Emmy-Winning Director for ‘Donahue’ Was 93

Ron Weiner, a Daytime Emmy-winning director for Donahue who also worked at WGN Chicago for 25 years, has died. He was 93.

He died on March 18, his family announced. His cause of death was not immediately available.

Born in 1930 in Chicago, Weiner was the first in his family to attend college. He completed a two-year undergraduate program at the University of Illinois at Navy Pier before enrolling at Columbia College, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in speech.

After attending the Navy’s Officer Candidate School and spending three years at Naval Station Argentia as a communications officer, Weiner began his career in television in 1956 with Chicago Tribune-owned WGN-TV. Starting as a prop man, he eventually worked his way up to staff director by 1960, directing several different WGN programs.

Then in 1974, when Phil Donahue moved his talk show to WGN, Weiner was assigned to direct Donahue. His work scored him three Daytime Emmys for outstanding individual direction for a talk or service show/variety program (He was nominated for seven Emmys total).

Following Donahue, Weiner worked on other talk shows and pilots for Tribune Broadcasting, including How to Be a No-Limit Person with Wayne Dyer, The World of Anne Frank and An Evening with B.B. King. He also did some commercial voice-overs for television and radio.

Weiner taught classes in television direction at Columbia College for several decades, and was active in the arts community, serving on the boards of the Shakespeare Project of Chicago, the North Shore Chamber Orchestra Society and the Chicago coordinating committee of the Directors Guild of America. He was also named a Chicago/Midwest Silver Circle Award honoree by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in 2003.

Weiner’s wife of 53 years, Phyllis Weiner, died in 2008. He is survived by his four children, Deborah, Lauren (Diana Schaub), Vicki (Joseph Koelbel) and Howard; and two grandchildren, Griffin and Jameer.