Ruth Lyons (broadcaster)
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Ruth Lyons, (born Ruth Reeves Oct 4, 1907, died Nov 7, 1988) was a pioneer television broadcaster in Cincinnati, Ohio. She began her career in the 1930s on WKRC, moving to WLW and WSAI in 1942. Her show, the 50-50 Club, was aired nation-wide by NBC for 11 months in 1951; it was also the first show broadcast in color in Cincinnati, in 1957.
She graduated high school and subsequently enrolled at the University of Cincinnati, but withdrew after her freshman year for financial reasons. In 1932, already a known broadcaster in the Cincinnati market, she married childhood neighbor Johnny Lyons. She kept his last name when they divorced in 1939. She married Herman Newman, an English professor at University of Cincinnati, in 1942.
Ruth was called "Mother" because of the way she mothered her cast and crew, and hen-pecked her husband on-air when he would phone in to correct her grammar. But the nickname of "Mother" was most appropriate as she was the TV ancestor of the modern talk-show host, including David Letterman and Phil Donahue, both of whom appeared on her show frequently.
A late-1939 visit to Cincinnati's Children's Hospital left her depressed over the thought of these children spending Christmas in the hospital without decorations or gifts. She begged her listeners to send in "nickles and dimes" to help buy toys for the children. Listeners responded, and the $1002 raised bought a gift for every child in the hospital that year. From this modest beginning, the Ruth Lyons Christmas Fund has provided Cincinnati-area hospitalized children with toys, Christmas decorations and even needed hospital equipment over the past 67 years.
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Ruth Lyons was the Oprah Winfrey of her day, a daytime Jack Paar - Angie Dickinson [1]
