Edye Ellis — known as “Edye Robinson” on WKRC-TV's PM Magazine in the early 1980s — was remembered by co-host Ira Joe Fisher as "magnetic on the air."
Ellis, who died Monday at 81, “was fun, funny and serious,” says Fisher, who co-hosted the hybrid local-syndicated PM Magazine show with Ellis.
Ellis was best known as a Knoxville news anchor at WBIR-TV in the 1980s and '90s. She also worked for the Home and Garden television network.
The Chicago native was hired by WKRC-TV as a production assistant for the hybrid local-syndicated PM Magazine show, and quickly became a contributor, says Janet Davies, former PM Magazine co-host and executive producer.
“When I left, I urged management to have her replace me and they were smart enough to do so,” Davis wrote on Facebook.
Ellis co-hosted PM Magazine with Fisher, who was Channel 12’s backward-writing weatherman from 1980 to 1983.
“We put many miles on the ol' PM van motoring from location to location all day Mondays and Tuesdays to record the programs. And the talks we had still live in my memory,” says Fisher, a poet who lives in Ridgefield, Conn.
“She was a giant of a friend and a colleague. And the perfect producer/captain of the telecast. It was a joy to encounter the variety of stories PM told. And Edye was a master-storyteller. Her heart, her charm, her sincere listening to the person she was interviewing. And to us, her colleagues. She had countless devoted fans in Cincinnati and Knoxville. And countless devoted broadcast friends, me among the number,” Fisher says.
She left Cincinnati and joined WBIR-TV in Knoxville in 1982 when the city was hosting a World’s Fair. One of her coworkers at WBIR-TV was Rob Braun, who started his on-air career in Knoxville before coming home to WKRC-TV.
“Edye was one of the most talented people I’ve ever worked with in television. She was an elegant lady who brought a certain class to our broadcast,” says Braun, who retired as Channel 12’s main co-anchor in 2019. "The world was a better place with her in it."
In Knoxville, she first worked on a weekly 30-minute World’s Fair program called Welcome World. After the fair closed, she became the first Black person to anchor at WBIR-TV. The station’s story says that “our airwaves have welcomed many different anchors, but few have left behind an impact like Edye.”
Retired WBIR-TV anchor Bill Williams says she was a role model who always took time out for those who looked up to her. "I remember being with her when she would have young Black children or adults and they would ask her for advice and consultation, and she was always very encouraging," Williams said in the WBIR-TV tribute. She left the Knoxville NBC affiliate in 1994.
At WKRC-TV, she gave a start to producers Jim Friedman and Dave Angeline.
“I ran into her in a Clifton steakhouse and talked her into an internship on PM Magazine,” says Friedman, who produced multiple Emmy Awards for his WCPO-TV specials for WCPO-TV. He’s now a professor at Miami University.
She died Monday morning, her cousin Robert Collins told WBIR-TV. The station said “she loved people, animals, and plants, and was just a lovely person . . . Edye was a pioneer and a go-getter. She was a leader wherever she went and was passionate about her heritage. She made trips to Africa and brought back many special things for her family.”
Ellis “had some fun friends, like Alex Haley of Roots fame,” says Braun, who farms in Pendleton County.
Fisher recalls that after her named changed from Edye Robinson to Eyde Ellis, she smiled and said that now she could be identified by just four letters: E.D.L.S.
“This is a sad day for broadcasting. This is a sad day for us who knew Edye,” Fisher says.
