Peter Marshall, the cheery actor, singer and nightclub comedian who became one of America’s best-known game show hosts on the long-running program “The Hollywood Squares” from 1966 to 1981, died on Thursday. He was 98.
Marshall, who hosted more than 5,000 episodes of “The Hollywood Squares” and won five Emmy Awards, died of kidney failure at his Encino home in the Los Angeles area, according to a statement from his family.
The show featured nine celebrity guests — seated inside the squares of a giant tic-tac-toe board — answering questions, often with double entendre meanings and written with the intent of eliciting funny responses. Two contestants then judged the accuracy of the responses in order to win the game.
Marshall’s job was to be the straight man and set up the celebrities for the punch line. Actor Paul Lynde, known for his snarky personality and for making thinly veiled sexual and gay references, was the show’s most popular celebrity, making over 700 appearances.
Marshall’s questions to Lynde often led to outrageous answers, such as the time he asked, “It is considered in bad taste to discuss two subjects at nudist camps. One is politics. What is the other?” Lynde answered, “Tape measures.”
Marshall wrote in his 2002 memoir that he signed on as host to spite comedian Dan Rowan, who was also in the running for the job and who he detested over his shunning of comic Tommy Noonan when Noonan was hospitalized with terminal brain cancer. Noonan had worked for years as Marshall’s comedy partner.
“They were looking for someone who could play straight man to nine celebrities,” Marshall wrote in “Backstage with the Original Hollywood Square.” “My background was in musical comedy but I had also been part of the successful comedy team of Noonan and Marshall. I was the Dean Martin — just not as good — to Tommy Noonan’s Jerry Lewis.
“So I flew home to L.A. to screw Dan Rowan out of a job, and that’s how I began my 16-year adventure on ‘The Hollywood Squares,’” he wrote.
Rowan went on to co-host the groundbreaking sketch comedy TV show “Rowan &Martin’s Laugh-In” from 1967 to 1973.
Rose Marie, Wally Cox and Charley Weaver were among the other regulars along with Lynde on “The Hollywood Squares.”
Many big-name stars also made appearances, including Burt Reynolds, George C. Scott, Groucho Marx, Sammy Davis Jr., Ginger Rogers, Cher, Mel Brooks, and sports stars George Foreman and Mark Spitz.
Born Ralph Pierre LaCock on March 30, 1926, in Huntington, West Virginia, his father died when he was 10 and two years later his mother moved the family to New York, where his sister, Joanne Dru, got work as a model and actress.
Marshall worked as a singer in big bands as a teenager then joined Noonan in a comedy team that worked nightclubs and made appearances on TV shows like “The Ed Sullivan Show.” He starred in films including “The Rookie” (1960) and war drama “The Cavern” (1964) but put his movie career on hold for “The Hollywood Squares.”
Marshall was married three times. He is survived by his wife of 35 years, Laurie, and three children.