Those early years of our marriage were especially tough ones for me professionally. But at each new twist in the road, she has always guided me with her terrific innate wisdom through the big decisions we had to make. The job possibilities or impossibilities. The homes we purchased. The moves we made. Moving can be a terrible experience. We had just completed all the renovations in our Los Angeles residence, culminating with a brand-new gourmet kitchen she had so long yearned for. And along came an offer to go to New York. She never blinked an eye about leaving when we talked about it. She sensed bigger things in the big city, especially once we’d set our minds to giving it a whirl. Still, that one was hard to believe when the four of us finally uprooted to New York and found ourselves initially cramped into twelve hundred square feet of apartment space. Prior to that, I had been out of work for a year and a half, but we did have a lovely large house out west, which we would have to give up. The kids had been enjoying their lives and friends at school. It wouldn’t be easy for them to make this change, and it wasn’t. Years later, they would thank us for taking them to New York, telling us that it had added so much enrichment to their young lives. But eventually, in adulthood, they did wind up back in Los Angeles. Their work was there. I will tell you, though, that Joy did blink an eye earlier this year when I decided it was time to move on from my morning show toward horizons yet known. It reminded me, just a little, of our crosstown move back in the mid-nineties from the ritzy Upper East Side, which she loved so much, over to the Upper West Side high-rise that happened to be located directly across the street from my studio and office. I had come to hate that traffic-clogged commute every morning and dreamt of the ease of walking to work within two minutes. Luckily, she took very quickly to what turned out to be our vibrant new neighborhood full of nice shops (of course) and great restaurants and the fabulous Lincoln Center. The only contingency was that she made me promise that I would never come home for lunch and hang around the rest of the day. That’s when she decided I needed a second job to get me out of the apartment. Thankfully, the Millionaire show happened around that time and she got her personal space back.
After that period, I’ve still mostly kept myself occupied with other projects along the way. Then, of course, some rough health scares came out of nowhere, as they do—the biggest being the triple-bypass heart operation a handful of years back. And so now there I was, day in and day out, under her constant watchful care while I went through the recuperation paces. She was beyond terrific, then and always. After I had my hip replacement surgery a few years later, however, Letterman got me on the phone to have me recite my list of Top Ten Ways I Was Passing Time While Recovering. “Annoying the hell out of Joy” was, I believe, among the entries the writers had cooked up for me—and I suspect it might have been the truest one I delivered.
Anyway, once I made my big announcement to leave the morning-show grind this past January, the Late Show’s head writers, Justin and Eric Stangel, and their team were quick to jump on this startling development. No huge surprise there, of course. Within a couple of weeks, they seized on the idea of how my decision might have struck Joy and assembled for her a Top Ten List all her own to go deliver onstage at the Ed Sullivan Theater, which she did quite triumphantly on the night of February 15, 2011. Some of the entries were clearly just in fun . . . and some were dead on the money. Here, for the record, is the full list that she shared with the world:
TOP TEN THOUGHTS THAT WENT THROUGH MY MIND WHEN REGIS ANNOUNCED HIS RETIREMENT
10. “He better be kidding.”
9. “I don’t remember giving him permission to quit.”
8. “If he thinks he’s going to be home all day, I’d better stock up on Advil and Kahlúa.”
7. “Does this mean I have to play Travel Trivia with him every morning?”
6. “I heard they caught him stealing makeup.”
5. “So much for my one hour a day of peace and quiet.”
4. “Kelly gets paid to chat with him every morning. Not me.”
3. “If I put him in a wig and a dress, maybe they’ll hire him on The View.”
2. “God, why are you punishing me?”
1. “Why can’t he just keep phoning it in like Letterman?”
© 2011 Worldwide Pants Incorporated. All Rights Reserved.
She may not be completely thrilled with my decision, but I’m sure she’ll pull us through what promises to be this new adventure as well. She can handle just about anything. Years ago when our two daughters came along she gave up everything—all of her time and maybe hopes of launching a career of her own—for them. She was there at home every day when they returned from school. She was full of perfect womanly advice as they grew up. And she is responsible for the two smart and beautiful women they have become.
Back in our Los Angeles years, my friend and onetime stage manager Paul Brownstein began taping and saving shows we’d done, including some on which Joy had appeared with me. Nowadays, Paul has become quite the renowned television archivist, and not long ago, he sent us copies of a few of those particular shows. One of them happened to be the final broadcast ever of that ill-fated NBC morning show from the spring of 1982. Before we knew the plug had been pulled on the show, the producers had scheduled for that morning a special episode in which Joy and I would “renew” our wedding vows on-air, followed by a trumped-up reception party. They thought, hey, everybody loves a wedding, and, you know, it’ll be great for the ratings. Of course, the ratings no longer mattered, as we learned just prior to that day. But we reluctantly agreed to go through with it, absurd as it sounds.
“Well, this is it,” I told viewers in my opening segment with cohost Mary Hart, who would play Joy’s maid of honor that morning. “Married and canceled on the same day. I mean, I’ve been married and I’ve been canceled. But never on the same day.” The wedding part was all basically a gag anyway, since the ceremony was presided over by the star of NBC’s popular Father Murphy prime-time series, Merlin Olsen, the huge former Los Angeles Rams tackle. My best man was Ed McMahon. Our flower girls were, naturally, our own girls, Joanna and J.J., being sweet little troupers on this strange day. Stranger still was the fact that it did turn out to be a lot of fun, despite the gruesome cancellation.
And as a bonus (or as the game shows call it, a fabulous parting gift), we were actually given a complimentary one-night honeymoon at the luxurious Hotel Bel-Air. I know, I know. You’re waiting for our long-suppressed original honeymoon story. Well, my friends, that one may just have to come out as a book all on its own someday. Maybe. But let’s just say we got through our second honeymoon just fine and have lived happily ever after—way more so than less so—for over forty years since we first took our real vows.
And she has always been the reason why.
She’s still simply the greatest.
WHAT I TOOK AWAY FROM IT ALL
If you are lucky enough to find the right one, you’ll know it. Then just hang on for dear life. Dearer life, really.
Acknowledgments
As with all big endeavors, there are many people who have my sincere appreciation for their support.
At Harper Collins/IT Books: Deepest gratitude to my always hopeful editor, Hope Innelli, for her great enthusiasm, unstoppable spirit, and wise insights throughout, as well as to the rest of the publishing team: Lisa Sharkey, Carrie Kania, Cal Morgan, Kevin Callahan, Joseph Papa, Michael Barrs, Amanda Kain, Lorie Young, Beth Silfin, and Lisa Thong.
At William Morris Endeavor: My patient and profound agent, Mel Berger.
At LIVE: My assistant, Monica Buccini, for her tireless typing and retyping of my longhand writings; Barbara Warren for her indefatigable and persistent help getting this book out there; Schully and Goldie for our daily preshow meetings; and to Michael Gelman, our executive producer who kept our ship afloat through the last quarter-century. And to our current staff and all the previous staffs over the years who have spent a g
ood part of their lives trying to make me look good. You are all terrific.
At Worldwide Pants, Inc.: Dave himself, Jude Brennan, Eric Stangel, and Justin Stangel.
Special thanks, too, for various all but “lost” audio clips provided by Phil Gries, of the peerless Archival Television Audio, Inc., whose website (I’m told!) is a goldmine of great TV nostalgia (http://www.atvaudio.com/). Also invaluable were the terrific fact- and dialogue-finding editorial skills of Layton Ehmke; the additional transcribing efforts by Kelly Fehring; and my devoted longtime friend and previous coauthor, Bill Zehme, for suggesting that I attempt a book of resonant personal experience stories like this one and for his careful coaching along the way.
And finally, to those people who watched and watched over the years. From the gang in San Diego at the beginning of it all to the whole country in the last decades, I thank you for your loyalty and friendship. You’ve been great to me. I will always remember you.
About the Author
REGIS PHILBIN has been entertaining television audiences for more than fifty years, in daytime reigning as a beloved morning-show host, in nighttime as an über game-show host, and also as a fixture on national and local late-night shows. He is most widely known for Live! With Regis and Kathie Lee and its subsequent incarnation Live! With Regis and Kelly; Who Wants to Be a Millionaire; Million Dollar Password; and the first season of America’s Got Talent. Regis is the proud recipient of five Emmy Awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, a Broadcasting & Cable Lifetime Achievement Award, the Walter Camp Distinguished American Award at Yale University, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2006 Regis was inducted into both the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame and the Television Academy’s Hall of Fame. Regis lives in New York and Connecticut with his lovely wife, Joy.
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Credits
Cover design by Amanda Kain
Cover photograph © by Yolanda Perez
All photographs courtesy of Regis Philbin’s personal archives except where noted.
Copyright
HOW I GOT THIS WAY. Copyright © 2011 by Philbin Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Philbin, Regis.
How I got this way / Regis Philbin. —1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-06-210975-0
1. Philbin, Regis. 2. Television personalities — United States — Biography. I. Title.
PN1992.4.P45A3 2011
791.4502'8092—dc23
[B]
2011033188
EPub Edition NOVEMBER 2011 ISBN: 9780062109774
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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