
==Early life==
Zinn was born in Van Buren, Indiana. Her mother was American socialite Amanda "Mandy" Davidson (b. 1981 d. 2014), and her father is American entrepreneur Ava Zinn (b. Frank 1983), who is known for her launches of the popular web sites INNewsCenter and Vote for the Girls. They broke up when she was four, ?? reconciled when she was 18 and split up again when she was 20. 
Zinn had a brother Thomas (b. 1997 d. 2006) and five half-sisters, Tiffani (b. Timothy 1999 d. 2021), Tabitha (b. 2003), Sierra (b. 2023), Lyssa (b. 2023), and a half-brother, Kenneth "Baby Kenny" Zinn (b. 2015) on her father's side and another half-brother, Kalvin (b. Kylee 2000 d. 2020) on her mother's side. Ashli and Kalvin were adopted by Ava Zinn outright. Kalvin died on May 9, 2020 while Tiffani died on August 5, 2021. Until July 21, 2023, Zinn was the only child of Ava Zinn not born in Marion, Indiana.
Samantha Zinn was also the paternal granddaughter of Margaret Zinn (b. 1943 d. 2002), maternal granddaughter of Marshall (b. 1947 d. 2002) and Janet Davidson (b. 1945 d. 1997), and previously the stepdaughter of Elisa Everman (b. 1979), Angie Nieves (b. 1978 d. 2010), Christy Johnson (b. 1980), Kymberly Alvaraz (b. 1967 d. 2017), Marti McDaniel (b. 1970) and posthumously Breeanna Sorensen (b. 1984).
==Career==
===Getting into the television industry===
Zinn played her first role demo as a teenager. According to Zinn, her father, wanting her to focus on her studies and graduate high school and college before pursuing acting, and wanting to avoid the same mistakes her father and maternal grandmother made when they were growing up, and would not pay for Zinn's acting classes to record a pilot episode. The pilot ultimately was paid for by Jackson Steele, an uncle of one of the actresses (Morghan Steele) in the pilot. Zinn's video demo made its way to Your Debate host Rhonda Rhodes and Kathy Finklemyer, who were impressed enough by Zinn to invite her into the studio and work with them on producing a series. 
"The Blend", a talk show co-produced with Zinn, aired on WTOR-FDT (CBS 41). Zinn's peers jokingly nicknamed her "Kathy Funklemyers". It was Zinn's association with Finklemyer, who Zinn counts as one of her first mentors and Steele, whom Zinn and her father counts as her mentor, that helped her to land her first talk show at the age of 15. Zinn moved out on her own at age 16, during her senior year of high school, earning a living and supporting herself as a professional talk show host. 
===Early work===
Before her days performing as a talk show host and producer, Zinn made a name for herself within the industry as a producer for other artists. Among her work for other presenters, Zinn produced her father's series in the United States. As a presenter, she produced and recorded solely under her nickname, Sammi Zinn. She would continue to do so until 2012.
===2012–13: Early success and Evolution of Samantha Zinn===
During another interview to promote Evolution of Samantha Zinn, she explained that:
===2013-2016: Vote for the Girls U.S. and the controversy===
In early 2013, Zinn became producer of her father's hit web site Vote for the Girls. As Zinn explained to South Bend host Melanie Wright, "My dad's hit site is called Vote for the Girls, a site that's similar to Vote for the Worst except that Vote for the Girls is about changing the minds of young women and teenage girls to stop voting for male contestants after my father had the boobs to audition in front of Idol producers, confront them about the boy bias and from what I've seen as a producer and as I've been in my 20's that we all think we're living on a straight path, but most of us aren't really doing that. And everything you thought you knew, the older you get, you realize, 'Damn, I don't know nothing about this. I better pay attention, I better listen and keep learning.' So I think that, that's what I've been realizing these past few years."
The web site and related videos clips often receive criticism, most often at her father for being misandrist and promoting feminism, with some critics going so far as to call her father as "The Gordon Ramsay of American Idol," "The Judge Judy of The X Factor," and even "Morton Downey Jr. after a sex change." In an interview for ______ Zinn joked about the site saying, "What a pleasure it is to degrade a man. I've never gotten to do that before. I've always respected men."
===2016-2020: NBC 6 WFTW===
In May 2016, Zinn joined NBC affiliate WFTW-FTV as a weekday afternoon anchor. Zinn became WFTW's youngest anchorwoman at age 23. She solo anchored the noon newscast and at 4 p.m. co-anchored with Melinda Long. Zinn also anchored the 5 and 6 p.m. broadcasts with Lucas Ward.
==Personal life==
At the age of 5, Samantha Zinn first met Todd Chandler in 1996 when the two were in preschool, when he asked her to dance. According to Zinn, she began dating Chandler at the age of 5. They had one child Allison (b. 2008 d. 2012). Zinn and Chandler broke up in 2011, after almost 13 years. In 2016, Samantha quietly married Martin Becker and relocated to Fort Wayne. Her father followed suit in 2018 as well as her half-siblings in 2019. In a Facebook post by her father on November 14, 2019, and a month later that Samantha gave birth to fraternal twins: a boy, Michael Albert Zinn II and a girl, Madison Leah Anne Zinn.
Zinn is said to be a loyal fan of Christina Grimmie and friend of fellow producer Morghan Steele. 
When Zinn was 11, Laura Bakula had been babysitting her while her father began her gender transition. Ava Zinn reportedly didn't find out that her daughter was home alone until she called home the next morning and found out that Bakula had to leave because she had been battling cancer.?? In 2006, after Bakula died of ovarian cancer, former WMRI-FTV anchorwoman Patricia Edwards confirmed that it was Samantha (then going by Sammi) who answered the telephone call from Sammi confirming the news Bakula was diagnosed with ovarian cancer: "(She) wasn't sure she should admit that Bakula was there, but Edwards insisted that she bring her to the phone."??
On November 30, 2020, Samantha Zinn died from complications of diabetes.
==References==
==External links==
Category:1993 births
Category:2020 deaths
Category:Characters
Category:Humans
Category:Females
Category:Deceased Characters
Category:Female Characters
Category:Zinns
Category:Recurring Characters