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.
When are four women ever happy for another woman getting something they'd love to have? Tell me that.
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!
I couldn't deliver a joke if you asked me to. It would have to be live and spontaneous. And that's what I was able to have in New York, at 9 o'clock in the morning, and people all over the country seemed to respond to it.
A great listener - that was my talent!
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.
I was a dog man. I love dogs. I had a cat in my later years and fell in love with this little cat, but every kid should have a dog. There's no doubt about it. We've had a lot of fun with them.
All my life, all I've wanted to do was a talk show, and I've done it for most of my life. Now to break away from that is kind of a challenge.
When you're a co-host, you've got to consider what the other person is saying and take the next step and get the laugh or get to the end of the story. You've got to make it happen and then move on to the next story.
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.
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.
I majored in sociology and never took a single music-related course, much less any kind of class in public speaking - no confidence for it, none - yet I still had a passion for it that burned inside me.
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.
