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With patience, determination and a popular and spontaneous spirit, Mr. Philbin achieved past pre-eminence in life on communication screens and television games.
By Robert D. McFadden
Regis Philbin, the game and communication screen host who celebrated in the United States with a morning coffee with Kathie Lee Gifford and Kelly Ripa for decades, and who made history on television in 1999 by presenting the meteoric hit “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire”, died Friday. Night. He’s 88.
His death was announced through his circle of relatives in an Array. He didn’t say where he died or specify the cause.
In a global inconvenience, Mr. Philbin was the outraged common man, besieged everywhere: through the damn computers, the terrible traffic, the other reckless people who were late. There was no soap in the men’s room. Jumping a cab was useless. Lose your wallet in a rental car? Fuhgeddaboudit! Even his own circle of relatives was angry with him for buying a chainsaw!
And would it be possible, he wondered, to ask so gently in a crowded pharmacy where to locate the enemas of the fleet without the employee almost shouting, “What do you want, friend? A fleet enema?”
“Aggravation is an art form in his hands,” wrote Bill Zehme, co-author of two of Philbin’s memoir. “Boredom feeds you, sends you, gives you a purpose. Riot, it becomes electric, full of games and possibilities. There’s beauty in her irritations.
From the faceless days as a studio machinist when television was just ten years old, to years of struggle as a journalist, television actor and Joey Bishop’s partner, Mr. Philbin, with patience, determination and folk and spontaneous spirit, reached preeminence in the past. due in life on communication screens and TV games.
Regis, as he is universally known, has been a television personality for nearly six decades and an ABC superstar since 1988, when his communication screen in New York became a national thing. But he also wrote five books, gave the impression on films, made records as a singer, gave concerts and an individual industry of spin-offs, T-shirts and ties of medical recommendation and pc games.
In almost every measure (omnipresence, longevity, versatility, popularity) has succeeded beyond the craziest dreams of a Bronx kid playing stickball. Towards the end of his career, Forbes estimated his net worth at $150 million, and Guinness World Records declared him the most-watched user in television history, with more than 17,000 hours of time on air, or two full years, night and day. (Former record holder Hugh Downs died this month).
Mr Philbin’s strong point is unn scripted speech. Fleeing writers and essays, depending on anecdotes and his own spontaneous comments in a 15-minute “animated discussion” and after intelligent chemistry with co-hostesses and guests, he performed for 28 years on “The Morning Show” (1983-88). , “Live! With” Regis and Kathie Lee “(1988-2000),” Live! With Regis’ (2000-1) and “Live! With Regis and Kelly” (2001-11).
Unlike most monologues at the end of the exhibition, Philbin’s were personal: mocking accounts of the misfortunes and misadventures of life. The rest of the exhibition can be anything: Ms. Gifford talks about her pregnancies or her dogs, Chardonnay and Chablis; Regis dancing with the handsome boys of Chippendale, unable to put his pants on his shoes, jumping in his underwear.
Mr. Philbin and Ms. Gifford often exchanged barbed put-downs — he chided her for being late; she called him a jerk — but they rarely drew blood, even when the topics were the infidelities of her husband, the sportscaster Frank Gifford, or allegations that child labor was being exploited in Honduras to make the Kathie Lee clothing line for Walmart. (She denied knowledge of sweatshop conditions and campaigned to protect children from them.)
In addition to homework tips, cooking demonstrations and celebrity interviews, Philbin had a penchant for athletes. A former Notre Dame alumnus, he spoke of football, boxing and basketball as the teammate he had never been. He trained in a gym, but also braund his own prowess. He once put on wrestling clothes and tattoos of skulls and crossbones for a WrestleMania sketch.
“Our exhibition is Reege, who lives his sportsman’s dreams across Columbus Avenue in traffic to catch the passes of Joe Namath and Terry Bradshaw,” Gifford wrote in a memoir. “It is Reege who laughs at the hair of wrestling manager Freddie Blassie and throws a chair at him; Boxing in the shade with Razor Ruddock; weightlifting with Joe Piscopo; Fair with American Gladiators Lace and Gemini.
After Ms. Gifford’s departure and an interregnum without a normal co-host, Ms. Ripa joined the exhibition in 2001 and was judged a refreshing change: vivacious, irreverent, expert in betting as the chatterbox of the irascible Mr. Philbin. He joked that she seemed bored while he kept playing.
While still doing his morning display, Philbin became the host of the original American edition of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” in 1999. Inspired by a successful British quiz, it has become popular overnight as the best rated prime-time game viewing in television history. At a time when TV games were noticed as nasty ghosts of the past, an astonishing 30 million audience tuned every screen when it aired 3 nights a week.
The program, whose concept so categorical that its creators did not put any question marks in the title, scheduled ABC to the 3rd position among the strings; made mr. ABC, Philbin’s biggest star; raise the share price of the network’s parent company, Disney; and revolutionary concepts about what a prime-time hit is.
A tournament-style exhibition in which participants answered back-to-back multiple-choice questions for $1 million in money, addictive “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.” It was designed around a tension that was constantly expanding, with exciting music, flashing strobe lights, a noisy clock, and Mr. Philbin, the inquisitive, asking questions on a scale from stupid to impossible, and then demanding, “Is this your definitive answer?”
“Sitting in the audience, with the lighting fixtures under the plexiglass floor spinning in all the instructions and a huge camera boom sweeping his head, it feels like a giant pinball machine,” Elizabeth Kolbert wrote in The New Yorker in 2000.
“Music drives me crazy!” Mr. Philbin shouted a spectacle. He winced when he had to read some of the simplest multiple choice answers. (What makes the collar of the blouses stiff? Starch, glucose, Viagra …)
As ratings soared, other networks tried to expand comparable TV games – Fox called its edition “Greed” – and “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” is credited with reviving the game viewing genre and paving the way for truth demonstrations as the cornerstone of television programming. . A wave of un scripted competitive truth displays, adding “Survivor”, “American Idol” and “Big Brother”, followed in its path.
Philbin hosted “Millionaire” from 1999 to 2002, five nights a week, as his popularity grew and, perhaps inevitably, faded. Critics said overexposure had led the public to tire of it. Meredith Vieira replaced him in a reorganized edition of hours of sunlight on the screen in 2002 and remained his host until 2013. The screen has had several hosts since then; He recently re-released for a limited broadcast on ABC with Jimmy Kimmel as host and featured contestants.
In 2004, Philbin returned for 12 episodes of “Who Wants to Be a Super Millionaire”, awarding prizes of up to $10 million, and in 2009, on the anniversary of the first show, he presented an 11-night prime-time. Reincarnation.
Regis Francis Xavier Philbin was born in Manhattan on August 25, 1931 to Francis and Philomena Boscia Philbin. His father, the staff leader, moved the family circle to the Bronx. Named after one of the finest Catholic schools in Manhattan that his father had attended, Regis was long thought to be an only child, but revealed in 2007 that a 20-year-old brother had died.
“I never spoke of him because he’s a very personal guy,” Philbin said in 2007 in “Live! With Regis and Kelly.” I have a reputation for that all these years.”
Regis, a heavy-duty, thin boy, graduated from Cardinal Hayes High School in the Bronx in 1949 and earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of Notre Dame in Indiana in 1953. After two years in the Navy, he began his career as a machinist at KCOP-TV in Los Angeles. He has temporarily become a journalist.
In 1957 he married Catherine Faylen. They had two children, Amy and Danny, and divorced in 1968. In 1970, he married Joy Senese, Joey Bishop’s assistant. The couple had two children, Joanna and Jennifer, known as J.J.
Mr. Philbin is survived by his wife, daughters and four grandchildren. Danny Philbin, who worked for the Department of Defense, died in 2014.
Mr. Philbin was a sports presenter and news anchor in San Diego in the early 1960s, and during the 1964–65 season, he hosted his first debate show, “The Regis Philbin Show,” Saturday night on KOGO-TV. It aired nationally for thirteen weeks and then aired on KTTV in Los Angeles.
From 1967 to 1969, he was the announcer and spouse of “The Joey Bishop Show”, one of ABC’s many attempts to challenge Johnny Carson’s dominance in ratings on Nbc’s “The Tonight Show.” In the early 1970s, he presented Regis Philbin’s “Saturday Night in St. Louis” at KMOX, a subsidiary of CBS. From 1975 to 1981, he co-hosted “A.M. Los Angeles,” a world-class exhibition at KABC, first with Sarah Purcell, then cyndy Garvey.
In 1983, Philbin teamed up with Ms. Garvey in New York on WABC’s “The Morning Show.” Two years later, Kathie Lee Johnson, she, gifford after a divorce and a new marriage, replaced Ms. Garvey as co-host. The screen entered national syndication in 1988 and “Live! With Regis and Kathie Lee.”
From 1982 to 1987, he also presented Regis Philbin’s Lifestyles, a Lifetime magazine exhibition covering health, diet, exercise and beauty. Throughout the 80s and 90s, it has been a professional whirlwind, with appearances in sitcoms, communication and games exhibitions, dramas, comedies, variety shows, Miss America contests and specials for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Eve. He has also made the impression on several films, such as himself.
Philbin, who lived in Manhattan near ABC Studios and Greenwich, Connecticut, won awards and added the Daytime Emmy Awards for “Live! With Regis” and “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” in 2001, for the paintings of his life in 2008. and by ‘Live! With Regis and Kelly’s in 2011. He was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 2006.
Among those paying tribute to Mr. Philbin on social media was President Trump. In a post on Twitter, he called Mr. Philbin “one of the greats in the history of television” and added, “He kept telling me to run for president.”
Mr. Philbin co-wrote “Cooking With Regis and Kathie Lee” (1993) and “Entertaining with Regis and Kathie Lee” (1994) and wrote 3 memoirs: “I’m Only One Man!” (1995) and “Who to be me?” (2000), either with Mr. Zehme, and “How I Got This Way” (2011).
In her most recent book, she recalled on the “Late Show With David Letterman” after pronouncing her departure from television during the hours of the sun. The two old friends casually talked about retiring in combination and leaving at dusk. Paul Shaffer’s band played a galloping cowboy rhythm, with harmonica.
“So you and I are on the horses, ” said Mr. Letterman. “We’re sunk in the stool and we’re going through Broadway. And then we take a kid to Broadway. And we said, “Shane! Come back, Shane! Shane, come back! “And then we go straight out the door and we go straight to Times Square.”
“Right at the door, ” Mr. Philbin. “I like it. Will we sing “Memories … “?”
I said, “No. We don’t sing “Memories!”
Christina Morales contributed to the report.
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