Tedi Thurman
Encyclopedia
Theodora Thurman, better known as Tedi Thurman, was a fashion model and actress who found fame in the 1950s as Miss Monitor on NBC's Monitor
, programmed by Pat Weaver
as an innovative 40-hour weekend radio show.
Born in Midville, Georgia
, the daughter of a banker, Thurman originally planned to become a painter, studying at the Corcoran Institute
in Washington, D. C.. Her career plans changed, and she went to New York for modeling. Her first shoot wound up as a Vogue
cover, bringing with it many other modeling jobs and some work on television soap operas. Columnist Alice Hughes described her appearance:
She had film offers, but she had only one role, in the z-grade Ed Wood movie, "Jail Bait", in 1954. In 1954, Leopold Stokowski
needed to find an accomplished jaw harpist for a performance of Charles Ives
' symphony, New England Holidays
. Thurman was one of the 22 who auditioned, but she lost to two professional musicians.
, 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 [weather] 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:
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.
on The Tonight Show
, and TV Guide
did a feature article, "Tedi Thurman: Weathergirl Supreme" that year. She also can be seen as Miss Monitor in the trailer for the movie Ten Thousand Bedrooms
(1957). Sammy Davis, Jr.
hired Thurman to introduce him when he played Harrah's
, Lake Tahoe
in April 1961. In "Fair-Weather Friends," Time (April 12, 1968) remembered Thurman:
Thurman was interviewed about her life on Fire Island for Crayton Robey's documentary film When Ocean Meets Sky (2003). Edge editor Steve Weinstein, reviewing the film June 4, 2006, noted:
On Wednesday, July 14, 2004, 29 years after Monitor ended on NBC Radio; Thurman joined more than 40 former Monitor staff members who gathered in midtown Manhattan for the first Monitor reunion at Hurley's Tavern, a location made famous through many references on the Paar Tonight Show. The event was organized by Dennis Hart, author of Monitor (Take 2). The book features an introduction by Thurman.
Monitor (NBC Radio)
NBC Monitor was an American weekend radio program broadcast from June 12, 1955, until January 26, 1975. Airing live and nationwide on the NBC Radio Network, it originally aired beginning Saturday morning at 8am and continuing through the weekend until 12 midnight on Sunday...
, programmed by Pat Weaver
Pat Weaver
Sylvester Barnabee "Pat" Weaver was an American radio advertising executive, who became president of NBC between 1953 and 1955. He has been credited with reshaping commercial broadcasting's format and philosophy as radio gave way to television as America's dominant home entertainment...
as an innovative 40-hour weekend radio show.
Born in Midville, Georgia
Midville, Georgia
Midville is a city in Burke County, Georgia, United States. The population was 457 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Augusta, Georgia metropolitan area.-Geography:Midville is located at ....
, the daughter of a banker, Thurman originally planned to become a painter, studying at the Corcoran Institute
Corcoran College of Art and Design
The Corcoran College of Art and Design, , founded in 1890, is the only professional college of art and design in Washington, DC, located in the Downtown area. The school is a private institution in association with the Corcoran Gallery of Art.The Corcoran Gallery of Art is Washington's first and...
in Washington, D. C.. Her career plans changed, and she went to New York for modeling. Her first shoot wound up as a Vogue
Vogue (magazine)
Vogue is a fashion and lifestyle magazine that is published monthly in 18 national and one regional edition by Condé Nast.-History:In 1892 Arthur Turnure founded Vogue as a weekly publication in the United States. When he died in 1909, Condé Montrose Nast picked up the magazine and slowly began...
cover, bringing with it many other modeling jobs and some work on television soap operas. Columnist Alice Hughes described her appearance:
- She's 5-feet-7, weight 115, sea-blue eyes, long loosely combed red hair and a 33-21-33 figure. Ingredients like hers can turn the morning dew into a monsoon.
She had film offers, but she had only one role, in the z-grade Ed Wood movie, "Jail Bait", in 1954. In 1954, Leopold Stokowski
Leopold Stokowski
Leopold Anthony Stokowski was a British-born, naturalised American orchestral conductor, well known for his free-hand performing style that spurned the traditional baton and for obtaining a characteristically sumptuous sound from many of the great orchestras he conducted.In America, Stokowski...
needed to find an accomplished jaw harpist for a performance of Charles Ives
Charles Ives
Charles Edward Ives was an American modernist composer. He is one of the first American composers of international renown, though Ives' music was largely ignored during his life, and many of his works went unperformed for many years. Over time, Ives came to be regarded as an "American Original"...
' symphony, New England Holidays
A Symphony: New England Holidays
A Symphony: New England Holidays, also known as A New England Holiday Symphony or simply a Holiday Symphony, is a composition for orchestra written by Charles Ives. It took Ives from 1897 to 1913 to complete all four movements. The four movements in order are:*I. Washington’s Birthday*II....
. Thurman was one of the 22 who auditioned, but she lost to two professional musicians.
Miss Monitor
Thurman, who lives today in Palm Springs, CaliforniaPalm Springs, California
Palm Springs is a desert city in Riverside County, California, within the Coachella Valley. It is located approximately 37 miles east of San Bernardino, 111 miles east of Los Angeles and 136 miles northeast of San Diego...
, became one of the most familiar radio voices of the late 1950s in her role as Miss Monitor. Jack Gould
Jack Gould
Jack Gould was an American journalist and critic, who wrote influential commentary about television....
, writing in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, described her as someone who "made the [weather] 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
Bob and Ray
Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding were an American comedy team whose career spanned five decades. Their format was typically to satirize the medium in which they were performing, such as conducting radio or television interviews, with off-the-wall dialogue presented in a generally deadpan style as...
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
Henry Morgan (comedian)
Henry Morgan was an American humorist. He is remembered best in two modern media: radio, on which he first became familiar as a barbed but often self-deprecating satirist, and on television, where he was a regular and cantankerous panelist for the game show I've Got a Secret...
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
Edie Adams
Edie Adams was an American singer, Broadway, television and film actress and comedienne. Adams, a Tony Award winner, "both embodied and winked at the stereotypes of fetching chanteuse and sexpot blonde." She was well-known for her impersonations of female stars on stage and television, most...
on various shows hosted by Ernie Kovacs
Ernie Kovacs
Ernie Kovacs was a Hungarian American comedian and actor.Kovacs' uninhibited, often ad-libbed, and visually experimental comedic style came to influence numerous television comedy programs for years after his death in an automobile accident...
. Bob and Ray also did a Miss Monitor satire.
Television and films
In 1957 Thurman appeared with Jack PaarJack Paar
Jack Harold Paar was an author, American radio and television comedian and talk show host, best known for his stint as host of The Tonight Show from 1957 to 1962...
on The Tonight Show
The Tonight Show
The Tonight Show is an American late-night talk show that has aired on NBC since 1954. It is the longest currently running regularly scheduled entertainment program in the United States, and the third longest-running show on NBC, after Meet the Press and Today.The Tonight Show has been hosted by...
, and TV Guide
TV Guide
TV Guide is a weekly American magazine with listings of TV shows.In addition to TV listings, the publication features television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews and crossword puzzles...
did a feature article, "Tedi Thurman: Weathergirl Supreme" that year. She also can be seen as Miss Monitor in the trailer for the movie Ten Thousand Bedrooms
Ten Thousand Bedrooms
Ten Thousand Bedrooms was Dean Martin's first movie in the wake of the dissolution of his partnership with Jerry Lewis in the team of Martin and Lewis....
(1957). Sammy Davis, Jr.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
Samuel George "Sammy" Davis Jr. was an American entertainer and was also known for his impersonations of actors and other celebrities....
hired Thurman to introduce him when he played Harrah's
Harrah's Lake Tahoe
Harrah's Lake Tahoe, is a resort casino, in South Lake Tahoe, at Stateline, Nevada. It is branded with the name of its former owner William Fisk Harrah and owned by Caesars Entertainment Corp.. The 18-story tower and 525 rooms, plus of casino make it one of the largest resorts at South Lake...
, Lake Tahoe
Lake Tahoe
Lake Tahoe is a large freshwater lake in the Sierra Nevada of the United States. At a surface elevation of , it is located along the border between California and Nevada, west of Carson City. Lake Tahoe is the largest alpine lake in North America. Its depth is , making it the USA's second-deepest...
in April 1961. In "Fair-Weather Friends," Time (April 12, 1968) remembered Thurman:
- Just about every TV station in the nation has its own weatherman nowadays, but the trouble with a great number of them is that they are cloudy and mostly windy. In the beginning, weathermen talked so much about "occluded fronts" and "thermal inversions" that viewers wondered if they shouldn't start building an ark in the backyard. Then came the era of fair-weather girls. Preoccupied with their own frontal systems, they postured before the weather maps in the latest gowns and spun out sultry spiels. NBCs Tedi Thurman used to peek from behind a shower curtain to coo: "The temperature in New York is 46, and me, I'm 36-26-36."
Thurman was interviewed about her life on Fire Island for Crayton Robey's documentary film When Ocean Meets Sky (2003). Edge editor Steve Weinstein, reviewing the film June 4, 2006, noted:
- Robey traveled to Palm Springs to interview Tedi Thurman, the campy weather girl of Jack Paar’s "Tonight Show," who had a stormy longtime relationship with Peggy FearsPeggy FearsPeggy Fears was an American actress, who appeared in Broadway musical comedies during the 1920s and 1930s before becoming a Broadway producer.-Theater:Leaving New Orleans at the age of 16, she attended the Semple School...
. Fears, a former Broadway vocalist and producer, built the original Yacht Club and the cinderblock hotel that still stands today, Ciel being its most recent incarnation.
On Wednesday, July 14, 2004, 29 years after Monitor ended on NBC Radio; Thurman joined more than 40 former Monitor staff members who gathered in midtown Manhattan for the first Monitor reunion at Hurley's Tavern, a location made famous through many references on the Paar Tonight Show. The event was organized by Dennis Hart, author of Monitor (Take 2). The book features an introduction by Thurman.
Listen to
- Miss Monitor (Tedi Thurman)
- Miss Monitor on NPR (6/5/05)
- "Miss Janitor," the Joy Boys' parody of Miss Monitor (February 10, 1961)