I'm moving on. I should have made that clear when I made the announcement. I guess I wasn't clear. If people think you're leaving a show after all these years, you might be retiring. So I understand where they're coming from, but I should have impressed the fact that I hope I'm just moving on right now.
I did, of course, eventually find my way into television, taking all kinds of jobs, climbing the ranks rung by rung. Anyway, it was several years later, when I was working nationally in Hollywood as the announcer and second banana on ABC-TV's late-night entry, 'The Joey Bishop Show,' that I had my big moment.
I must have been six or seven years old at the time. My family lived on the bottom floor of a two-story house on Cruger Avenue in the Bronx, and every night at 9:30, I sat by my little radio in our kitchen and listened to a half hour of Bing's records regularly spilling out over WNEW.
All through high school and college, my parents would ask me over and over again, 'What are you going to do with your life? What do you want to be?' Well, in my heart I wanted to be a singer like Bing, but I worried about the reality of that dream. Did I think for one minute that I had the voice to pull it off? Of course not.
I knew that the show was coming and they wanted me to have a co-host. And so I asked Mary Hart and she was one of the first. Before that it was Sarah Purcell then Cindy Garvey. Then Mary Hart, then Cindy Garvey again here in New York, then Anne Abernathy and then Kathy Lee, who stayed 15 years. And now Kelly has been there eight.
I would do the morning show and then just walk over to the network side of the building here at ABC in New York and sit down and start it up again and introduce the 10 contestants, and then introduce the 10 - the fastest finger question, and pick one of them, put them in the seat before you finally got to asking them the questions.
Anyone who's ever driven to Atlantic City knows that Trump's got a big billboard. For years, you used to see his angry face on it. I said, 'Trump, that expression is making people afraid to go to the Taj Mahal. Why don't you give them a big smile.? 'C'mon in, folks! Spend your money here!' I think we got that corrected.
It's almost seems as though there's a battle going on between the public and all the fast-food establishments, and, believe me, I think it's very tasty food.
Is that your final answer?
Is that your final answer? Here in New York garbage men, bus drivers, taxi cab drivers, bus drivers, whoever, you know, people just yell it out to me. So that was a lot of fun.
I think there's a little bit of sizzling here. Honestly, I can feel it. The ions are flying back and forth.
I made it a morning show. We have the coffee cup, we have the morning papers. It's got that feel to it, that's what I wanted.
I've done the best I can with the morning show. I made it a morning show. We have the coffee cup, you have the morning papers, you know, it's got that feel to it, that's what I wanted.
I realized there was a difference between a syndicated morning show and prime time. 'Regis saved the network!' I used to walk around saying that. I was a big man! I was a giant!
Kathie Lee and I were working together on our 'Live' morning show when she started dating Frank. I always loved trying to get her to tell me about her new romance, and it wasn't long before we were watching them take their vows in front of close friends in Southhampton.
As a matter of fact I don't like politics. I really don't. I think it's so jaded now and everybody has to follow the party line.
The Raiders moved from Oakland to Los Angeles, didn't like it, didn't get along. Whatever it was, moved back to Oakland.
I missed so many opportunities along the way to do what I wanted to do because I didn't have the confidence to tell myself, much less anybody else, 'Yes, this is the business I wanted to be a part of, and not feeling that I had the talent... and letting it go all the way through Notre Dame and then through two years of Navy service.
I missed so many opportunities along the way to do what I wanted to do because I didn't have the confidence to tell myself, much less anybody else, 'Yes, this is the business I wanted to be a part of'.
You know, I never knew if I had any talent when I started in this business. My first job was being a page at The Tonight Show. I saw Jack Paar come out one night and sit on the edge of his desk and talk about what he'd done the night before. I thought, 'I can do that!' I used to do that on a street corner in the Bronx with all my buddies.
