Ricki Wertz, 1935-2021
Popular Pittsburgh television personality best known as the host of WTAE-TV children’s program “Ricki and Copper” dies at 86.
Ricki Wertz, a popular Pittsburgh television personality in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s who was best known as the host of WTAE-TV’s children’s program “Ricki and Copper,” died Wednesday evening at her home in Chicago. She was 86.
The cause of her death was not immediately available, although Mary Beth Mueller, who worked with Ms. Wertz during her time at WQED-TV, recently told the Post-Gazette that her friend was “receiving hospice services in Chicago following several health issues.”
Ms. Wertz, a WilkesBarre, Pa., native, is probably most fondly remembered for hosting “Ricki and Copper” alongside her canine costar Copper from 1959 to 1969 and later hosting the WTAE competition show “Junior High Quiz” for 20 years.
“The WTAE Channel 4 family is deeply saddened to hear of the passing of our own Ricki Wertz,” the station said in an emailed statement. “Ricki was a genuine and gifted broadcasting legend. Pittsburghers loved the ‘ Ricki and Copper’ children’s show, one of the original shows that helped launch WTAE-TV. She made the lives of children brighter while serving a community she loved, and that is a life well-lived.”
John Poister, 72, of Sewickley, has been working in Pittsburgh TV and radio since 1970 and crossed paths with Ms. Wertz many times. He first met Ms. Wertz in 1966 as a photographer for Sewickley Academy’s student newspaper when the school had a team competing on “Junior High Quiz.” Once his own career picked up, Mr. Poister would invite her to join him on his radio shows to discuss the history of local broadcasting.
“She was really vibrant and vivacious, and really down to earth,” Mr. Poister said. “That’s what I think made kids love her and what made her such a perfect TV host, because nothing fazed her. Working with kids is one of the hardest things you can do in broadcasting because they’re so unpredictable. She did it for years and made it look easy.”
She left Wilkes-Barre at 17 for a scholarship opportunity at the Pittsburgh Playhouse and honed her performing talents in productions such as “Three to One” and “Cinderella.” Mr. Poister said that her roommate during her time at the Playhouse was Smithton native Shirley Jones, who would go on to win a best supporting actress Academy Award in 1961 for her work in the film “Elmer Gantry.” He said it was Ms. Wertz’s job to chaperone Ms. Jones to make sure “nothing unseemly” happened to her.
Her first broadcasting gig was through WENS- TV, Pittsburgh’s former Channel 16 that later transitioned to WQEX- TV and now WINP-TV. It was there that she met her husband, Tom Bordenkircher, whom she married in 1954 and collaborated with on “Ricki and Copper” and “Junior High Quiz.” Mr. Bordenkircher died in February 2020.
“We fell in love at Channel 16,” Ms. Wertz told the Post-Gazette in 2014. “Several of the WENS staff members got married, including Tom and I.”
Before her other WTAE shows, Ms. Wertz had a brief stint as the station’s “sleepy time weather girl” in 1959. Mr. Poister said she did that for about 13 weeks while wearing a full negligee, which “was on the line of propriety” for the times. In a 2018 Post-Gazette interview, Ms. Wertz said she was “ashamed” of those segments and explained that “I would wear Bermuda shorts and sneakers under the negligee to feel more ‘me.’ ”
On “Ricki and Copper,” Ms. Wertz would be on set with a group of children singing, telling jokes and playing with Copper. She recalled in that 2018 interview that “it was a really fun time” to be in a burgeoning industry like television that was “exciting and new and nobody had done it before.”
Copper, a whippet and golden retriever mix, was actually her and Mr. Bordenkircher’s dog. He came from an animal shelter in Florida as a wedding gift from Mr. Bordenkircher to Ms. Wertz.
“Back then, a groom bought his bride a wedding present and it was either luggage or pearls,” she recalled to the Post-Gazette in 2007. “I said I didn’t want luggage or pearls. I wasn’t that type. I wanted a dog. Growing up, I had a mother who worked, and I could never have my own dog.”
In 1982, Ms. Wertz left the world of children’s TV for the educational programming of WQED. One of the shows she produced there was “The Chemical People,” which was designed to spur conversation about drug and alcohol abuse.
WQED is where David Newell, who played Mr. McFeely on “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” got to know Ms. Wertz. The first time they had met was the opening of a Pittsburgh National Bank (now PNC) location in Blawnox in Mr. Newell’s pre-McFeely days. He was there as Bimbo the Clown and Ms. Wertz was on hand signing autographs.
Years later, Mr. Newell would always make Ms. Wertz smile by telling her that bank branch always reminded him of her.
“She was a pleasure to work with, just a lovely person,” Mr. Newell said. “What came through on television was truly her. She was just a sweet, genuine person, and really what you saw in those early days was really Ricki. She enjoyed being that communicator with young children. And she was a pioneer in Pittsburgh.”
Ms. Wertz remained a beloved local figure long after her broadcasting career ended. When Mr. Poister interviewed her for a 2014 piece he wrote for the PostGazette about her and Mr. Bordenkircher, they met on a Saturday afternoon at an Eat’n Park in North Huntingdon to chat. He wasn’t prepared for the rapturous reception she was about to receive.
“The place went nuts!” he said. “She hadn’t been on television in probably 35 years, and everybody in there knew her and were pointing and saying, ‘That’s Ricki Wertz!’ ” The experience was a “tribute to her personality and the career she had on television in Pittsburgh,” Mr. Poister said.
During her retirement years, Ms. Wertz took up painting as a hobby to help feed her creative side, as she discussed in that 2007 PostGazette interview.
“Hopefully, it’s bringing a little beauty into people’s lives,” she said. “If I had a wish it would be that the young people would look at what we do and think, ‘I can do that and I could do that better.’ It’s not a real pretty life in a lot of ways, so you do what you can to create your own beauty.”
And despite relocating to Chicago in 2015 to be closer to her children, Tom Bordenkircher and Kristin Reilly, Ms. Wertz never stopped feeling like a Pittsburgher.
“Our heart and soul is in Pittsburgh,” she said in 2018. “I’m never going to root for the Bears.”