Peter Marshall, who played straight man to the stars for 16 years as host of “The Hollywood Squares,” has died at 98.
FILE - Host Peter Marshall appears at the 45th annual Daytime Emmy Awards at the Pasadena Civic Center on Sunday, April 29, 2018, in Pasadena, Calif. – Peter Marshall , the actor and singer turned game show host who played straight man to the stars for 16 years on “The Hollywood Squares,” has died. He was 98.
“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.” Marshall had lived nearly an entire show business life before he took the “Squares” podium at age 40.
“The Hollywood Squares” was more strait-laced when it began, but early in its run a producer suggested they write jokes for Lynde, the ever-snarky comic actor who occupied the center square and would become as identified as Marshall with the show.Marshall: “Paul, why do motorcyclists wear leather?”“That changed the whole thing,” Marshall told the TV archive. “I had been a straight man. So working with comics was easy for me.
At 15, he toured as a singer with the Bob Chester Orchestra. He also worked as an NBC Radio page and an usher at the Paramount Theater. He was drafted during World War II and stationed in Italy, where he made his first forays onto the airways as a DJ for Armed Forces Radio. In 1949 he formed a comedy duo with Tommy Noonan, appearing in nightclubs, in theaters and on “The Ed Sullivan Show.”
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