Tedi Thurman - Miss Monitor

Miss Monitor

Thurman, who lived in Palm Springs, California until her death on September 17, 2012, became one of the most familiar radio voices of the late 1950s in her role as Miss Monitor. Jack Gould, writing in The New York Times, described her as someone who "made the report sound like an irresistible invitation to an unforgettable evening."

It began during a modeling assignment on the Today show, where she caught the eye and ear of one of the producers who was part of the Monitor planning team. With her alluring, breathy delivery heard against a background of lush, romantic music, Thurman gave NBC's sexy weekend weather reports from 1955 until 1961. While Bob and Ray stayed at NBC all weekend to spontaneously go on the air in case of technical problems with scheduled remotes, Thurman was there throughout the weekend to do her hourly weather reports. Dennis Hart, the author of Monitor: The Last Great Radio Show (2002), recalled:

Tedi Thurman, she was an actress, she had done a little bit of radio, she had done some television, but she was a model. And it was Weaver who came up with the idea of do weather in a way it had never been done before. She would come into the studios and be there virtually every hour of the 40-hour weekend with just a few breaks, and she would do weather with this lush music behind her. To say the least, Miss Monitor probably became the most recognizable female voice in the country within a few short months after she went on Monitor.

When Miss Monitor delivered weather forecasts for cities across the country, her forecasts were all real, except for one occasion when Henry Morgan set Thurman's script on fire. She had to complete the segment by making up temperatures for each city. In the mid-1950s, she was lampooned by Edie Adams on various shows hosted by Ernie Kovacs. Bob and Ray also did a Miss Monitor satire.