Willard Scott, the beloved man of the time who enchanted viewers of NBC’s “Today” program with his predatory humor and cheerful personality, is dead. He was 87 years old.
His successor on the morning news program, Al Roker, announced that Scott died peacefully Saturday morning surrounded by family. An NBC Universal spokeswoman confirmed the news. No further details were given.
“He was really my second father and I’m where I am today because of his generous spirit,” Roker wrote on Instagram. “Willard was a man of his time, the ultimate broadcaster. There will never be anyone like him.”
“He played such a huge role in my life and was as warm, loving and generous off-camera as he was,” Katie Couric posted in a tweet.
Scott began his 65-year career at NBC as a homepage on an affiliate station in Washington, DC, and became the network’s flagship morning weather forecaster for more than three decades. His brand was to give birthday greetings on the air to spectators who turned 100 by putting their face in Smucker’s jelly jars and delivering weather updates in crazy costumes.
NBC NewsWire
According to NBC, he once took the viewer’s audacity to win a $ 1,000 donation to the USO, the charity for military families, dressing up Brazilian singer Carmen Miranda. The trick was not new to the great Scott: he played Bozo the Clown when he organized a children’s television show in the sixties and Ronald McDonald in commercials in the Washington area.
She often dressed as Santa at the National Tree Lighting ceremony during the 1980s and co-anchored NBC coverage of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade between 1987 and 1997. At a memorable time in on live television, First Lady Barbara Bush kissed her during her husband, President George HW Bush’s 1989 inaugural Parade.
(The president) said, “I didn’t know you knew Willard Scott.” I said, “I don’t know Willard Scott. I love that face, ”the first lady recalled.
Scott handed over the reins to Roker in 1996, occasionally replacing him for the next decade before retiring completely in 2015.
He is survived by his wife, Paris Keena, whom he married in 2014, and two daughters to Mary Dwyer Scott, his 43-year-old wife until his death in 2002.
