FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Loretta Ramos
April 12, 2005 (212)
621-6785
lramos@mtr.org
The
Museum of Television &
Radio's
Annual
Gala in New York
To
Honor
Merv Griffin
New
York, NY— The Museum of Television & Radio will honor Merv Griffin at its annual gala in New York for his award-winning television and radio career
and his contributions as a business leader in the entertainment industry. The Museum's annual galas in New York and Los Angeles are major fundraising initiatives that benefit
the Museum's ongoing efforts to continue to collect and preserve television and
radio programs and advertisements and make them available to the public. The
gala will be held on May 26, 2005, at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York.
"Merv Griffin is a unique force in the world of
entertainment and media ,
combining his talents as a singer, performer, and television personality with
his skill as a business leader and entrepreneur," commented Museum
president Stuart N. Brotman. "The
Museum is very pleased to recognize Merv's enormous accomplishments both on-camera and
behind-the-scenes. He's truly a living legend."
Merv Griffin began his career sixty years ago at the age of nineteen singing
on San Francisco Sketchbook, a
nationally syndicated radio show broadcasting from the San Francisco radio station KFRC. He
started on a Friday, and by Monday, the name of the program was changed to The Merv Griffin
Show. Shortly thereafter, legendary
orchestra leader Freddy Martin, a fan of the KFRC show, asked Griffin to tour with the band,
and for four years he performed on some of the most glamorous stages in the
country. Among them was the legendary Cocoanut Grove in Hollywood, where the audience
included a nightly parade of stars, one of whom—Howard Hughes—called Griffin his favorite singer.
In 1950 Griffin’s pseudo-Cockney
interpretation of “I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts” topped the Hit Parade and sold three
million copies. His other hit recordings of the time included “Wilhelmina” and “Never
Been Kissed.”
After a short film career, Griffin moved to New York looking to break into
television. He began hosting CBS’s Look
Up and Live, a Sunday morning religious program and he became a featured
vocalist on CBS’s The Morning Show. He became a regular guest on The Jack Paar Show
and The Arthur Murray Show, and was
commuting to Miami to host a show called Going Places. A year later, he began
hosting Mark Goodson and Bill Todman’s game show Play Your Hunch, which required him to
sing, dance, lead an orchestra, perform in skits, and ad-lib with guests like
Bob Hope, the Three Stooges, and Arthur Treacher.
In January 1962, Griffin was called in to substitute
for Jack Paar on the Tonight Show, and he would be asked back again several times during
the six-month interim between Paar’s departure and
the arrival of Johnny Carson as host.
His impressive ratings prompted NBC to give him his own daytime talk show. In
1965 Group W began syndicating The Merv Griffin Show in a ninety-minute format. During the
show’s twenty-one-year run, Griffin won fifteen Emmy awards, hosted five
thousand shows, and interviewed more than twenty-five thousand guests,
including four United States presidents; Martin Luther King, Jr.; Nobel
laureate Bertram Russell; and John Lennon; among many others.
Merv Griffin is also the
creator of Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy (the most successful game shows
in television syndication history) and wrote their distinctive theme songs.
In addition to his entertainment career, Griffin is a respected
businessman. When Columbia Pictures
Entertainment (then a subsidiary of The Coca-Cola Company) purchased his
production company, Merv Griffin Enterprises, for
$250 million in 1986, Forbes named Griffin the richest Hollywood
performer in history on its annual list of the four hundred wealthiest people
in America. In 1987 Griffin purchased the landmark
Beverly Hilton hotel in Beverly Hills, which he sold in
December 2003 after establishing it as the home of the Golden Globes and other
high-profile events. It became the flagship for Merv
Griffin Hotels, which currently owns the Hilton Scottsdale Resort & Villas in
Arizona and the boutique eighteenth-century St. Clerans
Manor House near Galway, Ireland.
In addition to Merv
Griffin Hotels, Griffin’s umbrella operation, The Griffin Group, includes Merv Griffin Entertainment, a film and television
production company; Griffin & Company (specializing in
real-estate-investment banking); The Griffin Ranch, three hundred luxury homes
with riding trails and full equestrian services in La Quinta,
California; and Teleview Racing Patrol, which
provides closed-circuit coverage of horse racing at major venues throughout the
country. The Griffin Group has purchased, managed, and successfully sold seventeen
radio stations, six casino resorts and riverboats, and seventeen hotels over
the past twenty years.
Griffin serves on the boards
of the Reagan Library, the Young Musicians Foundation, and the Thoroughbred
Owners of California. In addition to
being honored by the Museum, Griffin is also expected to receive
an honorary doctorate from the National University of Ireland and a Lifetime
Achievement Award as a television icon during this year’s Daytime Emmy
ceremonies at Radio City Music Hall.
Past
Museum of Television & Radio gala honorees include Alan Alda,
Julie Andrews, Steven Bochco, Kevin
S. Bright, David Brinkley, Tom Brokaw, Carol
Burnett, James Burrows, Sid Caesar, Marcy Carsey,
David Crane, Ted Danson, Kelsey Grammer, Marta Kauffman, David E.
Kelley, Mary Tyler Moore, Jack Paar, Ray Ramono, Dan Rather, Phil Rosenthal, Jerry Seinfeld, Garry Shandling, Martin Sheen, Tom Werner, and Dick Wolf.
Individual tickets for The Museum of Television & Radio's Annual Gala
honoring Merv Griffin are available for $1,000 per
person and can be purchased by contacting the Museum's Special Events office at
(212) 621-6753.
The Museum of Television
& Radio, with locations in New
York and Los
Angeles, is a nonprofit organization
founded by William S. Paley to collect and preserve
television and radio programs and advertisements and to make them available to
the public. Since opening in 1976, the
Museum has organized exhibitions, screening and listening series, seminars, and
education classes to showcase its collection of over 100,000 television and
radio programs and advertisements. Programs in the Museum’s permanent
collection are selected for their artistic, cultural, and historic significance
###
The Museum of Television &
Radio in New York, located at 25 West 52 Street in Manhattan, is open Tuesdays
through Sundays from noon to 6:00 p.m. and until 8:00 p.m. on Thursdays. The
Museum of Television & Radio in California, located at 465 North Beverly Drive in Beverly
Hills is open Wednesdays through
Sundays from noon to 5:00 p.m. Both
Museums are closed on New Year's Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving, and
Christmas. Suggested contribution: Members free; $10.00 for
adults; $8.00 for senior citizens and students; and $5.00 for children under
fourteen. Admission is free in Los Angeles. The public
areas in both Museums are accessible to wheelchairs, and assisted listening
devices are available. Programs are subject to change. You may call the Museum
in New York at (212) 621-6800, or in Los Angeles at (310) 786-1000.
Visit the Museum’s website at www.mtr.org.
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