Word: merve
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...Johnny Carson was TV's aloof arbiter of taste, Merv Griffin, who died Aug. 12 at 82, was the welcoming show-biz uncle who seemed to want everyone he brought on his talk show to become a star--including Richard Pryor and George Carlin, whose careers he helped launch. He laughed at his guests' jokes, gushed at their stories, joined them in songs--perfecting an easygoing, unironic manner that was seemingly impervious to the winds of change. Far more than a TV personality, though, the former Big Band singer was also a creator and entrepreneur. In 1964 he came...
With the death of Elizabeth Murray at age 66 on Sunday, America lost one of its smartest, slyest, most exuberant painters. Merv Griffin will get longer eulogies this week. But trust me, when The Wheel of Fortune is done spinning, she's the one who will matter a great deal more. And it's precisely at this moment, when so much of the fantasy offered to us by mass culture is calculated industrial product, in formulations arrived at by Hollywood or by whichever multinational is fine-tuning the next big video game, that her work feels especially important. She stood...
...guest spot on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show. But for many of the up-and-comers who weren't yet on Carson's radar, the first TV stop was a friendlier, more accessible, less-high-pressure showcase run by a former big-band singer and game show host named Merv Griffin...
...That lasted only a year, but in 1965 he returned with a syndicated show for Westinghouse. Though hardly cutting-edge, it had its appealing quirks. Griffin hired Arthur Treacher, the veteran British character actor, as his announcer. In his plummy British accent, Treacher would introduce Merv with a flourish at the start of each show: "And now, here's the dear boy himself...
...music for the "Final Jeopardy Answer" as well.) A decade later he invented his own version of hangman, creating the most successful game show in TV history, Wheel of Fortune. As usual, his involvement with the show was total; friends used to tell of being at dinner parties with Merv, where he'd stop the conversation whenever he heard a particular clich? or bon mot - another hidden phrase for Wheel of Fortune, he'd exclaim. When he died, he was in the midst of creating a new game show, Crosswords...