Matt Locker was born in New York City to Daniel Locker, DDS (whose family once owned “Dr. Locker’s Bungalow Colony” in the Catskills), and his wife Gesine.  At the age of 4, Matt became an avid fan of the PBS series “The Electric Company” and was fascinated by the show’s visual effects.  His Dad meanwhile, was an avid fan of classical station WQXR. One night, Matt heard a composition on WQXR which was used in a bit on “The Electric Company”, and rushed to the TV, only to be disappointed to learn that radio and television were different mediums.  The seed of a broadcaster had been born.

The interest grew around the age of 5, when his mother pointed out a news crew filming a teacher’s strike, which was later aired on “Channel 2 News with Jim Jensen”.  At about the same time, Matt noted how different channels had different sets, anchors, and music.

In 1973, Dr. Locker moved his family to St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands to set up a new dental practice. Gesine set up shop selling The Erno Laszlo Skin Care line.  Matt attended first through third grades at the brand-new campus of K-12 Antilles School. Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth grades were downtown at All Saints School, and he returned to Antilles to finish high school.

In Seventh grade, WIUJ, a small 10-watt FM station went on the air and gave each of the island’s schools one afternoon to go and learn radio.  Matt was quickly pulled off the air after a couple of weeks, as Leo Moron, the station manager, said Matt did not have a voice for radio. Yet, he managed to get back on WIUJ in eighth grade. By his senior year, he worked with Valerie Selke to gather, write, and deliver campus news and events for the weekly “High School Report”, which aired on commercial station WSTT-FM (T-101).

Matt, and his younger brother Josh stayed on St. Thomas for the school year, but during summer break, the family would come to the summer house in NJ.  It was while watching, and by 1983, videotaping NYC news broadcasts, he really noticed the difference between NYC and the local “Channel 10 News” airing on the CBS affiliate WBNB-TV on St. Thomas. One difference were the were weather graphics.  On St. Thomas, the weather anchor used a write and wipe board to draw on the maps, versus the easy-to-read graphics seen in NY.   Matt went to the stationary store, bought supplies, and created a package of “real” weather graphics for the local station.

During WBNB-TV’s live coverage of the annual Carnival parade, Matt worked his way into the control room and was granted permission to stand in the back and “see how television was done”.  This led to an eventual internship, and later to an afternoon and summer job.  At WBNB-TV, simply known as “Channel 10”, he learned camera, editing, audio, graphics, lighting, engineering, master control and eventually ended up directing/ technical directing “NewsCenter 10”.  He is forever grateful to his first television mentors, Page Stull, JoAnn Newhart Crebbin, Sam James, and the entire Channel 10 family. When Channel 10 became an affiliate of WPIX’s “Independent Network News”, Matt used it an “in” to visit WPIX mulitple times, it was an unofficial internship. He brought what learned back to his production work at WBNB. Also during the summer of ‘83, Matt went to “Stagedoor Manor”, a performing arts summercamp in the Catskills.

When Hurricane Hugo destroyed Channel 10 in 1989, Matt took on a short stint with the media department at FEMA, sending information to local shelters and press conferences to the states.

After that he got two phone calls, one from “Country 104, WIYC”, a 50,000 watt station; and Cable TV’s “Community 2”.  “Country 104” was bankrupt and fell into receivership of WJRZ in New Jersey; and the equipment was seized by the local Marshall’s office. Matt was asked if he could wire the station back together, and then stayed on as their morning man. The station then flipped format to “Paradise 104”, an adult contemporary station.

Yet, “Community 2” still wanted him for production work. He took both jobs until WIYC ultimately went off the air and was LMA’d to WJKC, “Isle 95” on St. Croix.  He took the job at Channel 2. He also did some work for the local PBS station, WTJX, co-hosting a telethon, voiceovers, and shoulder camera for that year’s Carnival parade

Around this time, the film industry was booming on St. Thomas with many location commercials, and to major motion pictures.  Matt took his first film job as a production assistant on the troubled set of “Christopher Columbus: The Discovery”.  It was a grueling task.  Not discouraged, he then took several jobs on the set of “Weekend at Bernies 2”, as a set dresser, behind-the-scenes videographer, and was ultimately given the speaking role of “Johnny”, the hotel porter. This got him his SAG card.  After “Bernies”, Matt was granted the role as “the guy on the beach” in the very first three Corona Light beer commercials, and managed to get into a spot for AT&T.

When “Weekend at Bernies 2” was released, Matt had two immediate thoughts. First, it was a lot of fun, and secondly, boy did he need training.  He moved back to the New York metro and checked out several acting schools, before finally settling at ATC Studios, where he was coached by Joel Robertson (Cats, Les Misérables) and Kathleen Kellaigh (The Guiding Light) as well as Bob Sapoff for improv.

This led to his off-Broadway debut in “The Fourth Chair”, and several other NYC productions including “Bent”, “Brilliant Traces”, “Not Enough Rope”, and “Perspective”. During visits back to St. Thomas he appeared in “The Fantasticks”, “Full Moon Café” and “The Last Talk Show on Television”.

But stepping back to 1985, Matt attended Genesee Community College (SUNY) in Batavia NY, where he helped launch the Top 40/ Rock hybrid station WGCC-FM. At 90.7 with 889 watts, the station reached the outskirts of Buffalo and Rochester. In addition to college radio, he had weekend shifts on commercial stations WBTA/WBTF. After getting his AA from SUNY, he moved to the Finger lakes region producing local television commercials with TeleMedia productions for CableVision’s “Cable 12” in Canandaigua, while working weekend overnights at 101.7 (then WECQ, CQ 102), a hot AC format.

As both jobs were very low paying, he decided to go back to school, moved back to NJ and attended William Paterson University.  His timing was right on the mark, as they were about to launch a hot AC/ CHR station at 88.7, WPSC-FM. Matt was named program director.  He also helped launch Two live college television programs, “Hour Style”, which he directed and TD’d, and “NewsLine”, where he was the weather anchor and occasionally filled in on the anchor desk. He also designed and helped build one of the news sets.

After earning a BA in Communication, Matt became the on-camera spokesman for names like Ricoh, Celexa, Monopril, Lockhead/NASA, Heidleberg-Hell, Huffman Koos, Makita Power Tools, Panasonic, and Nabisco. He appeared in commercials for “1-800-YES-LOAN”, Thumann’s Deli, and countless auto dealership ads.

Additionally, we worked with “Group M”, the in-house advertising agency for MSI Building Supplies. It was when “Home Depot” was coming into the market, we were counterprogramming them.  We made it clear that if you wanted to build hurricane tough, you build with MSI.

In 1990-1991, Matt was an on air personaity for WTBQ (MOR, Warwick NY), WNNJ (CHR, Newton NJ), and WKOJ (Adult AOR) in Middletown NJ.

He also worked as a model from the mid 90’s through the early 2000’s.

In 1994, a small AM station in Pompton Lakes NJ was being sold and went from “WKER” to “WGHT”, an oldies format. Matt began in production, on-air fill-in, and ultimately Program Director. He created “The North Jersey NewsCenter” focused on local Northern New Jersey news and hired Noam Laden (WABC NY) as news director.  He also hired Kevin Burkhardt (Superbowl) as sports director.  The station’s ratings went up, and Accu-track ratings showed a 40% gain in listenership among women 35+.

As a side hustle, Matt was producing original jingles and news themes with musician Frosty Lawson.

At the same time, Matt was on call to be the fill in weather anchor for Time Warner’s “Channel 10 News” in Bergen County.

In 2000, he went back into television, creating “The Staten Island NewsCenter” for Staten Island Cable (later Time Warner). Tina Cervasio (Fox Sports) served as his co-anchor.  After Time Warner consolidated all their news operations, Matt went on to be a reporter/ anchor for the English speaking, Turkish owned “Ebru America”.  In addition to hard news, he was responsible for the weather segments. He was also the fill-in anchor for their evening edition, and eventually writer and anchor for their weekend “The Weekly Report”.  Due to political turmoil in Turkey, Ebru was eventually shut down, but not before he did work for their film dubbing division, where Voiced the English dub for the lead, Till Schweiger, in the feature film, “Nick: Off Duty”.  Another film Matt had the lead was of The Vapire is the 2006 cult film “Requiem For a Vampire”

For a brief period of time he returned to WGHT, after operations manager Tom Niven had died. But it soon became apparent the station had become a shell of its former self and he left two weeks before it went dark, and Matt moved back into television.

In 2017, he returned to the control room in Washington D.C. as the director for 4 episodes of a new series, “Trending China”, which aired on “Bravo”.

Today, he continues to freelance in TV and film as crew and does Voice Acting from his studio.

His favorite role was as “The Preacher” on “Powder Burns: An Audio Western Drama”, created by David A. Gregory and starring John Wesley Schipp. Many “One Life To Live” cast were in the show, and it was also the last performance by Ed Asner and Dr. Robert Vaughn. Matt earned a Voice Art and Audio Verse nominee slot as part of the production.

Matt continues to record voice work, teach “Intro To Voice Acting” at ATC Studios, provide private coaching and produce VO demos

You can hear and see Matt’s demos by clicking the “home” button on this website.

OTHER FUN FACTS:

Matt’s first job, before WBNB-TV was selling and servicing fire extinguishers at O’Brien Fire Control on St. Thomas.

In the early 2000’s, he founded “Winbeam Light Labs”, where he improved upon “full spectrum” fluorescent lamps by developing the “loaded spectrum” lamp. It boasted a peak of scotopic energy which improved visual acuity, and although the lamp had the bluish look of an actual skylight, it was rich in reds, a feature absent in other lamps. This made for healthier looking skin tones, and vastly improved color matching. The lamp was named “The Skylighter”, and was a favorite of retailers and especilly dentists. As traditional big box store lamps improved, and gave way to the modern LED, “Winbeam Light Labs” could no longer compete and folded.

While an anchor on “The Staten Island Newscenter”, a viewer said he liked Matt’s delivery, saying he was almost a cross between Roger Grimsby and Chuck Scarborough. One day, Matt was seated for lunch a few tables from Mr. Scarborough, and introduced himself to the legendary anchor who said to Matt, “Yes. I know who you are”.

In “Weekend At Bernies II”, Matt was originally thrown in as an extra. He had to no idea that extras were silent, so he adlibbed his scene with Andrew McCarthy and Jonathan Silverman, and was it kept in the film. This upgrade also carried over to craft services, as extras were given water and granola bars; Matt got to eat the good stuff reerved for actors

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0516822/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1

https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-locker-8652682b/

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Learn more about WBNB-TV (1961-1989). CBS affiliate, St.Thomas, VI https://www.facebook.com/groups/30228158588

Matt is currently working as a screener and casting director for ATC’s “Fridays At The Studio” series.