R.I.P. Garry Lee Wright, Former Personality At WXRT, WGN Chicago

Garry Lee Wright

Garry Lee Wright, a radio host, stand-up comic and writer who spent two stretches at Chicago’s WXRT-FM and later co-hosted overnight shows on WGN-AM, died Aug. 14 of heart failure. He was 74.

His daughter, Amanda, confirmed the death at her home in St. Charles, where Wright had been receiving palliative care for congestive heart failure and cardiac disease. 

Wright was best known locally for his WGN work and, earlier, as WXRT’s morning host before Terri Hemmert.

Wright and longtime WGN contributor Nick Digilio co-hosted an overnight program for eight years even though they had not met until their first broadcast. Each also hosted solo shows on the 50,000-watt station. “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.”

After leaving WGN in 2006, Wright self-published the 2012 memoir “Happiness for Beginners,” performed stand-up and one-person shows, wrote a newspaper column, played guitar and hosted the pandemic-era podcast “Pandemic Pirate Radio” through his Bleat Network project.

Wright first arrived at WXRT in 1975 in the sales department. He left in 1976 for on-air jobs in Fayetteville, N.C., and Jacksonville, Fla., then returned in 1978 as a weekend personality. In June 1979 he became WXRT’s morning-drive host.

(1952-2026)

“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. “He was also kind and compassionate — not a guaranteed combination in the radio world.”

He left WXRT in 1981 for New York, where he guest-hosted for talk pioneer Barry Gray on WMCA and performed at Catch a Rising Star and the Comic Strip. In 1993 he became the first morning host at WEHM in East Hampton, N.Y., a station then part-owned by Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley. He moved to mornings at WBAZ in Southold, N.Y., in 1994, then hosted mornings at WOC in Davenport, Iowa, from 1995 to 1997.

Wright returned to Chicago in early 1998 as a part-time WGN fill-in host. Months later the station paired him with Digilio on the Saturday-night-into-Sunday-morning overnight show; Wright also hosted a weekly Sunday-night program.

“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 on social media. “He absolutely helped make me the professional broadcaster that I became.”