Television icon Regis Philbin goes ‘Live!’ for the last time

By Jay Bobbin © Zap2it

On a recent morning at New York’sWABC-TV, during a “Live! With Regis and Kelly” commercial break, Regis Philbin obliges a rather statuesque audience member by going over to her and having their picture taken.

Still seated on the set, cohost Kelly Ripa playfully chides him for not minding that request too much. And Philbin shouts back to her, with his patented mock exasperation, “Can’t a guy have a little fun before he goes?”

The three-time Daytime Emmy winner, who recently broke his own Guinness Book record for the most hours of television appearances, has had more than a little fun for a lot of weekdays — but now it’s time for that schedule to be in his past. Stressing it’s more for “redirection” than retirement, the iconic Philbin marks his final episode of the syndicated “Live!” Friday, Nov. 18.

“I thought I was getting out of here at the end of my contract, which was in August,” he says in a post-show conversation in his memorabilia-packed office upstairs from the studio.“Then suddenly, they wanted three more months, I guess to go into the November sweeps. I said, ‘Well, OK, fine,’ and the weight of it all gets a little heavy as we approach what is really the end of the run.”

It also wraps up a continuous daytime presence that began in 1975, when Philbin began cohosting “A.M. Los Angeles” with Sarah Purcell (later of NBC’s “Real People”), then with Cyndy Garvey. In 1981, he joined then-future “Entertainment Tonight” staple Mary Hart on a short-lived NBC program, then reteamed with Garvey in New York for “The Morning Show.”

Ann Abernathy succeeded her, and then came Kathie Lee (Johnson) Gifford ... and “The Morning Show” was renamed “Live! With Regis and Kathie Lee” in 1988, to be amended in 2001 when Ripa came on board.

Philbin had an earlier San Diego morning show of his own and became Joey Bishop’s ABC late-night sidekick, and he believes he knows the key to his longevity.“I have always tried to use the little stories that come up in my life,” he reflects, “and turn them into something funny or entertaining. It’s the only thing I’ve got, frankly. I’ve never had writers.”

As one result, Ripa claims sitting next to Philbin for the past decade has been an education.“I’ve learned the value of just being a person in a situation,” she says.“That’s what he is. No matter what he’s done or where he’s gone, he brings to you his personal point of view.

“I went to a fancy event and had on a borrowed dress, and I tried to sneak out. And the train of the dress got stuck in the escalator, and an alarm went off, and they had to come and cut me out of the dress. I was mortified, and I knew everybody was going to find out. And then I realized, ‘Hey, wait a minute! Regis would tell this story on the air.’

“It’s so preposterous, it couldn’t possibly happen,” Ripa notes.“But it does happen, and he’s taught me that the dullest moments can be golden.”

Philbin also will be celebrated in a Katie Couric-hosted ABC hour the night before his last weekday show, and the publication of his latest memoir, “How I Got This Way,” coincides with his exit week, hitting bookstores that Tuesday.

So, what happens with “Live!” on Monday, Nov. 21? Hint: It will be retitled “Live! With Kelly.” For the time being, anyway.

“It’s going to be very similar to the period after Kathie Lee left the show, and we were looking for a replacement for her,” says executive producer Michael Gelman, famously just “Gelman” on the program. “Over all these years, the show has taken on a life of its own like ‘Good Morning America’ or ‘Today,’ and Regis has been a humongous part of it.We are going to replicate, in some ways, the technique we used to find Kelly.

“We’re going to start ‘dating,’ as I call it ... bringing people in and checking out the chemistry with Kelly and the format and the audience. In this day and age, there are even more ways to get audience feedback than there were when we found Kelly, but we have the luck of having a studio audience.That’s like doing a focus group every day, and people are not shy about telling you their opinions. The (guest co-hosts) who work, we’ll ‘date’ some more, and it will become more and more apparent who’s in the running.”

Having ribbed Gelman so much for so many years, Philbin is getting a kick out of what he has perceived as the producer’s demeanor as his “Live!” run winds down.“I see a little sweetness in Gelman that I didn’t see for the prior 28 years,” Philbin muses.“He’s a little nicer to me. Maybe he feels sorry or sad that it’s coming to an end, but yeah, I feel that.”

As for what’s on the horizon for Philbin, be it another “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire”-like gig or a prolonged run just as a spokesman (as he currently is for Advil), no one knows. And that includes him.

“The fact is that I don’t have anything concrete in mind right now,” he maintains.“I’m listening to what people are saying, and that’s about it. I just don’t have a definite answer for people when they ask me, ‘What’s next?’ ”

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