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Peter Marshall, a versatile singer, actor and comedian who was best known as the host of the long-running celebrity game show “Hollywood Squares,” died Aug. 15 at his home in the Encino neighbourhood of Los Angeles. He was 98.
The cause was kidney failure, according to a family statement shared by publicist Harlan Boll.
Tall and affable, with a gleaming, toothy smile, Mr. Marshall had been a band singer, Broadway actor and straight man in comedy duos before he became the first host of “The Hollywood Squares” in 1966. (The introductory “the” was later dropped from the title.)
For the next 15 years, he presided over more than 5,000 episodes of the fizzy game show, based on the children’s game of tic-tac-toe, in which celebrities offered responses to questions, frequently laced with comic and sometimes risqué comments. “Hollywood Squares” became a top-rated staple of daytime television on NBC and later expanded to a popular prime-time version with the same format.
“It was the easiest thing I have ever done in show business,” Mr. Marshall said in a 2010 interview with the Archives of American Television. “No rehearsal. I walked in and said, ‘Hello, stars,’ I read questions and laughed and got paid wonderfully well.”
At the beginning of the program, Mr. Marshall introduced two contestants, who picked the celebrities to answer questions ranging from entertainment to history to science and current events. The contestants then decided whether the answers were correct, with the winners claiming cash and other prizes.
Mr. Marshall kept the show moving at a brisk pace and, true to his training as a comedy straight man, led the laughter at the quips delivered by nine celebrities arrayed before him.
Dozens of stars, including comedians Joan Rivers and Jonathan Winters and actors Helen Hayes, Glenn Ford and George C. Scott, appeared as guest panellists on “Squares,” but the audience favourite was comic actor Paul Lynde, who occupied the center square in the three-tiered set.
“He was the star of the show,” Mr. Marshall later said. “I was just a lowly emcee.”
Mr. Marshall insisted that the celebrities never knew the answers beforehand, but the show’s staff scripted many of the punchlines and “bluffs” – plausible false answers – for some of the guest stars, including Lynde.
“I can remember the first joke ever written for Paul was, ‘Paul, why do motorcyclists wear leather?’” Mr. Marshall recalled. “He said, ‘Because chiffon wrinkles.’”
In one episode, Mr. Marshall asked, “In Little Bo-Peep, what did the famous sheep leave behind them?”
“Well, Simple Simon thought they were breadcrumbs,” Lynde replied.
(After a huge laugh from the audience, he gave the correct answer: their tails.)
Five shows – a week’s worth – were typically taped in a single day. Mr. Marshall noted that after the first three tapings, there was a lunch break. When they returned to the set, the guest stars were often tipsy. “Everyone would drink, wine flowed,” Mr. Marshall told The Washington Post in 1985. “The last two shows were hysterical.”
Despite robust ratings, “Hollywood Squares” was cancelled by NBC in 1980 but was produced independently for another year with Mr. Marshall at the helm. The show has been revived several times over the years with other hosts.
Mr. Marshall, who won five Emmy Awards for his work on “Squares,” said he reluctantly auditioned for the show because, at the time, he expected to be cast in a musical version of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” which was scheduled to go to Broadway. At the last minute, his part was offered to Richard Chamberlain.
“Well, I ran [15] years, and ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ closed in Boston,” Mr. Marshall recalled in 2010. “You never know.”
Mr. Marshall was born Ralph Pierre LaCock in Huntington, W.Va., on March 30, 1926. He was 10 when his father, a pharmacist, died. His mother was a costume designer and sales clerk.
As a teenager, he moved to New York City, where his older sister, Joan, was modelling. She became the movie star Joanne Dru, and was married to popular big-band singer Dick Haymes.
“Dick was like my idol,” Mr. Marshall told the Kansas City Star. “He was like a surrogate father. And he was really the one who took time with me and that I idolized. He was very kind to me. That was probably the catalyst for this whole career thing, you know.”
Mr. Marshall worked as a page at the NBC studios at Rockefeller Center, studied singing with Haymes, adopted the name Peter Marshall and, at 15, became the “boy singer” with a jazz band led by Bob Chester. “I was 6-3 when I was 14, so I was a big, tall gangly kid,” Mr. Marshall said. “Although I was underage, I looked a little older.”
He returned to Huntington to complete high school, was drafted into the Army during World War II and served in an artillery unit in Italy. He later became a popular disc jockey based in Naples, heard by soldiers throughout Europe.
Back in the United States, he worked in radio in Florida – and briefly was a numbers runner for an illegal bookie. He then moved to California and, in the late 1940s, developed a comedy act with Tommy Noonan, headlining at clubs throughout the country.
Mr. Marshall began to land acting roles in television and film and, in the early 1960s, was cast in the London stage production of the musical “Bye Bye Birdie,” starring opposite Chita Rivera, who had earlier received a Tony nomination for the role on Broadway.
Mr. Marshall appeared in the 1964 film comedy “Ensign Pulver,” then had a nearly year-long run in the 1965 Broadway musical “Skyscraper,” starring Julie Harris. In the musical, he helped introduce the James Van Heusen-Sammy Cahn standard “I’ll Only Miss Her When I Think of Her” and won praise from the New York Daily News as “a very satisfying leading man.”
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After “Hollywood Squares,” Mr. Marshall hosted two other game-show hybrids, “All Star Blitz” and “Fantasy,” and also had several musical variety specials.
Even when he was on “Hollywood Squares,” Mr. Marshall regularly appeared in theatrical productions, as a guest actor on television and as a singer, primarily in Las Vegas. In the mid-1980s, he had a leading role as Georges in a national touring production of “La Cage aux Folles,” about the long relationship of two gay men. (He also starred in “La Cage” on Broadway for a year).
Mr. Marshall’s marriages to Nadine Teaford and Sally Carter-Ihnat ended in divorce. Survivors include his wife of 35 years, the former Laurie Stewart; three children from his first marriage, Suzanne Browning, Jaime Dimarco and Pete LaCock, a first baseman with the Chicago Cubs and Kansas City Royals from 1972 to 1980; 12 grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren. Another son from his first marriage, David LaCock, died in 2021.
Mr. Marshall recorded several albums as a singer and published a show business memoir, “Backstage With the Original Hollywood Square,” in 2000. In the book, he mentioned that, after an episode of “Hollywood Squares,” he received a threatening letter from actor John Wayne.
One question in the episode claimed that Wayne demanded that his children and grandchildren address him as “Sir.” In a letter, Wayne denied that was true and wrote, “I suggest you correct it on your show or don’t ever pass me on the street.”
“I treasure this letter,” Mr. Marshall later said. “It’s one of my favourite things that I own.”