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Writer, longtime Penn professor dies in Kentucky
FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Robert Lewis Shayon, who worked in radio, wrote several books and was a longtime professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication, died recently at age 95.
Shayon died at his home in Frankfort on June 28.
He was born in New York City on Aug. 15, 1912, and worked as a writer, producer and director for WOR-Mutual and the CBS Radio Network. He later became a television critic for the Christian Science Monitor and spent more than 20 years as television critic for the Saturday Review.
Shayon was appointed an associate professor at Annenberg in late 1964 and became a professor of communication the following year. He was with the school until 1990, except for a brief leave of absence in the early 1970s to work on some television projects. The school created an endowed professorship in his name.
Shayon wrote a number of books, including “Television and Our Children” and his 2001 memoir, “Odyssey in Prime Time.”
His first wife of 47 years, Sheila Russell, died in 1983. He remarried, and is survived by his wife, Nash Cox; daughters Diana Shayon of Westport, Conn., and Sheila Shayon of New York City; and three grandchildren.
