Ron Weiner, TV director at WGN Chicago for 25 years and three-time Daytime Emmy-winning director of the talk show “Donahue,” died March 18 in Baltimore, Maryland.
Weiner directed shows along with “Donahue,” “An Night With BB King,” “Garfield Goose and Buddies” and produced “Bozo’s Circus.” He was nominated for four Emmys and won three for “Donahue.”
Weiner began his television career in 1956 when he got a job as a prop at WGN Tv, owned by the Chicago Tribune. He joined the technical staff and worked as staff director at WGN in 1960. Weiner then directed several programs on WGN’s schedule, from the application process to news, children’s packages, talk shows and broadcasts of Cubs games. and different occasions of sporting activities.
After the success of “Donahue,” Weiner worked on debate shows and pilot productions for Tribune Broadcasting. There, he directed “How to Be a Person Without Limits” with Wayne Dyer and “The World of Anne Frank”, an hour-long docudrama.
Ron was also a longtime professor at Columbia College, his alma mater, where he taught television classes. He was active in the arts, serving on the boards of the Shakespeare Challenge of Chicago, the North Shore Chamber Orchestra Society, the Chicago Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS), and the Chicago coordinating committee of the Administrators Guild. Of America. He was named a Chicago/Midwest Silver Circle Award honoree by NATAS in 2003.
Weiner’s wife, Phyllis Zolno Weiner, died in 2008. They shared four children, Deborah, Lauren, Vicki and Howard, an NBCU executive, and two grandchildren, Griffin and Jameer.
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