AND NOW HERE'S MARGI MACCARTY WITH THE WEATHER
Most people think that Marg’s first television job was playing Siobhan Ryan Novak on the popular soap opera Ryan’s Hope. That is not the case, however. Marg’s first TV gig actually came along much earlier than that. Back when she was a teenager attending Kearney State College, she landed a job as a weekend weather girl at the local NTV television station.
Here's a clip of Marg in action...
So how does a 19-year old manage to land a job on television? According to Marg, a young man in her Interpretation of Drama class who also worked at the station told her about the job and encouraged her to audition. Marg decided to go for it. She gave what she deemed to be a sub-par audition: “I sucked big time!” but says that she got the job because she gave a flirty wink to the camera at the end of the audition and the studio execs loved it.
Marg says that she had no formal training for the job but worked very hard to do the best she could, making her own maps and putting together the local forecast each weekend. For her work, she earned $15.00 per broadcast.
What’s perhaps most interesting about Marg’s first TV job is that it was the only time in her career was she was asked to change her name. The news anchor team that she was joining consisted of Harvey Knocklinger and Joyce Eisenminger. Because it would have been quite a mouthful, the producers did not want the broadcast to be called the Knocklinger, Eisenminger, Helgenberger Report so Marg, the newbie, was asked to change her name. She complied and took the name of Margi McCarty, McCarty being her grandmother’s maiden name.
Sources for Information and Video Clips: ‘Ellen’, February 19, 2004 ‘The Late Show with David Letterman’, January 13, 2005