Merri Dee, born Marry Francine Dorham was a known American philanthropist and TV journalist who was popular for her works at Illinois television station and national cable superstation WGN-TV. She was born in Chicago on October 30, 1936, and lived through to Chicago on March 16, 2022, when she passed.
Her parents used to work back and forth between Chicago and New Orleans even before she was born and two years after she was born, her mother died. Merri’s dad remarried four years after the death of his wife but her stepmother abused her and sent her to an orphanage to be raised there.
During her teenage years, Merri went back to Chicago where she attended Englewood Technical Prep Academy and graduated in 1955. After high school, she relocated to New Orleans to have her college education at Xavier University, where she majored in business administration.
Merri got her first journalism job at radio station WBEE located in Illinois. In 1968, she hosted an entertainment program that broadcasted on the then-fledgling independent station WCIU (channel 26) on Saturday nights.
Merri Dee Children: Meet Toya Monet and Attorney Richard H. Wright
Merri Dee married twice in her lifetime and had two children. In her first marriage, she had a daughter named Toya Monet. She remarried her second husband, Nicolas Fulop in 1999 until she died in 2022. Although she didn’t have a child of her own in her second marriage, she adopted a son in addition to her daughter in the person of Attorney Richard H. Wright.
