Harry Teinowitz was a well-known figure on Chicago’s sports talk-radio airwaves in the 1990s and early 2000s, at one point co-hosting a top-rated sports show on WMVP-AM ESPN 1000.
A comedian by background, Teinowitz later turned a personal setback in the early 2010s — a drunken-driving arrest and a stint in rehab — into a stage comedy, “When Harry Met Rehab” that was loosely based on his life experiences.
“Harry lived to make people laugh and to make people happy,” said his longtime collaborator, Spike Manton, who also noted Teinowitz’s love for sports. “There was just never a night he wasn’t watching at least two different games.”
Teinowitz, 64, died of complications from a liver transplant July 15 at his home, said his brother, Danny. He was an Evanston resident.
Teinowitz was the son of Philip Teinowitz, who owned four horses that raced in the Kentucky Derby, and Lois Teinowitz. Raised in Glencoe, Teinowitz graduated from New Trier East High School and attended the University of Kansas for one year.
Interested in acting, Teinowitz got a part playing a pyromaniac bed-wetter in the 1980 comedy film “Up the Academy,” which was shot in Salina, Kansas. He transferred to Columbia College Chicago, where he earned a bachelor’s degree.
Teinowitz dabbled in acting and had small role playing a teen at a party in the 1983 film “Risky Business” starring Tom Cruise, which was shot on the North Shore, before pursuing a career as a stand-up comedian. Teinowitz was a regular at comedy clubs all over the city and suburbs in the late 1980s. In the early 1990s, he and Manton started “Funny Money,” an annual comedy benefit for the Greater Chicago Council of the National Committee for the Prevention of Child Abuse.
“I was very impressed with the charity, and I had a real sense of giving something back to the community,” Teinowitz told the Tribune in 1993.
In the mid-1990s, Teinowitz and Manton began co-hosting a sports comedy radio show on Saturday nights on WMVP-AM. The pair developed something of a cult following, and got to know many athletes.
In March 1996, the duo were promoted to host middays on WMVP. That show lasted just nine weeks before the station changed formats. Teinowitz performed some fill-in work on WMVP — including taking part in a 1997 interview that Steve Cochran held with O.J. Simpson, in which he asked the disgraced former football star his first pick in a fantasy football draft — and in late 1997 co-hosted an hourlong fantasy football show on WMVP. Teinowitz also briefly co-hosted an evening program on WCKG-FM with Pete McMurray.
Returning to WMVP in October 1998 amid a relaunch of the sports-talk format, Teinowitz signed a deal to co-host afternoon drive with Manton. The following year, the pair shifted to evenings, and they also picked up a weekend morning fantasy football show, starting in 2000. He also did some work for the ESPN network.
Teinowitz returned briefly to his acting roots in 2000, with a role in “Return to Me,” a popular film shot in Chicago.
In 2001, Teinowitz began his longest and best-known run on the airwaves, co-hosting an afternoon drive-time show on WMVP with veteran radio personality Dan McNeil and former NFL lineman John Jurkovic. The show’s mouthful of a name? “McNeil, Jurko and Harry.”
The trio’s time in the spotlight was marred by a variety of disputes, with McNeil drawing a suspension from the station in 2002 after a heated off-air exchange that involved McNeil shoving Teinowitz, and a two-day suspension for all three after a heated on-air discussion between McNeil and Teinowitz over Teinowitz’s credibility.
Despite the rancor — the Tribune’s Ed Sherman called McNeil “the cynical radio man” and Teinowitz “the hopeful fan” — the show was successful, edging ahead of rival WSCR-AM in the ratings later in 2002 and performing well against competitors for the rest of their run together.
“I’m very laid back,” Teinowitz told the Tribune in 2005. “Mac’s very high-strung. I admire that he wants the show to be successful, and I admire the time and energy he puts into it. But I’m not crazy about his bedside manner. To that he would say, ‘Get over it.’”
Teinowitz and McNeil continued to spar from time to time, with an ugly on-air exchange in 2006 over Teinowitz asking for help to get his car parked devolving into an uglier off-air scene and another suspension.
Teinowitz remained at WMVP after McNeil exited the station in 2009. He continued in his role supplying one-liners and a seemingly unrealistic amounts of optimism for Chicago sports teams.
“That’s the outlook he had on life as well, even to his detriment,” Manton said. “He didn’t know how to hold a grudge. He was a hopeful fan, period.”
In 2011, Skokie police caught Teinowitz driving with a blood-alcohol level nearly twice the legal limit. Teinowitz apologized on the air at the start of the next show he appeared on, and soon afterward he entered a rehabilitation program voluntarily. He returned to the airwaves about six weeks later.
In 2013, WMVP parted ways with Teinowitz. The following year, he reunited with Manton to co-host an afternoon-drive show on the short-lived low-power radio station WGWG-LP 87.7 FM The Game.
After The Game folded, Teinowitz was a fill-in host on WGN-AM for sports talk shows and non-sports shows. He worked frequently with Bill Leff, and also co-hosted WGN’s weekend sports show, “The Beat.”
“For somebody who grew up listening to Harry, to get to work with him was an honor, and what I learned quickly was that however big Harry’s personality was, his heart was bigger,” said Mark Carman, a co-host. “He was incredibly supportive to numerous people, myself included, who were trying to make their way in the business.”
In 2021, the Greenhouse Theater Center in Lincoln Park staged “When Harry Met Rehab,” a comedy about sobriety Teinowitz co-wrote with Manton. Loosely based on Teinowitz’s life, the play starred Dan Butler of “Frasier” fame and Melissa Gilbert, who starred as Laura Ingalls Wilder on “Little House on the Prairie.”
“The macho persona of the Chicago sports guy does not, of course, easily admit error nor vulnerability. It took some guts for Teinowitz to tell his story without any excuses,” Tribune theater critic Chris Jones wrote in December 2021.
“When Harry Met Rehab” was staged in an off-Broadway theater in New York City last fall, under the title “Another Shot.”
In recent years, Teinowitz had suffered heart and liver problems. He received a liver transplant in 2023.
A marriage to Wendy Teinowitz ended in divorce. Other survivors include a sister, Nancy; another brother, Billy; and two children, Lucy and Reggie.
A funeral service is set for 1 p.m. Monday at Weinstein & Piser Funeral Home, 111 Skokie Blvd., Wilmette, followed by a reception at Maggiano’s Little Italy, 4999 Old Orchard Shopping Center, Skokie.
Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.