Ruth Weisberg, longtime radio and TV show host, and voice-over actor, has died at 70
She was the radio voice of Shadow Traffic in the late 1970s and early ’80s, and a news anchor and features reporter at several radio stations.
Ruth Weisberg, 70, formerly of Philadelphia, longtime award-winning radio, TV, and online news anchor, features reporter, and show host; onetime voice of Shadow Traffic, Bell Telephone, and other voice-over clients; voice-over instructor, writer, speaker, pianist, art model, actor, Miss Greater Philadelphia 1980, volunteer, and stand-up comedian, died Wednesday, Sept. 2, of ovarian cancer in an assisted living center in Sarasota, Fla.
Reared in Oxford Circle and a graduate of Northeast High School and Pennsylvania State University, Ms. Weisberg was a prolific media personality for nearly 50 years in Philadelphia and Florida. She was the radio voice of Shadow Traffic in the late 1970s and early 1980s, a news anchor and features reporter at WXTU, WCAU, WIFI, WPEN, and WSNI radio in the mid-1980s, and a radio, TV, and online talk show host from the late 1980s until recently.
She hosted Frank Talk With Frank Rizzo on WCAU radio in 1988 and ‘89, and told The Inquirer in 1989 that working with the onetime mayor was like flying a “careening aircraft for three hours.” She also hosted Storytime and Show ‘n Tell with Miss Ruth on local cable TV and online in 2015, and Funny You Should Ask, a radio show and podcast about comedy in Florida in 2023.
Always drawn to the theater and drama, she started producing TV and radio shows while studying special education at Penn State in the 1970s, and wound up cohosting a local rock and roll radio show as a senior exchange student in England. “All of the sudden,” she told The Inquirer in 1989, “I had this new-found love of radio. I never pursued it. It just came calling.”
Ms. Weisberg reported on all kinds of lifestyle issues and earned radio awards from The Associated Press, the Philadelphia Press Association, and other groups. In 1994, she was named member of the year by the Philadelphia chapter of the International Television Association.
She called herself Miss Ruth and Ruth Weisberg Philly on Facebook, and reveled in her constant innovation and free spirit. She told The Inquirer: “I like to think sometimes that God is laughing at me. I imagine Him shaking His head and saying: ‘Weisberg, what are you up to?’”
As a voice-over narrator and actor, she recorded corporate training videos, audiobooks, and radio and TV commercials. Bell Telephone hired her to record “We’re sorry. Your call cannot be completed as dialed” and other phone messages in 1985 because, a top official told her in a letter, her voice was “congenial yet persuasive.” She also taught voice-over classes for organizations and individuals, and mentored others on whatever she was doing wherever she worked.
She modeled for artists — some called her their “muse” — at art centers and colleges, and starred in a short video called The Accidental Art Model. “I love being part of a creative, imaginary, intrinsically artistic world,” she said in the video. “I would like to think of myself as the inspiration and the template for the work that happens.”
Ms. Weisberg was drawn to beauty pageants, she said on Facebook, by the glitz and glamour. She was named Miss Central Pennsylvania as a Penn State freshman in 1975 and Miss Greater Philadelphia in 1980.
“I never once felt objectified, exploited,” she said in a 2018 radio interview about the contests. “If anything, I felt celebrated for my talents and hard work.”
She held seminars on career networking, spoke to groups often about radio and voice-over work, and read stories to children in bookstores. She wrote op-eds for The Inquirer and articles for the Main Line Welcomat and other publications.
She posted videos on YouTube. She cohosted the 2001 Miss Greater Philadelphia Pageant. Former Daily News columnist Stu Bykofsky called her “both an eyeful and earful.”
She also acted in local stage productions and performed stand-up comedy routines in brew pubs, restaurants, and at gatherings. She was featured several times in The Inquirer and Daily News, and moved to Sarasota in 2016.
“My work motto is that I will accept any job position that does not require wearing a hair net,” she said in a 2016 online interview. Her family said in a tribute: “Her life and influence were an inspiration and a sparkle of joy to so many people.”
» READ MORE: Ruth Weisberg's untold story
Ruth Maxine Weisberg was born May 31, 1956, in Philadelphia. She was a cheerleader, active in theater class, and got straight A’s at Northeast High School.
She and her mother, Libby, volunteered to entertain people in hospitals and nursing homes when she was young, and she knocked on neighborhood doors for Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern when she was 16.
Her family spent memorable summers in Atlantic City, and she earned a bachelor’s degree in special education at Penn State.
She married Peter Kerch in 1988, and they had a daughter, Talia. After a divorce, she married James Herbert, and they had a son, Elliott. They divorced later.
Ms. Weisberg liked crossword puzzles, collected classic telephones, and attended concerts and beach drum circles. She was a certified scuba diver and wore a hat emblazoned with “The Queen of Everything.”
Friends and colleagues called her “witty and supportive,” and praised her “charm, humor, and kindness” in online tributes. One said she “always brought warmth and sunshine to wherever she was.”
Her daughter said: “She was effervescent, exuberant, and whimsical.”
In addition to her daughter and son, Ms. Weisberg is survived by two brothers, and other relatives.
A private celebration of her life is to be held later.
