Mourning Merv Griffin

The answer is Merv Griffin. The question could be just about anything.

Griffin, the singer, talk-show host, composer, mogul, philanthropist and puzzle fan who created the long-running hit game shows of Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune, died Sunday of prostate cancer, the Griffin Group, his namesake production and real-estate empire, confirmed on its Website. He was 82.

Griffin, who won a battle against prostate cancer in the 1990s, was diagnosed with a recurrence of the disease last month. "Its aggressive progression to other organs was unexpected and immediate," the Griffin Group said.

Though hospitalized following the recent diagnosis, Griffin continued to do what he'd done since the age of 4: Take care of business.

"We take solace in knowing that until the end he had his two favorites by his side—his family and his work," son Tony Griffin said in the statement.

Pat Sajak, the Los Angeles TV weatherman picked by Griffin in 1982 to replace Chuck Woolery as host of Wheel of Fortune, said he was saddened to know he'd never hear his boss' laugh again.

"He meant so much to my life, and it's hard to imagine it without him," Sajak said in a statement. 

Letter-spinning sidekick Vanna White said Griffin was a "great man" who "will always be in my heart."

It was a sentiment echoed widely. Former first lady Nancy Reagan called the news of her old friend's death "heartbreaking."

"Ronnie and I knew Merv for more years than I can even remember...He was there for me on some of the hardest days when Ronnie was fighting Alzheimer's and he was there for me every day after Ronnie died," Reagan said in a statement. "Merv meant the world to me.  I will miss him—and his brilliant smile, his wonderful voice, and the twinkle in his eyes—every day for the rest of my life."

The current commander in chef, George W. Bush, labeled Griffin a "man of innovation and energy" as well as "a generous leader who gave back to his community, donating millions of dollars to provide abused children with safe haven and brighter futures."

And know-it-all Jeopardy! emcee Alex Trebek hailed Griffin as a boss and friend.

"I found him to be a very outgoing individual with a great lust for life, always eager to tell a joke, have fun, and entertain. Whatever project he tackled, he did with gusto," Trebek said in a statement.

"He led a very full life—on his own terms—and he will be missed."

Indeed, Griffin's official biography boasts of 17 career Emmys, a $250 million score for the sale of his production company, Merv Griffin Enterprises, to Columbia Pictures in 1986, and a deft touch for the hotel business, highlighted by his 1987 purchase of the Beverly Hilton, later to become famous as home of the Golden Globes. (Griffin sold the Beverly Hilton in 2003, one of 22 such properties that he bought and sold over the years.)

"I had all these ideas," Griffin told the Associated Press in 2003. "I can't stop the flow."

Griffin was referring to his vision for the renovation of the Beverly Hilton, but he could have been referring to almost any aspect of his far-flung career.

Born July 6, 1925, in San Mateo, California, Griffin was your garden-variety entrepreneurial kid (i.e., he sold newspapers)—with a flair (i.e., he not only sold newspapers, he published them, too).

The show-business break came in 1945, when Griffin landed a job as a singer on a radio show, a show that, per Griffin lore, was retitled The Merv Griffin Show within two days of his hire.

In the late 1940s, Griffin toured as a big-band singer, and, in 1950, notched the number one hit, "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts," that would remain his personal number one hit, like it or not, until he wrote the Jeopardy! theme years later.

"Wouldn't you like to walk on to 'Dah dah-duh dah in San Francisco'?" Griffin asked the New York Times in 2001, referencing the Tony Bennett hit. "I have to walk on to 'Nyah nyah nyah nyah-ny-nyah nyah coconuts.' I feel like an idiot."

"But you can't deny it, that was an amazing hit."

Following a brief film career in the 1950s, during which he claimed to have participated in the first "open-mouthed kiss" (onscreen, of course) with Kathryn Grayson in the 1953 musical So This Is Love, Griffin moved to television, where he hosted game shows, and sat in enough for Jack Paar on The Tonight Show that NBC granted him his own afternoon talk show in 1962.

The original Merv Griffin Show lasted only a season. Its host used the downtime to create his first TV game show, Word for Word, which he also hosted. Word for Word also only lasted a season. His next venture did not.

In 1964, NBC premiered Jeopardy!, another Griffin-created game that was not just another game. While other quiz shows of the era surreptitiously fed their contestants the answers, Jeopardy! did its answer-supplying up front, and on camera. The catch: The contestants had to come up with the questions.

Jeopardy!, with host Art Fleming, ran on NBC until 1975, and again from 1978-79. The show returned to syndication in 1984 with a new answer man, Trebek, and a new look, a bank of video screens in place of the old-fashioned, off-the-grid board.

Along with the crossword-aspiring, vowel-coveting Wheel of Fortune, which Griffin created in 1975, Jeopardy! remains among syndication's top-rated programs; its theme, played in long form during the crunch time that is Final Jeopardy, remains among the world's most hummable, and hummed, tunes.

While Griffin was busy masterminding hit game shows, and, don't forget, Deney Terrio and Dance Fever, the 1979-87 forerunner of competition shows such as So You Think You Can Dance, he was also busy minding his namesake talk show, which had returned to syndication in 1965, and, following a brief late-night run on CBS from 1969 to '72, remained there until 1986.

During his 23-year run as a talk-show host, Griffin oohed and aahed over, by his count, more than 25,000 guests, from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to President Richard Nixon, from John Wayne to Jane Fonda. Griffin ended the show when, his spokeswoman said at the time, it became "a responsibility rather than a joyful thing."

Comics whose careers got a boost via the daytime fixture said they were indebted to Griffin for giving them a shot.

"Merv was a very important part of my development as a comedian," said Billy Crystal. "He always invited new talent  to sit down with the other guests on the show, and feel a part of things...I know that my generation of comics, all feel indebted to him."

Meanwhile, Jay Leno recalled Griffin as "one of the kindest, most decent people I have ever met...He treated the big-time celebrities and regular people exactly the same. I remember when I was a kid starting out, Merv was encouraging."

Post-talk show, Griffin focused on his second love—hotels, or as he once described them, "talk show[s] with bed." Griffin especially loved buying, renovating and then selling hotels.

"When we were kids, I was worried about getting a booking. He always thought about having his own show and buying companies," the late comic Buddy Hackett said of Griffin to the New York Times in 1988. "Now, he's a zillionaire."

Actually, Griffin was more likely a billionaire—reports in 2003 pegged his assets, from his real estate and entertainment holdings, to be worth at least $1 billion.

In recent years, Griffin added to his TV portfolio with Click, a 1997 game show featuring the pre-American Idol Ryan Seacrest, the Lisa Williams: Life Among the Dead, a now-running Lifetime show featuring a she-talks-to-dead-people psychic, and Merv Griffin's Crosswords, a new Ty Treadway-hosted game show to premiere in syndication next month.

In 2005, Griffin was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Daytime Emmys.

"My word, what a career—in a job you love and couldn't wait to get up every day to get to work," Griffin said on the Emmy telecast. "And still can't."

The award was presented by Ellen DeGeneres, who declared Griffin a "genius."

“He was brilliant. He created all kinds of amazing shows. He sang, he danced and he talked," she said in a statement Monday. "When my show gets back on the air I will dedicate the whole season to Merv Griffin. I plan on having fun. And I plan on singing and dancing.  And playing games and having fun."

Griffin is survived by his son, Tony, by ex-wife Julann Griffin, and two grandchildren.  No word yet on funeral arrangements.

(Originally published Aug. 12, 2007 at 12:37 p.m. PT.)