Tracey Miller, 51; Radio Co-Host Teamed With Women on Two Shows

Tracey Miller, one of the first women in radio in the Los Angeles market to be co-host of a morning drive-time show as part of an all-female team, has died. She was 51.

Miller, who was diagnosed with brain cancer three years ago, died Friday at Glendale Adventist Medical Center, according to her sister, Pam Wood.

Two shows featuring Miller were pioneering because they were the only morning-drive radio shows at the time that featured women as co-hosts -- instead of acting as sidekicks to a male star -- in a major market.

Even Miller was skeptical that such a show could succeed when she was asked in 1990 by KFI-AM (640) to work with Terri-Rae Elmer on “TNT in the Morning.”

She thought “women would find me threatening and men would find me obnoxious,” Miller told The Times in 1991.

One reason KFI “took the risk” of putting a female team on in the morning was because it “was something different,” the station’s management said at the time.

The show, which lasted three years and eventually came in at the top of the ratings, led to Miller becoming co-host of “Two Chicks on the Radio” with Robin Abcarian in 1997 on KTZN-AM (710).

“She could be so self-disclosing on the radio, which helped me, an uptight newspaper person, loosen up,” said Abcarian, a writer who returned to The Times after the show ended. “She was one of the funniest people I’ve ever known in my life.”

One caller to the show had marriage on his mind. Bill Edelstein, who became Miller’s third husband, read a poem and proposed to her on the air. Abcarian reached across the console and handed her a diamond ring.

The show was canceled after six months, when the station’s talk format was replaced by Radio Disney, a children’s programming service

Born in Santa Maria, Miller was the youngest of three children and grew up in Granada Hills. Her father, an English professor, and mother, a secretary, divorced when she was young.

Intent upon being a camerawoman, she enrolled in 1975 in the Don Martin School of Broadcasting in Hollywood. Miller later recalled that teachers told her that her “unusually low, sexy voice” should be on the air.

“She had this incredibly world-weary kind of cynical but funny voice. It was somewhat at odds with how attractive and youthful she was,” Abcarian said.

After working as a news reporter at radio stations in Albuquerque and Seattle, Miller returned to Los Angeles in 1982 and spent 11 years at KFI, including covering consumer news and reviewing movies.

In 1994, she moved to KABC-AM (790), where she worked with Peter Tilden in the afternoons, and to what was then KMPC-AM (710), where they were co-hosts of a morning program in 1995.

“She was so funny and such an imp,” said Tilden, now at KZLA-FM (93.9).

“She loved stirring it up and had a very strong voice,” he said.

In 2002, Miller briefly became editor of the Crescenta Valley Sun. The Montrose resident began writing a weekly column, “Miller Time,” this year in the Glendale News-Press.

Miller married and divorced three times. In addition to her sister, she is survived by two daughters, Taylor Brittenham and Kelsey Showalter; and her mother, Rose, of Montrose.

A memorial service is being planned.

Donations may be made to the Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute, c/o Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, 8631 W. Third St., Los Angeles, CA 90048.