Brenda Lee Borri was born on September 27, 1941, in Spring Valley, Illinois, the second of five children born to Marie Elizabeth Tyler and Robert Primo Borri. She spent the first six years of her life living in Granville, Illinois, before her father got a teaching job at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. She graduated from Lincoln Grade School, Jefferson Junior High and Champaign High School before embarking on advertising and marketing studies at the University of Illinois. In college, her media career began at campus radio station WPGU as radio program Shear Delight's sultry-voiced radio host/disc jockey and as Miss Fair Weather providing weather updates for commercial radio station WKID in Urbana. Also, during her college years, she worked at WCIA-TV, the CBS affiliate in Champaign

After working for two ad agencies in Chicago (Wade Advertising and North Advertising), Brenda was hired by NBC in Chicago to work in the Finance Department at Channel 5. After seven years there as billing supervisor, she was hired away by advertising agency/media buying service CPM in the Playboy Building on Michigan Avenue's Magnificent Mile. After several years at CPM, Brenda transitioned into media sales and led their expansion effort to create Game Showcase in New York City. In 1986, she started Brenda Borri Company with offices in Chicago and New York, eventually consolidating back to Chicago at their 625 N. Michigan Avenue headquarters. She ran her small boutique ad agency for the next 30-plus years, placing clients on a number of network and syndicated programs including Wheel of Fortune, Oprah, Jeopardy, The Price is Right, Entertainment Tonight, and serving a broad range of advertising clients, including: Kraft, Bayer, S.C. Johnson, Quaker Oats and ConAgra. The ultimate people-person, Brenda earned fans and rave reviews throughout the television syndication and broadcast advertising industries.

In the 1970s, Brenda met dashing Chicagoan Michael Molloy. They married in Hawaii and travelled the globe. Among their adventures were cruises to the Mexican Riviera, Alaska, the Caribbean, and Mediterranean. Her other globe-trotting included a dozen trips each to Aruba and Hawaii (Oahu, Maui, Kauai, and The Big Island), plus a river-cruise in Europe and island-hopping trips to the Bahamas, Saint Maarten, and French Polynesia (Tahiti & Papeete). Brenda's passport got quite the workout with trips to Austria, the Baltic Sea, Canada, the Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Egypt, England, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy (Emiglio Romano, Florence, Lake Como, Milan, Naples, Pompeii, Rome, Tuscany), Malta, Mexico, Monaco, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, and Turkey. She also hosted a Borri-Tovoli Family Reunion in Italy in 2007 attended by 23 Borri family members from the U.S. and 67 of her father's Italian cousins. Somewhere in there, she also managed to find the time to travel to almost 40 of the 50 states in the U.S.

She was preceded in death by her beloved husband Michael Molloy (2009), her mother Marie Tyler Borri (1954), her father Robert P. Borri (1997), her step-mother Faye Boyer Borri (1995), her sister Donna Borri Jordan (2009), and brothers-in-law Daniel Jordan (1993), Robert Newbegin (2006), Stewart Reiman (2021); uncles: Hugo (Hilda) Borri, Arthur (Frieda) Tyler, Allen (Mildred) Tyler, William (Helen) Tyler, Charles A. (Helen) Tyler; aunt Amy (Tony) DeAro, cousins: Donald Tyler, John Tyler, Dorothea (David) Tyler McNeilly, Lois (Floyd) Pederson, David McNeilly, Mark McNeilly, and Stephen DeAro.

Brenda is survived by Michael's sons: Michael (Jenny) Molloy, Stephen (Sara) Molloy; grandchildren: Haley & Mallory Molloy, and Thomas Zahn-Phillips; siblings: Robert A. (Nancy) Borri, Rita Borri Newbegin, Saragale Borri Tucker and Diana Borri; nieces: Lynne (Juan) Reiman Diaz, Joanne Reiman Szymanski, Bonnie (Todd) Newbegin Brooks, Lynn Newbegin, Jeanne (Randy) Reiman Huggin, Maria (Jim) Borri Reed; Janessa (Will) Borri Krill; nephews: Robert Newbegin V, Joseph Newbegin, Robert (Linda) Reiman, John (Meghan) Reiman, 28 grand-nieces and grand-nephews 26 great-grand nieces and grand-nephews; cousins: Dr. Nancy Tyler, Gary (Rita) Borri, Dr. Randy (Janice) Borri, Susan (Patricia) Borri, Martha (Frank) Pattelli, Sam (Edith) McNeilly, Linda DeAro, and her Brenda Borri Company family: Ann Scholhamer, Kris Kastner and Bernardo Matigmen, and countless life-long friends, including Tonya Manselle, Jerry & Carol Ewing, Jan Kluts, Carolyn Burke, Ruth Riedl, Glenna Maki, Janet Nomanson, Lyn Kahan, Barb Dalenberg, Robin Turner, Janet Clark, Ellen Ferro and Dan Magner.

Although scientific DNA evidence may have actually disputed her claim of being royalty (perhaps Hawaiian royalty), the family has long conceded that she truly is a Princess worthy of all the royal treatment, admiration and respect she has garnered through the years because there was no more loving, generous, classy, non-judgmental and perfect person on planet Earth than she. Brenda always got to know everyone by name, befriended them all and was generous beyond measure.

Though she would want no one to feel any obligation to donate, in response to those who have asked about her charities of choice, these are among her regulars:

The Great Chicago Food Depository (https://www.chicagosfoodbank.org/),

St. Jude Children's Hospital (https://www.stjude.org/),

The American Cancer Society (https://www.cancer.org/) and The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society/Blood Cancer United (https://pages.lls.org/ltn/az/phoenix26/carolsgreenmachine).

A memorial Celebration of Life to honor Brenda is being planned for Sunday, April 12, 2026, in Chicago.