Garry Lee Wright, a genial radio show host, stand-up comic and writer whose career hopscotching across the country brought him to Chicago’s WXRT-FM on two occasions before a longer turn-of-the-millennium run on WGN-AM, died Aug. 14 of heart failure. He was 74.
His daughter Amanda confirmed the death, which occurred at her home in St. Charles. An Uptown resident who previously had lived on the Northwest Side, Wright had been battling congestive heart failure and cardiac disease, and he had been receiving palliative care.
Though Wright likely was best known in the Chicago area for his work on WGN — and, to a lesser extent, for his time as WXRT’s morning host before Terri Hemmert held that position — radio hardly was Wright’s only professional endeavor. He performed stand-up comedy and other one-person shows, wrote a newspaper column, played guitar, self-published a 2012 memoir, “Happiness for Beginners,” and hosted a pandemic-era podcast.
Wright’s long pairing on an overnight program with longtime WGN contributor Nick Digilio was unexpected — the two had not met until their first show — and a success. The duo co-hosted the show for eight years, along with hosting separate solo shows on the 50,000-watt powerhouse.
“Incredibly, we had never met before the first night we went on the air together, and somehow it worked beautifully,” Digilio said. “We had a great time on the air together.”
Wright was born in 1951 in Wilmington, Delaware. His family moved around a good bit, including to Alaska, Seattle and Phoenix, before settling in Chesterton, Indiana, when he was in fourth grade. After graduating from Chesterton High School in 1969, Wright attended Wisconsin State University at Whitewater for a year before moving to California in fall 1970 and pursuing a career as a singer-songwriter.
More Top Picks Best Pizza Ovens For Outdoor Kitchens
Wright’s early jobs included stints as a cook, taxi driver and factory worker before he went into radio, working on the advertising and media buying side. In 1975, he moved to Chicago for a job in WXRT’s sales department.
Wright left WXRT in 1976 to become an on-air personality at stations in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and then in Jacksonville, Florida. In 1978, he rejoined WXRT as a weekend personality and then in June 1979 he was named the station’s morning drive host.
“Garry was incredibly quick of wit, able to find in a flash the right song or the right one-liner to match a final, funny newscast story,” said former WXRT morning news anchor Charlie Meyerson, who later was a producer for chicagotribune.com and WGN-AM’s news director. “He was also kind and compassionate — not a guaranteed combination in the radio world.”
Wright left WXRT in 1981 and moved to New York City that autumn. There, he was a guest host for talk radio pioneer Barry Gray on WMCA radio, and he also performed stand-up comedy at famed New York clubs Catch a Rising Star and the Comic Strip. In 1993, Wright was named the first morning host on a newly launched WEHM radio in East Hampton, New York — a station part-owned by Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley. The following year, Wright was hired as the new morning host at WBAZ radio in Southhold, New York.
Wright then hosted a morning radio show at WOC in Davenport, Iowa, from 1995 until 1997.
In early 1998, Wright returned to Chicago, signing on at WGN as a part-time fill-in host. Several months later, the station paired him with Digilio to host a show airing in the overnight hours from Saturday nights into Sunday mornings. Wright also hosted his own weekly show each Sunday night on WGN.
“I treasure the time we worked together, the amazing guests we interviewed, the huge laughs we shared, and the incredible skills and wisdom I gained by just being in the same studio with him,” Digilio wrote in a statement on social media. “He absolutely helped make me the professional broadcaster that I became, and much of the acclaim and success that I have had in my radio (and podcasting) career can be traced directly back to my partnership with him.”
While at WGN, Wright continued performing one-man shows, including one about baby boomers. He also continued writing a syndicated newspaper column he had begun while on the air in East Hampton. Meyerson recalled Wright’s first column written after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, in which Wright wrote that he and his wife initially had feared the world was ending that morning.
“Today I think that all of us who survived were given a second opportunity to chart the future, for ourselves and for our children,” Wright wrote. “What (Franklin Delano Roosevelt) said bears repeating: The thing to fear is fear itself. What we need now is courage; we will find it because there is no alternative.”
After leaving WGN in 2006, Wright finished and self-published his 250-page memoir, “Happiness for Beginners,” releasing it in 2012. He also developed an independent media project called Bleat Network, through which he created and hosted a show, “Pandemic Pirate Radio,” during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Other projects included working toward an audio book version of “Happiness for Beginners” and starting a second book, to be titled “Happiness Anyway.”
“He was still generating ideas and imagining the next thing right up until the end,” his daughter said.
Wright battled health issues in recent years, including suffering a stroke in 2022.
Outside of work, Wright enjoyed cooking, reading, music, smoking cigars, traveling, camping, spending time with people he loved and following Chicago sports, his daughter said.
“He was intensely curious about other people and about the world in general,” she said. “Even when he wasn’t formally working, he was almost always dreaming up, writing down or tinkering with some new idea.”
Wright was married to Laurel “Laurie” Neu from 1982 until her death in 2015. Three other marriages ended in divorce. In addition to his daughter, Wright is survived by a son, Jason; another daughter, Kelsey Parrish; a sister, Bobbi Minchew; and three grandchildren.
A celebration of life service will be held Sept. 26 at Parrish’s home in Bartlett.
Bob Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.