Frank Field, a meteorologist who brought groundbreaking credentials to his work as a television weather forecaster in New York, and had a long career presenting network programs on science and medicine, died Saturday in Florida. He is 100.
His death was announced by WNBC-TV in New York, where Dr. Field began his broadcasting career in 1958.
Dr. Field, a presence on New York and network television for more than 40 years, was not the city’s first famous TV forecaster. But he differs from his predecessors in a significant way.
Most notable of those predecessors (who also became his rivals) were the entertaining Tex Antoine and Carol Reed. Mr. drew Antoine was the mustachioed Uncle Wethbee in his weather maps for NBC and, later, ABC stations in New York, changing the character’s facial expression and weather-related attire depending on the forecast. Signed by Ms. Reed his nightly reports on WCBS-TV with a cheerful “Have a happy.” Both enjoyed long runs on television. But neither has expertise in the science of weather.
“Weather forecasting used to be in a class with reporting real estate transactions for the newspaper,” Dr. Field in The New Yorker for a 1966 profile. “The networks thought it had to be all pretty girls and other gimmicks.”
Bespectacled and “a bit professorial in manner,” as the magazine described him, Dr. Field more than made up for his lack of flash.
Although he didn’t have a college degree in meteorology — his doctorate was in optometry, a profession he pursued for some time before embarking on a career in television — Dr. Field became a weather forecaster in the military, earning him recognition as a meteorologist by the American Meteorological Society. He is a recipient of the society’s Seal of Approval, which honors on-air forecasters who provide “excellent delivery of weather information to the general public.”
He used his technical knowledge to interpret data from weather satellites launched in the emerging space age, and to explain the details of the illustrated weather systems he presented on television.
He also established himself as a science reporter who covered more than the weather.
Narrated by Dr. Field live telecasts of cardiac surgery and organ transplants. He is an advocate for fire safety programs, describing the best ways to escape a building fire in the book “Dr. Frank Field’s Get Out Alive” (1992) and in an educational DVD for children and their parents, “Fire Is …” (2006). He also hosted the programs “Medical Update” and “Health Field.”
Perhaps most famously, he heralded the Heimlich maneuver, the life-saving technique developed by Dr. Henry J. Heimlich in the 1970s using a bear hug and stomach thrust to remove food lodged in the throat. Brought by Dr. Dr. Field Heimlich in his studio for a demonstration.
Dr. received Field a citation at the New York Emmy Awards in 1975 for “reporting developments in the applied sciences.” He was a fellow at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, where he studied the relationship between weather and health.
Franklyn Field was born on March 30, 1923, in Brooklyn, a son of immigrants from the Ukraine. His father was a factory worker.
Frank was studying geology at Brooklyn College and playing center on the school’s football team — the quarterback was Allie Sherman, who later became the head coach of the New York Giants — when he enlisted in the Army Air Forces during World War II and commissioned as a lieutenant.
After the military trained him as a meteorology specialist, he flew to German-occupied France to study weather patterns that would affect American bombing. Later, he lectured on meteorology at a stateside air base.
He did not return to Brooklyn College after the war, instead continuing his work in meteorology. He joined the staff of the United States Weather Bureau in Manhattan and led companies that provided weather data to newspapers and private clients.
But when his wife, Joan, was expecting their first child, he sought a professional career that would provide more financial stability. He studied optometric engineering at Columbia University, earned a doctorate from the Massachusetts College of Optometry and worked briefly as an optometrist in the early 1950s.
“If someone shouts ‘Is there a doctor at home?’ and I responded, about all I could do for the patient was to prescribe, nervously, replacement glasses,” he told The New Yorker.
In addition to his nightly weather forecast, Dr. Field space missions on network telecasts, explaining the weather conditions the astronauts are likely to encounter when they pass through the ocean.
Dr. Field left NBC in 1984 and moved to CBS, where he worked for 11 years. He later had stints at two local New York television stations, WNYW and WWOR. He retired in 2004.
Dr. Field is the senior figure of a TV weathercasting family. His son, Storm (born Elliott David Field), began delivering weather reports at WABC in New York in 1976 and went on to have a long career there and at WCBS (where father and son worked together for a while) and WWOR. The son of Dr. Field Allison Field is also a weather forecaster, on WCBS, in addition to pursuing an acting career.
Surviving him are another daughter, Pamela Field; seven grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren. The wife of Dr. Field, Joan Kaplan Field, died last year. He lives in Boca Raton, Fla.
Despite (or perhaps because of) his serious demeanor, Dr. Field became a presence on late-night television.
After Johnny Carson laughed at him on “The Tonight Show,” Dr. Field (who Carson jokingly called NBC’s “crack meteorologist”) became a recurring guest on the show.
One night during a rainy season in New York, Carson and his “Tonight Show” colleagues doused him with buckets of water.
said Dr. Field he values his “Tonight Show” appearances as they gave him national recognition beyond viewers for his weather, medical and science reports.
“He really gave me a safety rope,” he told New York’s The Daily News in 2005. “It’s really a lock — you can’t get Frank Field out.”
The popularization of Dr. Field’s Heimlich maneuver once saved his life.
In December 1985, he was dining at a Manhattan restaurant with CBS sportscaster Warner Wolf when a piece of roast beef went down Dr. Field. “There was no pain,” he later told The New York Times. “I tried to swallow but I couldn’t. I tried to cough. I was completely calm, until I realized I couldn’t breathe.” She also was unable to communicate with Mr. Wolf to convey her anxiety.
“So I pointed to my throat and stood up, to give him access,” said Dr. Field. “He did it the first time, and it didn’t work. I thought: ‘My God! It doesn’t work. If I passed out, I wouldn’t be doing the 11 o’clock news.’”
When Mr. tried again Wolf, he sent the meat away.
“Warner has never done this,” said Dr. Field, “but he saw me show it on television.”
