John Bolaris

John Bolaris is an American meteorologist who was Chief Meteorologist for NBC, CBS, and FOX for 18 consecutive years. Bolaris has won four Mid-Atlantic Emmy Awards-three for Best Weathercaster and one for Best Entertainment Host for 'Time Out', a television show he co-hosted for five years on WCAU in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. When John was a child, he used to drag his little sister, Paula, to the roof of their childhood home on Long Island to watch the sky. "We always knew what to get him for his birthday," Paula says. "A barometer, a weather alert radio. He'd draw weather maps-not for school, just on his own. When everyone was running home from a storm, he was on his bike heading toward it." A 1975 graduate of Connetquot High School, along with a community college and meteorological school, Bolaris spent three years with the Air National Guard, briefing pilots on weather conditions. Bolaris started his TV career in 1982 at Metro Weather Service where he worked as a syndicated meteorologist until 1987, when he joined News 12 Long Island. At age 29, and with just a single week of television experience under his belt, Bolaris was named the weekend weather anchor for WCBS in New York and stayed there until 1990. A few months later, he talked himself onto a C-130 bound for Hurricane Hugo. His live dispatches from the storm's eye landed him on the national news with Dan Rather. John married his only wife, New York model Pamela Duswalt in 1988, five days after his mother died of a heart attack. (Pamela was the former girlfriend of Buffalo Bills quarterback Jim Kelly.) Bolaris told Philly Mag in 1996 that Pamela insisted the wedding go forward despite his grief. After leaving WCBS the first time, Bolaris relocated to Philadelphia, where he went to work for then-CBS affiliate WCAU-TV. On the day of his WCAU-TV television debut, his wife announced that she was leaving him and staying in New York. In Philadelphia, Bolaris's life became a real-life soap opera on and off the set. Chastised for wearing a turtleneck on-air, he did it again. An unapproved haircut (he briefly tried the unfortunate man-bangs look) caused a furor. And Bolaris kept on dating: aspiring actresses, beauty queens, co-workers, interns, Center City scenesters, Jersey Shore hookups, and a few notable names. The list of conquests included Merion's Julie Cohen (he bought her a ring; the station wanted to film his proposal, but she turned him down); singer Lauren Hart (they were engaged for a time); Flyers goalie Bernie Parent's daughter Kim Parent; fashion designer Nicole Miller; Miami weather babe Maria Genero and co-worker Jane Robelot. He remained at WCAU-TV for 13 years. In February 2001, Bolaris infamously hyped a coming blizzard as "the Storm of the Century," predicting a weather Armageddon on the last night of sweeps week, which his station then won for the first time. The ensuing panic led to school and business closures, not to mention runs on milk and eggs. When the city got less than an inch of snow, he was sent anonymous death threats, pages torn from the Bible and a beer bottle stuffed with dead crabs. At the time of the blown forecast, Bolaris did accept full responsibility and apologized in a cover story in the Philadelphia Daily News. Bolaris would be later phased out from WCAU and would rejoin New York's WCBS Channel 2 for a second stint between 2002-2008. Former WCAU co-worker and current Philly media maven Tiffany McElroy became the mother of Bolaris's only child, Reina Sofia, in 2004. On November 1, 2007, it was announced that he would move back to Philadelphia to become the chief weatherman for WTXF-TV, for their 5 p.m and 10 p.m. newscasts. He would be replaced at Channel 2 with Lonnie Quinn. In March 2010, Bolaris was the victim of a "Bar Girls" scam run by an international crime ring. That month Bolaris flew to South Beach, Florida for the weekend. Two shapely brunettes picked him up at a bar, coaxed him to do shots, and slipped him a roofie. He woke up the next day in his hotel room with a painting of a woman and missing his Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses. The ladies had left him a voicemail saying they had the glasses; when he went out to meet them, they drugged him again. He wound up with $43,000 in charges on his American Express card. When AmEx wouldn't void the charges, Bolaris went to the police. In April 2011, with the help of Bolaris' testimony, the FBI busted what turned out to be a multinational crime ring and arrested 17 people. Nobody knew about any of this until May of 2011, when then-Daily News editor Larry Platt convinced Bolaris to tell readers his story. Bolaris thought the idea was to make him look heroic; instead, the DN went with a photoshopped picture of him in a Hawaiian shirt and a cover headline blaring, "Russians, Roofies and a 43-Grand Rip-Off: Like the Movie, John Bolaris Is Nursing a Real-Life ... HANGOVER!" Bolaris's Miami Beach experience was the subject of an article in the January/February 2012 issue of Playboy magazine and he was quoted throughout the story. This incident also led to an episode on the cable show "American Greed". After he gave interviews about his experience to 20/20 and Playboy, his employer, Philadelphia Fox 29 affiliated WTXF where he had worked for four years, fired him. Bolaris then worked for two years as a weather contributor for Philly.com. In 2011, he was in a relationship with former Playboy Playmate Erica Smitheman and they got engaged on the Howard Stern show in 2012, when he was 55 and she was 33. A few months later, she commandeered his phone while he was asleep and tweeted sexy photos of herself to all his Twitter followers. In 2014, he founded his own weather wire service, weathersavior.com, which lasted about a year before he pulled the plug. In 2015, Bolaris began hosting a weekly local radio show, CenterStage with John Bolaris. His first guests were then-mayor Michael Nutter and Natalie Didonato of Mob Wives. Also in 2015, Bolaris announced that for a mere $500 a month, he was offering a "concierge weather service" that would phone, mail and text clients weather forecasts seven days a week, at the times of their choosing. In 2016, Bolaris made it known that he was following his passion for real estate and was licensed in Pennsylvania and New York. He founded Black Label Luxury Real Estate. Then he announced that he was listing (for $58 million) the 14-acre Long Island estate on which F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby.