Regis Philbin became a ubiquitous presence on TV in the 1980s, but he already had decades'
worth of experience in front of the camera before then.
Even though he's in his late 80s, don't think you've heard the last of this broadcasting
legend.
Philbin graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1953, earning a degree in sociology
and playing on the tennis team.
He's remained a lifelong supporter of the famed Fighting Irish football team.
After he stepped down as host of Live! with Regis and Kelly, he lamented that he no longer
had a TV platform to heap praise on his beloved team.
In 2012, he told ESPN,
"Notre Dame is having a great season and I'm not there to shoot my mouth off with it!
That bothers me!
I know I got looks from [Live! producer Michael] Gelman and Kelly Ripa when I would bring up
the Irish, but I can't believe this season!"
Philbin was especially excited that year, as Notre Dame went undefeated on its way to
the national championship game.
He declared to ESPN,
"After 20 years of eating crow and watching this team go down, it's a big year for all
of us."
"We can never be beaten, and that's what it feels like, honest to God."
Alas, the Fighting Irish lost the title game, and even worse, they were eventually forced
to forfeit that entire season due to an academic misconduct scandal.
Philbin couldn't have been happy about that.
When Philbin decided to pursue a career in TV, he didn't begin anywhere near the top.
In 1955, he started as an NBC page at 30 Rockefeller Plaza.
In 2017, he spoke with The Hollywood Reporter for a feature about former NBC pages who'd
gone on to great success.
He admitted that he was starstruck by all the celebrities he would encounter on a daily
basis.
As he put it,
"It was a thrill because you never knew who would come in."
Philbin remembered the time that singer Eddie Fisher filled in to host Perry Como's show
while Como was on vacation.
Philbin was enlisted to hold an elevator for Fisher, with the episode's final shot featuring
Fisher weaving through the crowd before disappearing into the waiting elevator.
While keeping the doors open for the host, Philbin wound up appearing on screen, and
that ended up being his TV debut.
As he recalled,
"I was thrilled.
I ran to call my mother to see if she'd seen me on TV.
And she said, 'Yeah, yeah, but where was Eddie going?'"
"Who cares?!
I- Who cares?!
"She wanted to know where he was going."
While Philbin holding an elevator door for Eddie Fisher was technically his first time
on the air, his official debut in a broadcasting capacity happened shortly after, when he landed
a job writing for Los Angeles talk show host Tom Duggan.
It wasn't long after Philbin got that gig that Duggan missed his curtain call for one
episode.
With the host a no-show, Philbin was asked to fill in.
He later recalled that he was so nervous that he feared he would have a heart attack right
in the middle of the show.
He was subsequently hired by his former employers at NBC, where he spent a brief stint as announcer
for The Tonight Show.
But he wasn't out of a job for too long, as he was eventually hired to host his own talk
show in San Diego, California on Saturday nights.
It was called That Regis Philbin Show, and he served as host, writer, producer, and talent
booker.
It was while hosting The Regis Philbin Show that Philbin first developed what would come
to be known as his signature "host chat."
He would open each show by talking off the cuff about whatever was on his mind at the
moment, which was usually what he'd done the night before.
The host chat was partially a product of necessity, as he didn't even have writers at this point
in his career.
"It was only one person.
Regis had no one.
Do you think he had four guys like you?"
In an interview with the Television Academy, Philbin noted that Tonight Show host Jack
Paar's unscripted stream-of-consciousness monologues were also a key influence in developing
his own impromptu segments.
As he put it,
"I thought, because he was making it so informal - he was just telling a story - I thought,
'Maybe I could do that.'"
After a successful run hosting his own show, which he eventually took to Los Angeles, Philbin
caught a big break when he was hired to be the sidekick on a new talk show on ABC starring
comedian Joey Bishop.
Philbin's time on The Joey Bishop Show wasn't all smooth sailing.
Far from it, in fact.
The show trailed behind Johnny Carson's Tonight Show in the ratings, and Bishop was reportedly
facing pressure from network executives to replace Philbin.
That led to one of TV history's most infamous moments when the miffed sidekick quit on the
air by walking off the show mid-broadcast.
"It was hurtful to hear that I'm holding this whole thing back.
All I'm saying is, 'Ladies and gentlemen, here's Joey.'"
According to Philbin, ABC was flooded with viewer mail urging the network to rehire him.
He was gone for just a week and then he came back.
But there might actually be more behind this story.
In Philbin's 2011 memoir How I Got This Way, he offered a very different account of the
incident.
As he recalled,
"Bishop said, 'You're going to walk off the show.
You're going to be angry about what you heard in the hallway - that ABC doesn't like you
and that you're not doing the job.
But I'm going to bring you back because I think you're doing the job.'
In other words, Joey was making himself a hero and also getting some attention for the
show [thinking], 'Maybe people would tune into see what happens.'"
However, the stunt, even if it actually did go down as Philbin claims, didn't improve
the show's ratings, as it was cancelled in 1969 after just two struggling seasons.
Decades later, Bishop appeared to still hold a grudge.
In 1998, he told the Dallas Morning News that Philbin left because of a contract dispute,
while also saying,
"I once told an interviewer that Regis is terrific.
He gives lots of hope to people who have no talent."
After the cancellation of The Joey Bishop Show, Philbin bounced around various regional
TV markets.
At one point in the 70s, he was hosting one show in Los Angeles while simultaneously hosting
another in St. Louis, Missouri.
That involved some serious logistics.
As he explained to Larry King in 2002,
"I would jump on a plane on Fridays and fly to St. Louis, do one show Friday night, one
show Saturday afternoon, the live show Saturday night and then Sunday afternoon, one more
show, and then fly back to L.A."
That time was particularly hectic for him, and not exactly conducive to his family life
with his wife Joy Philbin and their children.
As he explained it,
"Joy was at home with the kids and I was getting on a plane, flying to wherever I could get
a job, and then flying home when I could."
Things would eventually settle down when Philbin partnered with Kathie Lee Gifford in 1985
for The Morning Show, which was later renamed Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee.
That gig returned him to national exposure and, perhaps more importantly, a steady gig
in a single zip code.
In the early 2000s, Regis Philbin was busier than ever.
In addition to hosting Live! and Who Wants to be a Millionaire, he also had some other
irons in the fire.
These ranged from releasing albums, to hosting the first season of America's Got Talent,
to producing exercise videos.
He was also a frequent guest on The Late Show with David Letterman, continuing the regular
appearances he made when Letterman was hosting Late Night on NBC.
When Letterman said goodbye to The Late Show in 2015, he was joined by Philbin for the
monologue in his penultimate broadcast.
Letterman told viewers that Philbin had appeared on the show 150 times, more than anyone else
in the show's history.
Letterman joked,
"It actually seemed like more than 150, but we looked it up, and it was only 150."
"But now you're leaving!
So where does that leave Regis?”
“I don’t care.”
“Where am I gonna go?!"
"I don't know."
The typical rapport between the pair was on display in one particular 2004 episode, in
which Letterman offered a backhanded apology after prank-calling Philbin and making him
the butt of a joke.
Despite all these antics, Letterman did let it slip that he held Philbin in the highest
regard as both a human being and a broadcaster.
Kathie Lee Gifford left Live! in 2000, and the following year, soap opera actress Kelly
Ripa was tapped as her replacement on the retitled Live! with Regis and Kelly.
Philbin and Ripa remained co-hosts for a decade until he left the show in 2011 at the age
of 80.
Despite playfully bantering together each weekday morning for a decade, Philbin's departure
appeared to strain their relationship.
In a 2017 interview, Larry King asked Philbin if he'd kept in touch with Ripa, to which
he replied, with a somewhat pained expression on his face,
"Not really, no [...] Never once did they ask me to go back.
She got very offended when I left.
She thought I was leaving because of her.
I was leaving because I was getting older and that wasn't right for me anymore."
"So you mean she took it personal?"
"I think so.
That was 11 years ago."
"Haven't heard?"
“Never have."
Philbin shared that same opinion in an interview with The Insider, when he noted,
"I left and I think she resented that.
I mean, that's how I feel about it, and I'm sorry, because I wasn't trying to dive from
her, but I was a little tired."
In the early 2000s, Philbin was enjoying the biggest and most ubiquitous success of his
career, At the time, he was in his 70s, an age when most people are thinking about slowing
down and retiring, if they haven't already.
Philbin, however, displayed the energy of someone half his age.
But although he appeared outwardly fit and energetic, health problems lurked beneath
the surface.
Back in 1992, he and Kathie Lee Gifford were shooting a commercial in Florida when he began
experiencing chest pains.
He told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution,
"I was shocked to learn I had a blocked artery and would need angioplasty right away.
Then in 2007, I found out I had to have triple bypass surgery.
I couldn’t believe it."
His heart issues proved to be a bit of a blessing in disguise, as they led him to overhaul his
lifestyle.
He explained,
"Before my experience with heart disease, I didn’t have much discipline when it came
to my diet.
Since then, I still enjoy foods I’ve always loved, but I mostly stick to chicken and vegetables
for weekly dinners.
I try to practice a little more moderation.
I work out at a gym around three days a week and lift weights to help my strength and muscle
tone.
I don’t do as much cardio as I should."
In 2004, Philbin landed in the Guinness Book of World Records, as he had logged more time
on TV than any other human being.
According to the record, he'd amassed a whopping 15,188 hours on TV screens.
During an episode of Live! with Regis and Kelly that year, he was presented with a plaque
declaring him to be "the person with the most hours on TV" under his belt.
He handily beat out the previous record holder, ABC news anchor Hugh Downs, who could boast
only 10,511 hours on the tube.
Philbin told the Associated Press at the time,
"Now it's all a big blur.
When you look back that's a lot of hours on TV."
Of all those hours over the years, the ones that stuck out to Philbin the most were when
he interviewed fellow talk show hosts such as Steve Allen, Johnny Carson, and of course,
David Letterman.
They were, as he described them, people who do what he does and, quote, "know what being
a talk-show host is about."
We would have to add that Philbin himself also deserves a spot on any list of people
who know what being a talk show host is all about.
Check out one of our newest videos right here!
Plus, even more Nicki Swift videos about your favorite TV hosts are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.