Her Weather Girl Days Were Not in Vane

Daisy Fuentes co-hosts, along with John Fugelsang, “America’s Funniest Home Videos” (ABC). Fuentes, 32, was born in Cuba. Her family moved to Spain when she was 3 and to New Jersey when she was 7.

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Question: Did you know when you were a kid that you wanted to be in show biz?

Answer: I had no idea. We really had no artistic anything in school, other than a music class here and there. I always envied the kid who wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer. I always thought, “Why don’t I know what I want to be? Why don’t I have this drive?” and I think it’s because I didn’t know all the possibilities, that I could be on TV.

Q: Doesn’t it amaze you when you look back?

A: It freaks me out because I don’t know what I would be doing if it wasn’t for this. I’m really not good at anything else. It’s true.

Q: Did you work while you were in high school?

A: I worked at a gynecologist’s office. I did everything from running the reception desk and keeping files to cleaning up after him. After that, I worked at a retail store as a cashier.

Q: What about when you went to college?

A: Well, by the time I was in college, I was already modeling, so I was running around in the city getting turned down for a lot of jobs, really hating that whole modeling thing. It was during a fashion show that I met this lady at a cocktail party. She said, “You really speak Spanish very well for a young girl who speaks perfect English. Have you ever thought of doing Spanish television?” She said, “My husband happens to be the president of Univision.” She took me in to audition for the news, and that’s how I started.

Q: You had no TV experience before that?

A: I knew nothing of television. I’d never been in front of a camera before. So they gave me the weather job.

Q: Even though you didn’t know anything about the weather?

A: Yeah, and I had no idea what a satellite map looked like, what the [weather] fronts were, nor did I care. I was just so excited to be in front of the camera. I had no clothes for it. I would wear my sweat pants or jeans and sneakers and my mom’s office jacket--the blazer with the shirt underneath--and take her pens and look really professional from the waist up and hope that the cameraman wouldn’t slip.

Q: Do you have copies of those shows?

A: I do have tape. I had huge hair--the huge Jersey ‘80s hair bit--and acrylic nails. I looked awful. The makeup was bad. The hair was bad. But I was having a ball. I had no idea about the weather, but I knew that I liked television. So I would make up the weather forecast just about every day.

Q: You didn’t.

A: I did. Especially the Caribbean because I figured if you were watching, what were the chances you’d know what was really happening in the Caribbean? I would listen to a news station in New York on the way in that gives the weather like every 15 minutes. I would rewrite it when I’d get into work in like 20 minutes, my whole little segment, and just repeat everything that I heard on the radio.

Q: How did you become a veejay on MTV?

A: I made this super cheesy tape of me doing the weather looking like crap. I sent them a letter saying, “I promise I really do speak English, and I love the channel. I’m much cooler than this appears . . . “ Finally . . . I heard from this woman who was holding auditions for MTV Latino. She had already auditioned like a hundred people and was at the end of her rope. I went over to audition.

Q: The business you’re in is such a gamble.

A: It’s a gamble, but . . . it’s just another experience, and you do your best, and it’s only television.

Q: You should run your weather videos on “America’s Funniest.”

A: You know what? David Letterman has put it on. It’s been on Jay Leno. Everybody has been popping up [with] that horrible footage. But the good thing is that when Letterman popped it up, I went right back at him--”Do you know what? You were a weatherman. Can we see any footage of you?” I had no idea that they had it ready. They popped up [a tape of] him doing the weather, and he had a huge Afro, too, and looked just as hideous as I did. It was hysterical.

Q: Let’s hear your weather report for the Caribbean.

A: Oh, in the Caribbean it was always in the 70s and partly sunny with a chance of thunderstorms. And when it wasn’t partly sunny, it would be partly cloudy.

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