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Hollywood Squares Host Peter Marshall Dies At 98
The original Hollywood Squares was one of my all time favourite game shows, although it usually aired when I was in school. One of the reasons I was so fond of it was the guy known as "The Master" of the Squares, Peter Marshall. He was a song and dance man but became best known as the host of the first incarnation of the NBC game show, which ran for 16 years.
“It was the easiest thing I’ve ever done in show business,” Marshall said in a 2010 interview for the Archive of American Television. “I walked in, said ‘Hello stars,’ I read questions and laughed. And it paid very well.”
He died from kidney disease at the age of 98.
‘Hollywood Squares’ host and Broadway star Peter Marshall dies at 98
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Re: Hollywood Squares Host Peter Marshall Dies At 98
The ironic thing is Peter Marshall took the Hollywood Squares hosting job out of spite. He was originally going to pass when offered the job but when he found out Dan Rowan (of Rowan & Martin) was the second choice, he decided to take the gig so that Rowan wouldn't get it. "“I’ve only disliked two people in my life; Dan Rowan was one of them,” he said in a 2010 interview. In another interview, he said:
"I wasn’t fond of Dan Rowan, and I’ll tell you why. When Dan Rowan was selling cars and Dick Martin was a bartender, I was part of a comedy act called Noonan and Marshall. We were very big. Next to Dean and Jerry, we were the hot guys, especially on the west coast. Dick and Dan wanted to be in show business, and Tommy Noonan, moreso than myself, knew them. I knew Dick very well because his dad and my mom worked at Hughes Aircraft together. Tommy and I introduced Dick and Dan. We wrote their act. We got them an agent, and we got them booked. We would work clubs and say, “Hey, there’s a great team.” That’s how it all started for Dick Martin and Dan Rowan.Tommy really helped them get started and to become what they were. When Tommy had a brain tumor, he was at the Motion Picture Home for eight or nine months before he passed. I called everybody we knew and said, “Please go out and see him. Spend some time with him.” Dan Rowan never once went to see him ever, and that did it for me. I just said, “To heck with him.” Dick, on the other hand, was a wonderful man. He visited Tommy and helped financially. I tell you, when Dan was up for Hollywood Squares, he didn’t even tell Dick about it. By the way, Laugh-In came about two years later. So that’s the kind of guy Dan was, and I never respected that."
I've always been curious what Rowan's side of the story was but since he died in 1987, I guess we'll never know.
Last edited by Hansa (August 15, 2024 2:15 pm)
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Re: Hollywood Squares Host Peter Marshall Dies At 98
Here's how Marshall told the story in his autobiography "Backstage with the Original Hollywood Square: "
"I called his good friend Dan Rowan and told him that Tommy was at the Motion Picture Hospital and he was dying," Marshall wrote. "Dan not only didn't come out to see Tommy, but never picked up the phone to call. I couldn't forgive him for ignoring someone who had been nothing but a good friend, and I've disliked him intensely ever since."
So when Marshall found out that if he turned down The Squares gig it would go to Rowan, he decided to take it just to keep the comic from getting it. It not only changed Marshall's history, but TV's as well.
"If I hadn't taken the job partly out of spite, Dan would have left Dick to host The Hollywood Squares and never gotten his shot on Laugh-In."
Pretty amazing.
A few years ago, the Game Show Network in the U.S. made a big deal of bringing back the original Squares, but it came with a huge asterisk. NBC in its blind cheapness decided to record over almost all the original daytime shows to save money, so they were able to find one season of a nighttime version and showed that. But they could never recover all those incredible laughs that were lost.
I always liked Peter Marshall as a host and I'm sad to hear he's gone. 
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Re: Hollywood Squares Host Peter Marshall Dies At 98
And of course Marshall got to work with some of the most professional and iconic comedians of the day.
Paul Lind, Charlie Weaver, Charles Nelson Reilley, Phyllis Diller, Rose Marie, Rip Taylor and on and on.
The reason I liked Hollywood Squares was because of how those people delivered their silly jokes, not because of the actual game show.
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For some reason, there are two answers from the original Hollywood Squares that I've remembered all these years. They're not necessarily all that hilarious, but they've stuck in my brain, even 50+ years later.
The first one involved Charley Weaver.
Peter Marshall: Charley, True or False - Ballerinas in Holland wear a wooden shoe.
Charley: A what?
Marshall: Wooden shoe.
Charley: I certainly would!
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And this one from Foster Brooks, who always pretended to be drunk (not sure how politically correct that would be today.) He was also an old radio man, and even worked at WKBW-AM for a while.
Peter Marshall: Foster, in the Victor Hugo book "The Hunchback of Notre Dame, what is the Hunchback's first name?
Brooks, with a slight slur: Does Quasimodo ring a bell?
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