Biography
Though best known as the jovial but lovably sarcastic host of the American talk show sensation Live with Regis and Kelly (and its earlier incarnation, Live With Regis and Kathie Lee), television personality Regis Philbin has sustained an astonishingly varied career that bridges not only a myriad of
broadcast formats -- from daytime and late-night talk to game shows to televised parades and news magazines -- but multiple mediums as well, including books, feature films, and even musical recordings that found Philbin crooning along to old standards.
A native New Yorker, Philbin grew up in the South Bronx and later graduated from the University of Notre Dame. After a stint in the Navy and a series of entry-level jobs in Hollywood, he hosted the talk programs The Regis Philbin Show (on KGTV in San Diego) and Philbin's People in Los Angeles, and developed a revolutionary style of televised chat that involved peppering his commentary with witty asides and opinions, and involving the audience in the on-set conversation. In time, Philbin secured a spot as co-host on the late-night talk program
The Joey Bishop Show from April 1967 to December 1969. During the 1970s, Philbin hosted the morning talk show
Temp on Los Angeles's KHJ-TV, and emceed two game shows on ABC. In 1983, he launched The Morning Show, a local talk program in New York City; it eventually evolved into Live With Regis and Kathie Lee in 1985, after
Kathie Lee Gifford signed on as co-host. That program, of course, became a national institution, and continued even after Gifford left, with
Kelly Ripa replacing her as co-host. During the late '90s, Philbin also made television history by emceeing one of the most lucrative game shows in the history of the broadcast medium: the U.K. import Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, on ABC.
Cinematically, Philbin made a number of cameo film appearances in various Hollywood features over the years -- often, though not always, playing himself. These included the uproarious 1972
Woody Allen film-a-sketch Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex, But Were Afraid to Ask (as one of the panelists on a perverted game show), and the awful
Mae West 1978 musical
Sextette (as a reporter). Regis and second wife Joy Philbin lent darkly amusing cameos as themselves to the
Irwin Winkler-directed psychological drama
Night and the City (1992) -- in which they appear as restaurant patrons, hounded by obnoxious flim-flam man Harry Fabian (
Robert De Niro). In the early 2000s, Philbin's film appearances included cameos in
Little Nicky and
Cheaper by the Dozen, and a small role in
Shrek the Third, as the voice of Mabel, one of Cinderella's ugly stepsisters. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide