Speaking Fearlessly
In
partnership with Ted Ruddock, Fisher has changed the lives of communicators in
business and the private sector through the strategic efforts of Speaking
Fearlessly. It is a seminar that
shows attendees that the ability to communicate effectively – for sales, for
occupational philosophy, for professional and family relationships – is a part
of each of us. Ira and Ted have
approaches that bring that ability to the surface. For dramatic results.
Ira’s broadcast career began before a
microphone at WGGO Radio in the upstate New York village of Salamanca. He was
sixteen years old and spinning records on the radio. He went on the radio road
and stopped at WDOE in Dunkirk, New York and KWFR in San Angelo, Texas. In 1970
he wound up in the Pacific Northwest — at KHQ in Spokane, Washington. Doing his
daily “Ira Joe Radio Show” (“…smiling at you through the hole in the record!”)
he attracted the notice of the KHQ Television bosses and they asked him to
cross the hall and step into the TV studio. Ira found a friend in the camera
and embraced television.
“Television is just radio with your hair
combed,” he says.
So, for ten years Ira Joe Fisher
broadcast his daily five-hour radio show and performed in a variety of roles —
host/interviewer of “The Noon Thing” magazine telecast, master-of-ceremonies
for “Starlit Stairway”, a weekly talent show that featured acts from around the
American Northwest; essayist and weather reporter — in television. Doing the
weather assignment, Ira (who is not a meteorologist…) developed a presentation
that incorporated his artistic talents and ability to write backward! Word of
his work reached other regions in the nation and in 1980, Ira accepted a
position with WKRC Television in Cincinnati. He wrote backward, reported the
weather, and presented video essays on a number of topics …and for which he won
two regional television Emmy awards.
Such work landed him as co-host on “P.M.
Magazine”. And he continued to appear regularly on WKRC Radio as a commentator.
In the summer of 1983, Ira moved to New
York City as a weather and features reporter for WABC Television. His day was
divided between the Morning Show with Regis Philbin and Kathy Lee Gifford and
Channel-7 Eyewitness News.
Two years later, Cincinnati drew him back
to launch “The Ira Joe Fisher Show”, a daily talk and variety telecast that ran
for two and a half years. Then it was back to New York and WNBC Television in
1989 for weather and feature reporting. In 1995, Ira crossed town to WCBS
Television, reporting the weather and conducting feature interviews. He also
appeared weekly on the CBS Television Network’s “Saturday Early Show” from 1999
to 2007 (and revived his “backward” weather presentation).
Ira is an accomplished thespian. A member
of Actors’ Equity, Ira regularly performed in the long-running musical The
Fantasticks beginning in 1995. The role was an acting, singing, dancing delight
for him. In the summer of 2003, he performed the role of “Henry VIII” in the
musical The Prince and the Pauper at New York City’s Lambs Theatre. He
performed the role of “Monsignor Buckley” in James McLindon’s drama The Garden
of Dromore, part of the New York University Play-Reading Festival in the Tisch
School of the Arts, Department of Drama. Ira has also appeared in the film “California
Girls” with Robbie Benson and in the ABC daytime drama “Loving”.
For the past three years, Ira has served
as co-host (with Morton Dean) of the Ridgefield Playhouse Film Society’s
near-monthly presentations of films — The Lost-and-Found Series, Family and
Director’s Cut.
