Elise Rothman

Elise Rothman was the editor and boss of "The Bay Mirror", where Phoebe Halliwell worked as an advice columnist. While tough and pragmatic on the surface, Elise could also be wise and caring, leading to a dynamic which produced a close bond with Phoebe. In Season 8, when Phoebe was thought dead, she admitted to Julie Bennett (who was really Phoebe) that she thought of Phoebe as her best friend and the daughter she never had.

When she first appeared on the show, her advice columnist at the time was innocent Karen Young, who hated her and wanted to kill her while under demonic influence. With Karen, Elise was ready to fire her if she missed one collumn for being sick, so Phoebe took over for Karen and did her collumn. Afterwards, Karen told Elise the truth, as she figured would happen, Elise fired her and hired Phoebe in her place. With Phoebe, Elise was a lot more flexible and in one episode even pointed out how much leniency she gives Phoebe when she took a day off and left Phoebe in charge. She has a very difficult job as shown when she took the day off and left Phoebe in charge (which shows her faith in Phoebe as well) and Phoebe was completely overwhelmed, but managed to handle it. This also sent Phoebe (and viewers) the message that the difficult nature of being the editor may be at least partly responsible for her hard attitude with her employees.

Romantic Life
She married and divorced a man named James L. Connors. (This was very likely a subtle hint to Rebecca Balding's real life marriage to producer James L. Conway.)

In "Scry Hard", she was seen on a date with Richard Dillard, who should have been running the paper in Elise's absence. But since he was on a date with Elise, Phoebe had to run the evening edition, making her Elise's third choice for running the paper if Elise and Richard would be sick.

In "Chris-Crossed" she revealed that she was someone who focused solely on her career, letting it get in the way of everything else, including any sort of a romantic life that she could've had, and one day she realized that all she had was her career. This could have been what led to her divorce (even though she did once describe her ex-husband as a schmuck). She explained this to Phoebe because she didn't want Phoebe to end up like her, indicating that she regretted letting it happen.

Appearance
Elise has short, red-brown hair during the series, getting gradually longer as the series progresses. Since she was a boss at the Bay Mirror, she wore semi-formal clothing.

Appearances
Elise has appeared in a total of 22 episodes of throughout the course of the series.


 * Season 4
 * The Fifth Halliwheel
 * Long Live the Queen


 * Season 5
 * Siren Song
 * The Eyes Have It
 * The Importance of Being Phoebe
 * House Call
 * Sand Francisco Dreamin'
 * Baby's First Demon
 * Sense and Sense Ability
 * Oh My Goddess! Part 1
 * Oh My Goddess! Part 2


 * Season 6
 * Forget Me...Not
 * Power Of Three Blondes
 * Chris-Crossed


 * Season 7
 * A Call To Arms
 * Extreme Makeover: World Edition
 * Charmageddon
 * Show Ghouls
 * Scry Hard
 * Freaky Phoebe


 * Season 8
 * Still Charmed and Kicking
 * Kill Billie: Vol. 2