Merv Griffin (Deceased)
Before Rosie and Ellen began interviewing celebrities, before Oprah became talk show royalty, there was Merv Griffin and The Merv Griffin Show. Born on July 6, 1965, Mervyn Edward Griffin, Jr. grew up in San Mateo California. He began his show business career as a singer and in 1950 reached number one on the Hit Parade with the song I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts which sold three million copies.
Two other hit records followed Wilhemina and Never Been Kissed. Griffin then began a career in movies with a small part in Cattle Town (1952) with Rita Moreno. In 1953’s So This is Love, he and co-star Kathryn Grayson did something no one had done in a commercial movie before – shared an open mouthed kiss. Griffin starred in a few other movies in the 1950’s, but left film for tv fame.
Griffin was a performer on the variety shows The Author Murray Show and The Jack Parr Show, and became the host of the television game show Play Your Hunch. Game shows would play considerably into Merv Griffin’s long career. In 1964 he created the game show Jeopardy! and in 1975 created another hit game show called Wheel of Fortune, both of which are still popular today.
His true claim to fame, however, is as a talk show host. From 1962 through 1986 Griffin was the host of The Merv Griffin Show, which aired on different networks in different time slots throughout its run. The show often aired against Johnny Carson’s The Tonight Show, always losing to Carson in the ratings. Nevertheless, Griffin’s show was hugely popular and important in American culture. The show did it’s best when running in syndication as an afternoon talk show where Griffin interviewed celebrities while still tackling important issues. He came under flack in the late 1960’s for his outspokenness against the Vietnam War on his show.
A shrewd businessman, Griffin created Merv Griffin Enterprises. In 1986, when he ended The Merv Griffin Show, Griffin sold his business to Columbia Pictures Television for a whopping $250,000. With his profits, he invested in hotels in Beverly Hills and casinos in Atlantic City.
For 18 years, Merv Griffin was married to Julann Elizabeth Wright Griffin. The two married in 1958 and filed for divorce in 1976. They have one son, Anthony Patrick Griffin. After his divorce, Griffin was involved with actress Eva Gabor for many years before she died in 1995.
Semi-retired, Griffin owned a ranch in Carmel Valley, California, where he had vineyards which produced the private label Mont Merveilleux wines. It was announced in 1996 that Merv had been diagnosed with prostate cancer which he battled with until July 2007 when he was admitted to the hospital in Los Angeles, California. His condition worsened over the next four weeks and finally on August 12th 2007 his family reported that Merv had passed away at the Cedar Sinai Hospital. Merv leaves behind his son, Tony and his ex-wife Julann.
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