Merv Griffin dies at 82
Published 9:00 pm Sunday, August 12, 2007
LOS ANGELES – Merv Griffin, the big band-era crooner turned impresario who parlayed his “Jeopardy” and “Wheel of Fortune” game shows into a multimillion-dollar empire, died Sunday. He was 82.
Griffin died of prostate cancer, according to a statement from his family that was released by Marcia Newberger, spokeswoman for The Griffin Group/Merv Griffin Entertainment.
From his beginning as a $100-a-week San Francisco radio singer, Griffin became a vocalist for Freddy Martin’s band, a sometime film actor in films and a TV game and talk show host. He made Forbes’ list of richest Americans several times.
“The Merv Griffin Show” lasted more than 20 years, and Griffin said his capacity to listen contributed to his success.
“If the host is sitting there thinking about his next joke, he isn’t listening,” Griffin said in a recent interview.
But his biggest break financially came from inventing and producing “Jeopardy” in the 1960s and “Wheel of Fortune” in the 1970s. After they became the hottest game shows on television, Griffin sold the rights to Coca Cola’s Columbia Pictures Television Unit for $250 million in 1986, retaining a share of the profits.
“My father was a visionary,” Griffin’s son, Tony Griffin, said in a statement issued Sunday. “He loved business and continued his many projects and holdings even while hospitalized.”
When Griffin entered a hospital a month ago, he was working on the first week of production of a new syndicated game show, “Merv Griffin’s Crosswords,” his son said.
Griffin also was a longtime friend of former President Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy.
“This is heartbreaking, not just for those of us who loved Merv personally, but for everyone around the world who has known Merv through his music, his television shows and his business,” Nancy Reagan said in a statement.
“Wheel of Fortune” host Pat Sajak said he had lost “a dear friend.”
“He meant so much to my life, and it’s hard to imagine it without him,” Sajak said.Griffin started putting the proceeds from selling “Jeopardy” and “Wheel of Fortune” in treasury bonds, stocks and other investments, but went into real estate and other ventures because “I was never so bored in my life.”
“I said, ‘I’m not going to sit around and clip coupons for the rest of my life,’ ” he recalled in 1989. “That’s when Barron Hilton said ‘Merv, do you want to buy the Beverly Hilton?’ I couldn’t believe it.”
Griffin bought the slightly passe hotel for $100.2 million and completely refurbished it for $25 million. Then he made a move for control of Resorts International, which operated hotels and casinos from Atlantic City to the Caribbean.
That touched off a feud with real estate tycoon Donald Trump. Griffin eventually acquired Resorts for $240 million, even though Trump had held 80 percent of the voting stock.
“I love the gamesmanship,” he told Life magazine in 1988. “This may sound strange, but it parallels the game shows I’ve been involved in.”
In recent years, Griffin also rated frequent mentions in the sports pages as a successful racehorse owner. His colt Stevie Wonderboy, named for entertainer Stevie Wonder, won the $1.5 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile in 2005.
Besides his son, Griffin is survived by his daughter-in-law, Tricia, and two grandchildren.
