'Good Morning, America,' from … Tony Perkins: weatherman for ABC-TV's morning show has captured the nation's heart

Ebony, August, 2005 by Kevin Chappell

IT'S 4 a.m. in New York City. To some in the town that never sleeps, the night's still young. But for Tony Perkins, the night's over and it's the inhumane early morning hour that he has come to know all too well. His alarm clock goes off. He hits the snooze bar once, then twice, and then he drags himself out of bed, all the while thinking one thing--the same thing--he always thinks at 4 a.m.

"When my alarm clock goes off, my first thought always is: 'I can't keep doing this to myself,'" says the 45-year-old Good Morning America weatherman with his trademark laugh.

For six years, Perkins has been into it. With his unique mix of humor and heart, stamina and soul, he has risen from a local stand-up comedian to America's top weatherman. In the process, he has helped to lift ABC's morning show's ratings to the point where--for the first time ever--it could soon overtake the No. 1 ratings spot from perennial top dog The Today Show.

To ladies, he's easy on the eyes. To men, he's funny as all get out. To America, the Washington, D.C., native is just the right guy to wake up to every morning. Grandmas want to hug him. Little Black boys want to be like him. And his TV colleagues have the utmost respect for him.

And who can blame them? Whether it's giving a firsthand account of the devastation caused by a monster tornado, being game for playing a guitar in a rock 'n' roll band, or hamming it up with the live audience in the heart of the Big Apple, Perkins has proven that he has what it takes to capture national attention.

On a recent show, Perkins' disarming character and boyish charm comes through as he seems completely relaxed making small talk with the people gathered along the sidewalk with signs and posters hoping to get a few seconds of airtime. "I get to do some really cool things and I get to meet some really great people," says Perkins, who is teamed with Charlie Gibson, Diane Sawyer and Robin Roberts. "Everybody has some interesting story to tell, and they want to tell it to you."

Perkins' rise to one of broadcast journalism's most coveted jobs was anything but conventional. After graduating with a communications degree from American University in Washington, D.C. (the first in his family to get a college degree), Perkins became a desk assistant at ABC's Washington affiliate. Not making much money, he decided to make a career move that would forever change his life. He turned his sights to stand-up comedy, acting on the advice of college friends who always told him that he was funny.

In 1984, he quit his job at ABC to pursue comedy full time. He spent more than nine years as a stand-up comedian in Washington, D.C., opening for several R&B acts and building a name for himself as a clean, topical jokester. He was so funny that a local television station hired him to host a two-hour block on Saturday afternoon in which he used humor to introduce syndicated situation comedies.

Perkins won an Emmy for his performance in 1988, and garnered the attention of legendary Washington, D.C., radio personality Donnie Simpson, who offered him a job writing and producing on his morning radio show. No sooner had Perkins been given his own radio show, and was preparing for a long career in radio, that, to his total surprise, he was offered a job as weatherman for the local Fox television station. "Never in my life had I any thought of being a weatherperson," he says. "I never had a desire to be a weatherperson. I'm not a meteorologist. I don't have a degree in meteorology."

After attending a weather school for a few weeks and taking several seminars offered by the National Weather Service, Perkins says that he soon found out that the weather wasn't too difficult to understand. In fact, he became so good at television weathercasting, that in 1999 executives at Good Morning America offered him the weatherman spot on its revamped morning show.

Since then, Perkins has gone from a local talent to a household name. Two years ago, the country got a chance to get to know Perkins and his wife of 10 years, Rhonda, when she was pregnant with their first child. She appeared several times on the show before and after giving birth to son, Connor. Now, so many people ask him about his son that he carries a 5x7 photo of him in his pocket, and offers words of advice for anyone wanting to know about fatherhood. "It is amazing," Perkins says. "I came to this very late. I remember in my 20s thinking that I didn't want to have children because of my lifestyle. I was too selfish. But he [Connor] is the joy of our lives."

Having been offered the job at Good Morning America while in the midst of building a 6,000-square-foot home in suburban Washington, D.C., Perkins and his wife decided to keep the residence. "I'm tired of doing the commute. So I'm hoping we can change our present living situation soon," he says. "I just want to go home and be with my family every night."

Family has always been important to Perkins. In fact, he credits his mother, Connie Bellamy, a former telephone operator and post office worker, and his father, Staunton Perkins, who worked everywhere from a shoe store to a radio station, for developing his sense of humor and keeping his low-middle=class home atmosphere lighthearted and open for him and his younger brother Scott (who now lives in Atlanta, and works for CNN). He also has three sisters, Vickie, Porcelain and Michelle. "My father, in particular, was a very funny person. My mom is funny also," says Perkins, whose mother lives in Virginia, and whose father is now deceased. "Growing up, we always laughed a lot. It kind of came naturally."