Vivian is a native Clevelander who grew up mostly in Beachwood but spent part of her adolescence in Glasgow, Scotland where she attended Hutcheson’s Girl’s Grammar School. She graduated from Beachwood High School in 1966. She later became one of the first inductees to its Gallery of Success.

Vivian studied French at L'Alliance Francaise in Paris and German at the Goethe Institute in Munich and graduated with a BA in philosophy from the University of Chicago in 1970. That's where she first went on the air at the campus station, WHPK, as host of a weekly satirical news program. She moved from there into reporting including covering the Chicago Seven conspiracy trial. After college she traveled in Europe and for a while worked in a dress shop in Amsterdam, and for the U.S. Army in Munich. She also briefly operated her own cafe in Brussels, Belgium.

Vivian started working in commercial radio in Akron at WHLO. She has worked mostly in radio news since then, in Cleveland and in Washington, D.C. for nine years. She also had two stints as a Congressional Press Secretary for Congressman Louis Stokes in 1974 and for Eric Fingerhut in 1994 and three and a half years as Director of Communications for North Coast Cable in Cleveland in the early 90's. Vivian and her husband, Ed have raised two sons: Zach, 31, and Zane, 26. Zane is training for a career in IT  and Zach is a computer specialist at Cleveland’s Benesch-Friedlander law firm.

Vivian’s main passion, after her family and radio journalism, is music. She plays flute in the Workmen’s Circle Klezmer Orchestra. She also plays open mics with her singer/pianist brother, Steve.

Vivian has contributed news features to the NPR network, including the story of Clara Wolcott of Tallmadge, the designer of Tiffany Lamps; interviews with composers Pierre Boulez and Marc Andre Dalbavie; the story of the Stow Symphony Orchestra’s premiere of a work by composer Joan Tower; and a remembrance of Cleveland rock radio history.