Merv Griffin - Biography, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Filmography (Read)

Merv Griffin - biography, date of birth, place of birth, filmography, clips, Actor, Producer, Writer, Composer.

July 6, 1925, San Mateo, California, USA - August 12, 2007, Los Angeles, California, USA - American media tycoon, TV presenter, pop singer, actor, producer, screenwriter and composer.

At the age of four, he learned to play the piano and soon gave amateur concerts.

At 19, Griffin got a job as a singer at the San Francisco radio station KFRC. A year later, he recorded his first solo album. During the Second World War, he was declared unfit for military service due to excess weight and heart murmurs, but in order to contribute to the victory, he took a job at a San Francisco shipyard. Young Griffin was ashamed of his excess weight and later forced himself to lose weight (although weight problems continued until the end of his life), but by the time of the Korean War he was already out of draft age.

In 1950, Griffin's song “I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts” took first place in the charts. This hit has sold three million copies.

In the postwar years, Griffin starred in cameo roles in a number of films. In 1954 he moved to New York, where he was invited to host the music show Finian's Rainbow on CBS. In the late 1950s, he became the host of the television game Play Your Hunch, which he authored.

In 1963, Griffin comes up with a new game show "Word for Word", and a year later on the NBC channel implements the long-developed project "Risk!" ("Jeopardy!"), Which has already brought him worldwide fame. He himself composes the music for this program. During the existence of the program on American television, it has already won 28 Emmy awards. Licensed versions of the program are available all over the world, including in Russia, where it goes under the name "Own Game".

In 1975, Griffin's new game show, Wheel of Fortune, was released, which won five Emmy awards.

In 1986, Griffin sold his company, Merv Griffin Enterprises, for $ 250 million, retaining the copyright for a number of elements of his popular game shows, for which he continued to write questions for many years (only through royalties for the main theme of the show “Jeopardy! ”He received over $ 70 million). After that, he took up the real estate business. By the end of his life, his capital significantly exceeded a billion dollars. He also acquired his own stable and has repeatedly exhibited his horses at major competitions.

In 2005, Griffin received an Emmy for his career.

On July 18, 2007, Griffin was hospitalized with recurrent prostate cancer, and on August 12 of the same year, he died.

All Information About: Merv Griffin - Biography, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Filmography.
Author: Jane Watson