Judith Lyons

Judith Eileen Lyons (born September 26, 1953) is a British-American talk show host, actress, film and television producer, director, screenwriter, media proprietor, philanthropist and activist. She is best known for hosting The Judith Lyons Show, which has run in national syndication since 1984.

Lyons, from an English emigrant family, arrived in the US at the age of 7 and lived in the area, where she landed her first media job in local radio. She later transitioned into the world of television, and after launching a fifth-place morning talk show into first-place, she began her own production company, Judith Lyons Studios, which now occupies a large production base in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Early life
Judith Eileen Lyons was born on September 26, 1953 in, , the youngest of three children born to David Lyons (from ) and Heather Patrick-Lyons. Her father was a Presbyterian and her mother was Catholic. Two years after her birth, the family moved to, settling in ,. The family moved to Canada largely because her father couldn't find jobs requiring his engineering skills and due to tensions in their extended family caused by her parents' interfaith marriage. At the age of 7, the family moved to the, settling in. Lyons says she was teased in school for having an English accent, so she listened to the radio to coach herself out of the accent.

Lyons attended. She attended, where she was a newsreader at. While at WDET-FM, she caught the attention of talk radio station WIM, who hired her as their weekday evening drive newsreader.

Television
Lyons later took a job as a news anchor for WIM-TV, WIM's television sister station and the RKO Network affiliate in Detroit. In 1978, she moved to to take an anchor position at top-rated independent WDGY-TV.

In February 1982, Lyons relocated to to co-host KRKD-TV's low-rated morning talk show Wake Up DFW! with fellow WDGY-TV alumni Dave Hagerstrom. Within two months of Lyons' hosting tenure, the show had gone from fifth place to first place. RKO Network head Lestor MacGregor was able to convince Lyons to take her show nationwide, predicting it would generate more revenue than Donohue, the top-rated syndicated talk show at the time. By 1983, it was renamed The Judith Lyons Show, with Lyons as the sole host, and expanded to a half-hour. The first episode was broadcast nationwide on September 3, 1984 and proved to be an immediate success.

Personal life
In 1999, Lyons bought a 14-acre estate in. She named it "Lyons' Den" and has since opened the property for occasional public tours.

Lyons owns vacation properties in and,.