Merv Griffin began his career as a radio and big band singer, later appearing in film and on Broadway.
54 Facts About Merv Griffin
2.
Merv Griffin attended San Mateo High School, graduating in 1942, and continued to aid in financing the school.
3.
Merv Griffin attended San Mateo Junior College and then the University of San Francisco.
4.
Merv Griffin was a member of the international fraternity Tau Kappa Epsilon.
5.
Merv Griffin started as a singer on radio at age 19, appearing on San Francisco Sketchbook, a nationally syndicated program based at KFRC.
6.
Merv Griffin was overweight as an adolescent and a young man, which disappointed some radio fans when they saw him in person.
7.
Merv Griffin wrote years later in his autobiography that there was a deliberate effort to keep the public from finding out how he looked.
8.
Merv Griffin resolved to change his appearance and lost 80 pounds in four months.
9.
In 1947, Merv Griffin had a 15-minute weekday singing program on KFRC in San Francisco.
10.
Merv Griffin became increasingly popular with nightclub audiences, and his fame soared among the general public with his 1950 hit "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts".
11.
At one of his nightclub performances, Merv Griffin was discovered by Doris Day.
12.
Merv Griffin arranged for a screen test at the Warner Bros.
13.
Merv Griffin did not get the part, but the screen test led to supporting roles in other musical films such as So This Is Love, which caused a minor controversy when Merv Griffin shared an open-mouthed kiss with Kathryn Grayson.
14.
Merv Griffin appeared in The Boy from Oklahoma and Phantom of the Rue Morgue, but became disillusioned with movie-making.
15.
In 1954, Griffin appeared in several Cinecraft Productions sponsored films including a musical, Milestones of Motoring with Joe E Brown and Rita Farrell.
16.
Merv Griffin decided to spend the summer of 1954 in New York City.
17.
Merv Griffin landed a job as the host of a new television show, CBS-TV's Summer Holiday, a summer replacement for Jane Froman's USA Canteen and Jo Stafford's The Jo Stafford Show, which he co-hosted with Betty Ann Grove.
18.
That summer, Merv Griffin became acquainted with music publisher Loring Buzzell.
19.
Merv Griffin needed a place to stay and moved-in with Buzzell as his new roommate.
20.
Merv Griffin later claimed in interviews that he was best man at their wedding, but was in fact one of the four ushers.
21.
Buzzell died of a heart attack in 1959, but Merv Griffin stayed close to Simms for the rest of her life and had her as a guest on his talk show many times.
22.
From 1958 to 1962, Merv Griffin hosted Play Your Hunch, a game show produced by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman.
23.
Merv Griffin hosted a primetime ABC game show, Keep Talking.
24.
Merv Griffin filled in for a week for the vacationing Bill Cullen on The Price Is Right, and for Bud Collyer on To Tell the Truth.
25.
Merv Griffin produced Let's Play Post Office for NBC in 1965, Reach for the Stars for NBC in 1967, and One in a Million for ABC in 1967.
26.
Merv Griffin scored a coup when Tonight Show host Jack Paar accidentally emerged onto the set of Play Your Hunch during a live broadcast, and Merv Griffin got him to stay for a spontaneous interview.
27.
Merv Griffin was considered the most successful of the guest hosts, and was rewarded with his own daytime talk show on NBC in 1962.
28.
Merv Griffin was not shy about tackling controversial subjects, especially the Vietnam War.
29.
Merv Griffin was commended for booking such guests, but widely criticized for it.
30.
When philosopher and anti-war activist Bertrand Russell used the show to condemn the war in Vietnam, Merv Griffin was criticized for letting Russell have his say.
31.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, later the 38th governor of California, made his US talk show debut on Merv Griffin's show in 1974 after emigrating from Austria.
32.
Merv Griffin dedicated two shows, in 1975 and 1977, to Transcendental Meditation and its founder Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
33.
Robert Murphy, Griffin's best friend since sixth grade, was the producer of The Merv Griffin Show, and eventually became president of Merv Griffin Enterprises.
34.
Merv Griffin's three-year run at CBS was contentious; the network was uncomfortable with the guests he wanted, who often spoke out against the Vietnam War and on other sensitive topics.
35.
Merv Griffin fired a couple of answers to me: '5,280' and the question of course was how many feet in a mile.
36.
Merv Griffin produced the show's successor, Wheel of Fortune, which premiered January 6,1975, with host Chuck Woolery and hostess Susan Stafford and had high ratings throughout its network run.
37.
Around that time, Merv Griffin composed the show's best-known theme song, "Changing Keys", which was used in several variants of the show until 2000.
38.
In 1990, Merv Griffin had an ambitious but unsuccessful attempt at adapting the venerable board game Monopoly into a game show of the same name.
39.
Merv Griffin retained the title of creator of both his game shows.
40.
On May 14,2003, Merv Griffin was honored with the Broadcast Music, Inc President's Award at its annual Film and Television Awards ceremony, for creating some of America's best-known game show melodies.
41.
In 2007, Griffin's production company, Merv Griffin Entertainment, began production on a new syndicated game show, Merv Griffin's Crosswords.
42.
Merv Griffin ventured into real estate, purchasing the Beverly Hilton Hotel in 1987.
43.
In 1988, Merv Griffin purchased Resorts International and two of their hotels, one in Atlantic City, New Jersey; and another on Paradise Island in the Bahamas, from Donald Trump and other investors.
44.
Cashflow was about $70 million short of what was needed to service the Resorts' debt in 1989, and Merv Griffin sought bankruptcy court protection for Resorts on December 23,1989.
45.
Merv Griffin owned a ranch near La Quinta, California where he raised thoroughbred racehorses, and St Clerans Manor, a boutique hotel in an eighteenth-century estate once owned by director John Huston, near Craughwell, in County Galway, Ireland.
46.
Merv Griffin was married to the former Julann Wright from 1958 to 1976; they remained friends after their divorce.
47.
Merv Griffin was a constant companion of actress Eva Gabor from the mid-1980s until her death in 1995, though she told the press in 1990 that they had never been lovers.
48.
Merv Griffin said that he did not know his actual worth because it "would keep me from sleeping at night".
49.
Merv Griffin was an honorary pallbearer at the funeral of President Ronald Reagan in 2004, having been the Reagans' friends for many years.
50.
Merv Griffin was a longtime member of the Republican Party.
51.
In 1974, Merv Griffin was inducted to the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
52.
In 2005, Merv Griffin accepted the degree of Doctor of Laws from the National University of Ireland, Galway; and in 2008 was posthumously inducted into the Television Hall of Fame.
53.
Merv Griffin's 7-year-old grandson Donovan Mervyn was an honorary pallbearer, as was Nancy Reagan.
54.
Merv Griffin was buried in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery, where his epitaph reads "I will not be right back after this message".