Ruth Weisberg

Ruth Maxine Weisberg was a Philadelphia radio and television broadcaster, voice-over actor and former beauty pageant titleholder whose recognizable voice reached local airwaves and millions of American phone lines for nearly five decades. She was at various points a news anchor, talk-show host, corporate narrator, writer, pianist, art model and, later, stand-up comedian, a mix that made her one of the Delaware Valley's most versatile media personalities.

Born on 31 May 1956 in Philadelphia and raised in Oxford Circle, she graduated from Northeast High School and studied special education at Pennsylvania State University. As a Penn State freshman in 1975 she was named Miss Central Pennsylvania, and in 1980 she won Miss Greater Philadelphia, an experience she later said made her feel celebrated rather than exploited. She began producing campus radio and television while a student and co-hosted a rock radio show as a senior exchange student in England, which she credited with sparking a lasting love of broadcasting.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s she was the radio voice of Shadow Traffic. Through the mid-1980s she worked as a news anchor and features reporter at Philadelphia stations including WXTU, WCAU, WIFI, WPEN and WSNI, winning Associated Press and Philadelphia Press Association radio awards and, in 1994, member of the year honors from the Philadelphia chapter of the International Television Association. In 1988 and 1989 she co-hosted Frank Talk With Frank Rizzo on WCAU, later comparing the assignment to flying a careening aircraft. Bell Telephone hired her in 1985 to record automated phone messages; her congenial yet persuasive voice also became familiar for Bell Atlantic prompts that told callers a number could not be completed.

She taught voice-over classes, mentored colleagues, wrote for The Inquirer and other publications, modeled for artists for more than twenty years, and acted in local stage work. After moving to Sarasota, Florida, in 2016 she hosted Storytime and Show 'n Tell With Miss Ruth, launched Funny You Should Ask about Florida comedy in 2023, appeared on WKDW 97.5 FM, modeled at Ringling College of Art and Design and Art Center Sarasota, and joined Siesta Key and Nokomis beach drum circles.

She married Peter Kerch in 1988; they had a daughter, Talia. After a divorce she married James Herbert; they had a son, Elliott, and later divorced. Friends remembered charm, humor and kindness. Ruth Weisberg died of ovarian cancer on 2 September 2026 at an assisted living center in Sarasota. She was 70. The Philadelphia Inquirer published a full career obituary at the end of September 2026.