Director of ‘Donahue’ was 93

Ron Weiner, television director at WGN Chicago for 25 years and a three-time Daytime Emmy-winning director for the talk show “Donahue,” died on March 18 in Baltimore, Maryland. He was 93.

Weiner directed shows like “Donahue,” “An Evening With BB King,” “Garfield Goose and Friends” and produced “Bozo’s Circus.” He was nominated for four Emmys and won three for “Donahue.”

Weiner’s began his career in television in 1956 when he got a job as a prop man at WGN Television, owned by the Chicago Tribune. He joined the coaching staff and worked his way up to WGN staff director in 1960. Weiner went on to direct several programs on WGN’s schedule, from the sign-on routine to news, children’s programs, interview shows and broadcasts of Cubs games and other sporting events. .

After the success of “Donahue,” Weiner worked on talk shows and pilot productions for Tribune Broadcasting. There he directed ‘How to Be a No-Limit Person’ with Wayne Dyer and ‘The World of Anne Frank’, an hour-long docudrama.

Ron was also a professor for decades at Columbia College, his alma mater, where he taught classes in television directing. He was active in the arts community, serving on the boards of the Shakespeare Project 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 Directors Guild. of America. In 2003, he was named a Chicago/Midwest Silver Circle Award recipient by NATAS.

Weiner’s wife, Phyllis Zolno Weiner, died in 2008. They shared four children, Deborah, Lauren, Vicki and Howard, an executive at NBCU, and two grandchildren, Griffin and Jameer.