Legendary TV weatherman Bob Weaver dies at 77

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Legendary TV weatherman Bob Weaver dies at 77

BY MARTIN MERZER AND CARLI TEPROFF

mmerzer@MiamiHerald.com

He projected wisecracks through a puppet called Weavie the Weather Bird. He risked thumbs-up, thumbs-down jokes and puns. His idea of a weather graphic: writing the forecast backward from behind a sheet of glass.

But the broadcaster known for generations as Weaver the Weatherman also possessed this and it was no gimmick: a sterling reputation as a television pioneer, as a forecaster who would not resort to histrionics and as a genuine role model, both as a professional and as a human being.

Bob Weaver died this weekend, a victim of cancer. He was 77.

''He was just the sweetest man that I ever knew,'' Bob Mayer, a morning anchor and reporter at WTVJ-NBC6 who worked with Weaver for more than 30 years, said Sunday. ``He didn't have a mean bone in his body. He was filled with all the nicest things a human being could be.''

And his personality and knowledge projected itself into every corner of the region.

''He loved to entertain,'' said Bryan Norcross, who worked with Weaver at WTVJ from 1990 to 1995 and now is director of meteorology at WFOR-CBS4. ``There was a period of time when you couldn't go anywhere without hearing someone mention Weavie the Weather Bird.''

Family members said Weaver died Saturday at Cedars Medical Center in Miami. His cancer was diagnosed only four weeks ago, according to his wife, Myra.

''It's been very tough on us all,'' she said. ``Above and beyond his job, he was a husband, a father and a community man.''

In a business that can sometimes burn with ego and ambition, Weaver was distinguished by his generosity to colleagues, particularly relative newbies who seemed composed on camera but whose hands were trembling just below the viewfinder.

''What a kind soul he was,'' said Kelly Craig, an anchor and reporter at WTVJ-NBC6. ``When I came to the station 16 years ago, I had never worked before with robotic cameras and I was as nervous as could be. He knew it and he came over and chatted with me and offered to get me a cup of hot chocolate. I never forgot that.''

And in a business known for its here-today, somewhere-else-tomorrow itinerants, Weaver began his career at WTVJ in 1949 and he ended his career, not entirely voluntarily, at WTVJ in 2003. Fifty-four years of service to the same station and the same community.

Craig also remembered Weaver as a consummate professional.

''In television, a lot of things get thrown at you at the very last minute,'' she said. ``He was able to make it seamless.

'If the director said, `Stretch for 30 seconds,' he stretched for exactly 30 seconds. If the director said, 'Wrap it up,' he wrapped it up right there. He was all talent and experience.''

Still, as a veteran of the old school, Weaver was not particularly enamored with newfangled, whiz-bang technology.

''He always thought you had to spend too much time loading and programming computers and not enough time planning what you were going to say,'' Norcross said.

Weaver also played a central role in South Florida's service community, supporting the Children's Cancer Caring Center in Weston, the Leukemia Society and other charities, often as a celebrity auctioneer. An amateur trumpet player, he was a founder of the Youth Orchestra of Florida and served as its president.

He also was very active with Adopt-A-Pet of Miami and took special pride in finding homes for animals that appeared with him on television.

Born in New York, Weaver earned a broadcasting degree from the University of Miami. He interned at the National Hurricane Center and completed a special course in meteorology, receiving the American Meteorological Society's seal of approval.

By 1949, he was interning at WTVJ, where he, Ralph Renick and Bernie Rosen -- three young men energized by a new medium called television -- essentially invented South Florida TV news programming.

Renick, of course, became the area's first and most famed news anchor. Rosen became the station's long-time sports director.

And Weaver soon emerged -- and endured -- as the area's most popular weather forecaster and as the go-to broadcaster when hurricanes formed (times now known in the super-heated South Florida TV world as ``Trouble in the Tropics'') and sometimes threatened and occasionally struck.

During the 1950s and 1960s, Weaver calmly ushered South Florida through Hurricanes King, Cleo, Donna and Betsy.

Later, when the hurricane mill calmed down a bit in the 1970s and 1980s, he concentrated on more routine business. OK, so maybe his daily forecasts sometimes tended to be a little too sunny, but that's the kind of guy he was.

''The man was never in a bad mood,'' Craig said, ``never had a bad day.''

Still, he was something less than pleased when WTVJ nudged him more and more toward the sidelines, and then into retirement. Down to a few weekend morning shifts, he was unceremoniously yanked off the air in November 2003.

''A surprise to me,'' he told Miami Herald columnist Joan Fleischman a few months later. ``I didn't intend at that time to leave. They felt it was time.''

He seemed most upset by his inability to say goodbye to his audience, though Weaver never was really comfortable with that whole star-audience thing.

''He never believed he was a celebrity,'' Mayer said. ``He never believed he was anything more than the guy who gave the weather report.''

And a guy with a somewhat corny sense of humor, right to the end.

Three weeks ago, Mayer said, he visited a largely unresponsive Weaver in the hospital, spending more than 30 minutes in his room. Making small talk, Mayer quietly told Weaver: ``Bob, you're getting a new hip on Tuesday.''

With that, Weaver opened his eyes, looked at Mayer and uttered his only words of the entire visit:

``So, I'll be hip.''

In addition to his wife, Weaver is survived by sons Jason, Shane and Bobby, and by three grandchildren.

Services will be conducted at 4 p.m. Thursday at Levitt-Weinstein Memorial Chapels, 3201 NW 72nd Ave., in Hollywood.

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