HE’S MORE THAN JUST SIGOURNEY’S DAD

In her review of “Ashes to Ashes” (Book Review, June 23), Sheryl Stolberg misses a very important point when she refers to “Sylvester Weaver, the father of actress Sigourney, who turns up as a junior tobacco executive in the 1930s” as a People magazine-like coincidence: Look, the actress’ dad did something too.

Sylvester Weaver, better known as Pat Weaver, was one of the most influential and creative television executives in the short history of that medium. He was president of NBC during the 1950s. He also created the “Today” and “Tonight” shows, and has been honored in the Television Academy Hall of Fame. If Weaver was originally a tobacco executive, this puts an interesting spin on his leadership of NBC: Obviously, everybody was smoking then, and there was no onus on the habit, but it could be that Weaver’s relationship with the tobacco industry led to substantial advertising investment in that newfangled picture-box thing.

To refer to Pat Weaver merely as Sigourney Weaver’s father is to miss a very important path.

CARLO PANNO

RESEDA