TV’s clown prince of sun and showers had ‘generous spirit’
Willard Scott, the antic longtime weather forecaster on the “Today” show, whose work, by his own cheerful acknowledgment, made clear that you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows, died Saturday at his farm in Delaplane, Virginia. He was 87.
His death was confirmed by his wife, Paris Keena Scott. She did not specify a cause, saying only that he had died after a brief illness.
Scott, who had earlier played both Bozo the Clown and the original Ronald McDonald on television, was among the first of a generation of television weather forecasters who stressed showmanship over science.
Throughout the late 20th century, he was also a ubiquitous television pitchman.
A garrulous, gaptoothed, boutonnière-wearing, funny-hatted, sometimes toupee-clad, larger-than-life American Everyman (in his prime, he stood 6-foot-3 and weighed nearly 300 pounds), Scott was hired in 1980 to help NBC’s “Today” compete with its chief rival, ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
Joining “Today” that March, Scott went on to sport a string of outré outfits, spout a cornucopia of cornpone humor and wish happy birthday to a spate of American centenarians, all while talking about the forecast every so often, until his retirement in 2015.
“He was truly my second dad and am where I am today because of his generous spirit,” Scott’s successor on the morning news show, Al Roker, wrote on Instagram.
Scott handed the reins to Roker in 1996, occasionally filling in for him for the next decade before fully retiring in 2015.