Merv Griffin

Mervyn Edward Griffin Jr. was born on July 6, 1925, in San Mateo, California, to Mervyn Edward Griffin Sr., a stockbroker, and Rita Elizabeth Griffin, a homemaker. He grew up in an Irish-American, Roman Catholic family alongside an older sister, Barbara. Griffin began singing in his church choir as a child and by his teenage years was earning income as a church organist, with his abilities as a pianist contributing to his early entry into show business. He graduated from San Mateo High School in 1942, later contributing financially to the institution, and went on to attend San Mateo Junior College and the University of San Francisco, where he was a member of the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity. During World War II, Griffin was classified 4F and exempt from military service due to a minor heart murmur. When reexamined during the Korean War and found fit for service, he was nonetheless exempt from the draft as he had surpassed the age of 26.

Griffin launched his professional career as a singer on radio at age 19, appearing on San Francisco Sketchbook, a nationally syndicated program based at KFRC. Bandleader Freddy Martin heard Griffin on the radio and invited him to tour with his orchestra, an engagement that lasted four years. By 1945, Griffin had formed his own record label, Panda Records, which produced Songs by Merv Griffin, the first U.S. album recorded on magnetic tape. In 1947, he hosted a 15-minute weekday singing program on KFRC. His 1949 recording of "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts," performed with Freddy Martin and his Orchestra, sold three million copies.

During a nightclub performance, Griffin was discovered by Doris Day, who arranged a screen test at Warner Bros. for a role in By the Light of the Silvery Moon in 1953. He did not secure that part but was subsequently cast in supporting roles in other musical films, among them So This Is Love, which featured a scene with an open-mouthed kiss between Griffin and Kathryn Grayson that drew attention for being the first such kiss in a Hollywood film since the implementation of the Hays Code in 1934. He also appeared in minor roles in The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, The Boy from Oklahoma, and Phantom of the Rue Morgue, all released between 1953 and 1954. Dissatisfied with the film industry, Griffin bought out his Warner Bros. contract and redirected his focus toward television. In 1954, he appeared in Cinécraft Productions sponsored films, including the musical Milestones of Motoring with Joe E. Brown, and co-hosted Summer Holiday on CBS alongside Betty Ann Grove, a program that featured live music while simulating travel to destinations around the world.

After relocating to New York City, Griffin made his Broadway debut in 1955, appearing in Finian's Rainbow. That same year, when his friend Loring Buzzell and Lu Ann Simms welcomed their first child, Cynthia Leigh Buzzell, on September 11, Griffin was named her godfather. Following Buzzell's death in 1959, Griffin maintained a close friendship with Simms and frequently featured her as a guest on his talk show.

Griffin's television career gained significant momentum when Tonight Show host Jack Paar accidentally walked onto the set of Play Your Hunch, a game show Griffin hosted from 1958 to 1962, during a live broadcast. Griffin persuaded Paar to remain for a spontaneous interview, an encounter that raised his profile considerably. Both programs shared Studio 6B at Rockefeller Center, with Play Your Hunch airing live in the morning and The Tonight Show taping later in the day. Griffin also hosted the primetime ABC game show Keep Talking and filled in temporarily for Bill Cullen on The Price Is Right and Bud Collyer on To Tell the Truth. After Paar's departure from The Tonight Show and before Johnny Carson assumed the role, Griffin served as one of several guest hosts during the interim period and was regarded as the most successful among them. This led to his own daytime talk show on NBC in 1962, a live 55-minute program that was canceled in 1963.

In 1965, Griffin launched a syndicated talk show, The Merv Griffin Show, through Westinghouse Broadcasting. The program aired across a range of time slots in North America, with some stations broadcasting it in daytime, others in primetime, and a few placing it opposite The Tonight Show. Arthur Treacher served as the show's announcer and sidekick until 1970, after which Griffin took over the announcing role, entering the stage with the phrase "And now...here I come!" According to Griffin's obituary in Entertainment Weekly, The Merv Griffin Show won 11 Emmy Awards. The program addressed a wide range of topics, including controversial subjects such as the Vietnam War, and featured guests spanning entertainers, authors, politicians, and public figures including Zsa Zsa Gabor, George Carlin, Dick Gregory, Richard Pryor, Norman Mailer, and Bertrand Russell. In 1974, Arnold Schwarzenegger made his American talk show debut on the program. Griffin dedicated episodes in 1975 and 1977 to Transcendental Meditation and its founder Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, with the 1977 episode airing as a standalone special in some regions, including Canada.

In 1969, Griffin moved from syndication to CBS, where the network launched a late-night talk show hosted by Griffin to compete with The Tonight Show. His three-year tenure at CBS was marked by conflict over guest selection, particularly regarding guests critical of the Vietnam War. In April 1970, CBS blurred the video of guest Abbie Hoffman to obscure his American flag-patterned shirt, despite other guests having worn similar attire without censorship. Anticipating his departure from CBS, Griffin signed a deal with Metromedia for a syndicated daytime talk show. When CBS terminated his program in February 1972, the new show debuted the following month and ran until 1986.

Alongside his work as a television host, Griffin created some of the most enduring game shows in American television history. He produced Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune through his production companies, Merv Griffin Enterprises and Merv Griffin Entertainment. The concept for Wheel of Fortune was inspired in part by the word game hangman, which Griffin had played with his sister Barbara during family road trips as a child. He also produced additional game shows including Word for Word for NBC in 1963, 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. Griffin died on August 12, 2007.