Mitch Miller, an influential record producer who became a hugely popular recording artist and an unlikely television star a half century ago by leading a choral group in familiar old songs and inviting people to sing along, died Saturday in Manhattan. He was 99.

His daughter Margaret Miller Reuther confirmed the death Monday morning, saying her father had died after a short illness at Lenox Hill Hospital. Mr. Miller lived in Manhattan.

Mr. Miller, a Rochester native who was born on the Fourth of July, had been an accomplished oboist and was still a force in the recording industry when he came up with the idea of recording old standards with a chorus of some two dozen male voices and printing the lyrics on album covers.

The “Sing Along With Mitch” album series, which began in 1958, was an immense success, finding an eager audience among older listeners looking for an alternative to rock ’n’ roll. Mitch Miller and the Gang serenaded them with chestnuts like “Home on the Range,” “That Old Gang of Mine,” “I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen” and “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary.”

When the concept was adapted for television in 1961, with the lyrics appearing at the bottom of the screen, Mr. Miller, with his beaming smile and neatly trimmed mustache and goatee, became a national celebrity.

By then he had established himself as a hit maker for Columbia Records and a career shaper for singers like Tony Bennett, Rosemary Clooney, Johnny Mathis, Doris Day, Patti Page and Frankie Laine. First at Mercury Records and then at Columbia, he helped define American popular music in the postwar, pre-rock era, carefully matching singers with songs and choosing often unorthodox but almost always catchy instrumental accompaniment.

Mr. Bennett’s career took off after Mr. Miller persuaded him to record the ballad “Because of You,” backing him with a lush orchestral arrangement by Percy Faith. It reached No. 1 on the pop charts in 1951.

Ms. Clooney was making a mere $50 a recording session when Mr. Miller asked her to record “Come On-a My House,” an oddity based on an Armenian folk melody written by the playwright and novelist William Saroyan and his cousin Ross Bagdasarian, who later went on to create Alvin and the Chipmunks. Ms. Clooney was dubious. “I damn near fell on the floor,” she recalled.

They had a heated argument. But in the end Ms. Clooney agreed to record the song, and it became a giant hit, establishing her as a major artist.

“Nothing happened to me until I met Mitch,” she later said.

By the end of the 1950s Mr. Miller’s eye and ear for talent and songs had been critical in making Columbia the top-selling record company in the nation.

Mr. Miller was the Midas of novelty music, storming the charts with records like Jimmy Boyd’s “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” and providing singers with unusual instrumental backing: a harpsichord for Ms. Clooney, French horns for Guy Mitchell. One of his earliest hits, “Mule Train,” was recorded by the muscular-voiced Frankie Laine with three electric guitars, and Mr. Miller himself using a wood block to simulate the snapping of a whip.

Mr. Miller was a studio innovator. Along with the guitarist Les Paul and a few others, he helped pioneer overdubbing, the technique by which different tracks are laid over one another to produce a richer effect; he employed it memorably with Ms. Page, whose close-harmony “duets” with herself became her signature. He also achieved what he called a sonic “halo” on numerous recordings by the use of what came to be called an echo chamber — actually an effect an engineer produced by placing a speaker and a microphone in a tiled restroom.

One Miller specialty was developing crossovers from country to pop. He had particular success with Hank Williams’s songs: he transformed “Hey, Good Lookin’ ” into a hit for Mr. Laine and Jo Stafford and did the same for Mr. Bennett (“Cold, Cold Heart”), Ms. Clooney (“Half as Much”) and Ms. Stafford on her own (“Jambalaya”).

His touch was not always sure. When he had bagpipes accompany Dinah Shore on a song called “Scottish Samba” the result was, in Mr. Miller’s own words, “a dog.” And probably the nadir of Frank Sinatra’s recording career came after Mr. Miller left Mercury and took over pop production at Columbia in 1950.

George Steinbrenner, who bought a declining Yankees team in 1973, promised to stay out of its daily affairs and then, in an often tumultuous reign, placed his formidable stamp on 7 World Series championship teams, 11 pennant winners and a sporting world powerhouse valued at perhaps $1.6 billion, died Tuesday morning. He was 80 and lived in Tampa, Fla. The Yankees announced the death without giving a cause.

“He was an incredible and charitable man,” the family said in a statement.

“He was a visionary and a giant in the world of sports. He took a great but struggling franchise and turned it into a champion again.”

Mr. Steinbrenner’s death came eight months after the Yankees won their first World Series title since 2000, clinching their six-game victory over the Philadelphia Phillies at his new Yankee Stadium, and two days after the team’s longtime public-address announcer Bob Sheppard died at age 99.

Mr. Steinbrenner had been in failing health for the past several years and rarely appeared in public. He attended the opening game at the new stadium in April 2009, sitting in his suite with his wife, Joan (pronounced Jo-ann). When he was introduced and received an ovation, his shoulders shook and he cried.

He next appeared at the Yankees’ new home for the first two games of the World Series, then made his final appearance at the 2010 home opener, when Manager Joe Girardi and shortstop Derek Jeter, the team captain, came to his suite to present him with his 2009 World Series championship ring.

Mr. Steinbrenner spoke for only 25 seconds at the stadium’s groundbreaking ceremony in August 2006.

The blustering owner long familiar to Yankees fans and foes briefly re-emerged in October 2007 in a newspaper interview, when he threatened to fire Manager Joe Torre if the team did not advance beyond the first round of the American League playoffs. The Yankees were eliminated by the Cleveland Indians in that round, and soon afterward Torre departed after rejecting a one-year contract extension with a cut in his guaranteed salary.

In the eyes of Yankees figures from Mr. Steinbrenner’s heyday, his aura endured despite his frailty.

“He’s arguably the most recognized owner in all of sports,” Jeter said after Mr. Steinbrenner was driven onto the field in a golf cart in a ceremony before the 2008 All-Star Game at the old stadium.

“To be able to deliver this to the Boss, to the stadium he created and the atmosphere he created around here, it’s very gratifying to all of us,” Girardi said after the Yankees’ World Series victory at the new stadium.

Mr. Steinbrenner, the Yankees’ principal owner and chairman, had ceded increasing authority to his sons, Hal and Hank, who became co-chairmen in May 2008. Hal Steinbrenner, the Yankees’ managing general partner as well, was given control of the team in November 2008 in a unanimous vote by the major league club owners, who acted on his father’s request.

Mr. Steinbrenner was the central figure in a syndicate that bought the Yankees from CBS for $10 million. When he arrived in New York on Jan. 3, 1973, he said he would not “be active in the day-to-day operations of the club at all.” Having made his money as head of the American Shipbuilding Company, based in Cleveland, he declared, “I’ll stick to building ships.”

But four months later, Michael Burke, who had been running the Yankees for CBS and had stayed on to help manage the franchise, departed after clashing with Mr. Steinbrenner. John McMullen, a minority owner in the syndicate, soon remarked that “nothing is as limited as being a limited partner of George’s.”

Mr. Steinbrenner emerged as one of the most powerful, influential and, in the eyes of many, notorious executives in sports. He was the senior club owner in baseball at his death, the man known as the Boss.

A pioneer of modern sports ownership, Mr. Steinbrenner started the wave of high spending for playing talent when free agency arrived in the mid-1970s, and he continued to spend freely through the Yankees’ revival in the late ’70s and early ’80s, the long stretch without a pennant and then renewed triumphs under Torre and General Manager Brian Cashman.

The Yankees’ approximately $210 million payroll in 2009 dwarfed all others in baseball, and the team paid out millions in baseball’s luxury tax and revenue-sharing with small-market teams.

In the frenetic ’70s and ’80s, when general managers, field managers and pitching coaches were sent spinning through Mr. Steinbrenner’s revolving personnel door (Billy Martin had five stints as manager), the franchise became known as the Bronx Zoo. In December 2002, Mr. Steinbrenner’s enterprise had grown so rich that the president of the Boston Red Sox, Larry Lucchino, frustrated over losing pitcher Jose Contreras to the Yankees, called them the “evil empire.”

But Mr. Steinbrenner and the Yankees thrived through all the arguments, all the turmoil, all the bombast. Having been without a pennant since 1964 when Mr. Steinbrenner bought them, enduring sagging attendance while the upstart Mets thrived, the Yankees once again became America’s marquee sporting franchise.

Yankee Stadium underwent a major renovation in the mid-1970s, but that did not satisfy Mr. Steinbrenner with the passing of years and the building of many new stadiums with luxury boxes catering to corporate America. He cast an eye toward New Jersey, pressed for a new stadium in Manhattan and ultimately got a $1.5 billion stadium built in the Bronx, alongside the original House That Ruth Built.

Mr. Steinbrenner found new revenue streams from cable television, first in a longtime deal with the Madison Square Garden network and then with the creation of the Yankees’ YES network. The franchise also engineered lucrative marketing deals, notably a 10-year, $95 million apparel agreement with Adidas.

In 2005, the Yankees became the second American League team to top the four million mark in home attendance (the Toronto Blue Jays did it from 1991 to 1993), drawing a league-record 4,090,696. Their home attendance rose during the next three years, reaching a league-record 4,298,655 in 2008. But attendance dipped to 3,719,358 in the first year at the new stadium, which had fewer seats and higher ticket prices.

Mr. Steinbrenner lived year-round in Tampa, but he became a New York celebrity and a figure in popular culture. He was lampooned, with his permission, by a caricature in the sitcom “Seinfeld,” portrayed by the actor Lee Bear, who was always photographed from behind at the Boss’s desk, flailing his arms and suitably imperious, while Larry David, the show’s co-creator, provided the voice. George Costanza (Jason Alexander) became Mr. Steinbrenner’s assistant traveling secretary, whose duties included fetching calzones for him.

Country music singer and business entrepreneur Jimmy Dean has died at the age of 81.

The country music legend, singer, television host, actor, and businessman died Sunday night inside his Henrico, Va., home overlooking the James River, reports CBS station WTVR in Richmond.

The station spoke with Dean’s wife, Donna, Sunday night. She was grieving and said the following:

“I definitely need my privacy right now, and am not available for interviews. My husband died of natural causes, and funeral services are pending.”

Donna Dean told the station her husband died at 7:54 p.m. Sunday night.

She told The Associated Press that he had some health problems but was still functioning well, so his death came as a shock. She said he was eating in front of the television. She left the room for a time and came back and he was unresponsive.

“He was amazing,” she said. “He had a lot of talents.”

Four months ago, Dean, who had a number one hit “Big Bad John” in 1961, was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Born in 1928, Dean was raised in poverty in Plainview, Texas, and dropped out of high school after the ninth grade. He went on to a successful entertainment career in the 1950s and ’60s that included the nationally televised “The Jimmy Dean Show.”

In 1969, Dean went into the sausage business, starting the Jimmy Dean Meat Co. in his hometown. He sold the company to Sara Lee Corp. in 1984.

Dean lived in semiretirement with his wife, who is a songwriter and recording artist, on their 200-acre estate just outside Richmond, where he enjoyed investing, boating and watching the sun set over the James River.

In 2009 a fire gutted their home, but his Grammy for “Big Bad John,” a puppet made by Muppets creator Jim Henson, a clock that had belonged to Prince Charles and Princess Diana and other valuables were saved. Lost were a collection of celebrity-autographed books, posters of Dean with Elvis Presley and other prized possessions.

Donna Meade Dean said the couple had just moved back into their reconstructed home.

With his drawled wisecracks and quick wit, Dean charmed many fans. But in both entertainment and business circles, he was also known for his tough hide. He fired bandmate Roy Clark, who went onto “Hee Haw” fame, for showing up late for gigs.

More recently, a scrap with Sara Lee led to national headlines.

The Chicago-based company let him go as spokesman in 2003, inciting Dean’s wrath. He issued a statement titled “Somebody doesn’t like Sara Lee,” claiming he was dumped because he got old.

“The company told me that they were trying to attract the younger housewife, and they didn’t think I was the one to do that,” Dean told The Associated Press in January 2004. “I think it’s the dumbest thing. But you know, what do I know?”

Sara Lee has said that it chose not to renew Dean’s contract because the “brand was going in a new direction” that demanded a shift in marketing.

Dean grew up in a musical household. His mother showed him how to play his first chord on the piano. His father, who left the family, was a songwriter and singer. Dean taught himself to play the accordion and the harmonica.

His start in the music business came as an accordionist at a tavern near Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, D.C., where he was stationed in the 1940s. After leaving the Air Force in 1948, he fronted his band, the Texas Wildcats, and drew a strong local following through appearances on Washington-area radio.

By the early 1950s, Dean’s band had its first national hit in “Bummin’ Around.”

“Big Bad John,” which is about a coal miner who saves fellow workers when a mine roof collapses, became a big hit in 1961 and won a Grammy. The star wrote it in less than two hours.

His fame led him to a string of television shows, including “The Jimmy Dean Show” on CBS. Dean’s last big TV stint was ABC’s version of “The Jimmy Dean Show” from 1963 to 1966.

Dean in February was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame. He was to be inducted in October and his wife said she thinks he was looking forward to it.

Dean became a headliner at venues like Carnegie Hall and the Hollywood Bowl and became the first country star to play on the Las Vegas strip. He was the first guest host on “The Tonight Show,” and also was an actor with parts in television and the movies, including the role of James Bond’s ally Willard Whyte in the 1971 film “Diamonds Are Forever.”

Besides his wife, Dean is survived by three children and two grandchildren, Donna Meade Dean said. Arrangements have not be made, but it will be a private service, she said.

In the late ’60s, Dean entered the hog business – something he knew well. His family had butchered hogs, with the young Dean whacking them over the head with the blunt end of an ax. The Dean brothers – Jimmy and Don – ground the meat and their mother seasoned it.

The Jimmy Dean Meat Co. opened with a plant in Plainview. After six months, the company was profitable.

His fortune was estimated at $75 million in the early ’90s.

Having watched other stars fritter away their fortunes, Dean said he learned to be careful with his money.

“I’ve seen so many people in this business that made a fortune,” he told the AP. “They get old and broke and can’t make any money. … I tell you something, … no one’s going to play a benefit for Jimmy Dean.”

Dean said then that he was at peace at his estate and that he had picked a spot near the river where he wanted to be buried.

“It’s the sweetest piece of property in the world, we think,” he told the Richmond Times-Dispatch. “It sure is peaceful here.”

John Wooden with (from left) Mike Lynn, Lucius Allen, Mike Warren, and Lew Alcindor after UCLA won the NCAA title in 1968. (Associated Press)

John Wooden, the “Wizard of Westwood,’’ whose UCLA men’s basketball teams won 10 NCAA titles between 1964 and 1975 and which recorded a record 88 consecutive victories between 1971 and ’74, died last night at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, where he had been hospitalized since May 26. He was 99.

“We want to thank everyone for their love and support for our father. We will miss him more than words can express,’’ his son, James, and daughter, Nancy Muehlhausen, said in a statement.

LOS ANGELES – Richard Dunn, a longtime character actor who frequently collaborated with comics Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, died Friday after being unconscious several days. He was 73.

His agent of 15 years, William Kerwin, says Dunn had been unconscious at a Hollywood hospital since Sunday. Kerwin didn’t immediately know the cause of death but said Dunn was a longtime smoker.

“I told him 100 times to quit,” he said. “I wouldn’t let him into my office if he smoked.”

The lanky, bespectacled actor, listed at 5-foot-10 and 125 pounds on his resume, often appeared on “Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!” on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim lineup. Dunn also had bit parts on shows including “Nip/Tuck,” “Weeds” and “House.”

Heidecker wrote on Twitter Friday: “Deeply saddened to announce that our friend Richard Dunn passed away … this morning.”

Wareheim tweeted: “We’ll miss you Dicky Dunn. You’ll be in our hearts forever.” Later he wrote: “We are making a memorial site where you can send him messages. More news soon. xo.”

Kerwin said arrangements were being made to bury Dunn at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, which seemed fitting given his old-school demeanor.

“He was a tall, Gary Cooper type of man — his sense of humor. Maybe that’s why he smoked — maybe to seem like someone in a Gary Cooper movie,” Kerwin said. “He was very nice, a very sensible man, a natural actor, not your typical wannabe performer.”

Kerwin said Dunn’s appeal was “kind of a sad look that he had, and a yep-nope attitude.”

“He was one of those actors who worked most of the time but he never made the top,” Kerwin said. “He was always there but never the big cigar.”

Rue McClanahan, who played a man-crazy Southern belle in the seminal ’80s sitcom “Golden Girls,” died early Thursday of a massive stroke. She was 76. McClanahan had suffered a minor stroke in January during recovery from heart bypass surgery, her manager said at the time.

“Golden Girls,” which has aired in syndication nearly nonstop since its successful run from 1985 to 1992 on NBC, has been discovered by a whole new generation lately, partly because of costar Betty White and her resurgent popularity.

White is now the sole surviving cast member. Bea Arthur died last year of cancer, and Estelle Getty died in 2008.

McClanahan won an Emmy in 1987 for her portrayal of Blanche Devereaux, an aging beauty who still had an eye for the fellas. The actress’ resume stretches back to the ’60s and includes some of TV’s most memorable shows, such as “All in the Family,” “Maude,” “The Love Boat” and “Touched by an Angel.”

In 2007, she published  a memoir with the sassy title “My First Five Husbands … and the Ones Who Got Away.”

— T.L. Stanley

Photo: Rue McClanahan at a signing for her book “My First Five Husbands” at Book Soup in 2007. Photo credit: Mark Mainz / Getty Images

DETROIT — Ali-Ollie Woodson, who led the legendary Motown quintet The Temptations in the 1980s and ’90s and helped restore them to their hit-making glory with songs including “Treat Her Like A Lady,” has died, a friend said. He was 58.

Woodson died Sunday in southern California after battling cancer, Motown Alumni Association President Billy Wilson said. Wilson said Woodson’s wife, Juanita, told him about the death Sunday.

Woodson was not an original member of the group, which had several lineup changes since it started in the 1960s. But he played an integral part in keeping the Temptations from becoming just nostalgia act.

By the early 1980s, the Temptations were no longer posting hit after hit like they did in the 1960s and ’70s with classics such as “Papa Was a Rolling Stone,” “My Girl,” and “I Wish It Would Rain.”

The group had lost original members, and Woodson was charged with replacing Dennis Edwards, whose passionate voice defined the group during the 1970s.

Woodson’s voice, though similar to Edwards’ with its fiery tone, was distinct in itself, and helped the group notch the R&B hits “Treat Her Like A Lady,” “Sail Away,” and “Lady Soul,” from 1984 to 1986.

“He had this swagger about himself. He was cool. He had a coolness about himself that was really very inviting,” said Wilson. He said he first met Woodson in 1980 before Woodson joined the group and that he last spoke with his friend about two weeks ago.

Despite his fame, Woodson was “always a gentleman and always polite and kind to everybody. If we ever asked him to do anything, he never said, ‘well, it’s going to cost you.’ He’d always say, ‘yeah, let’s go,’” said Wilson, who founded the Detroit-based Motown association in the mid-1990s.

“He was just a star performer. Wonderful person. Wonderful, wonderful person. He was very kind.”

Messages were left Monday for a producer and a manager who worked with Woodson. A recorded message at a phone number for his wife said the voice mailbox was full.

Associated Press writers Erin Gartner in Chicago and Nekesa Mumbi Moody in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

Dennis Hopper, whose pot-addled Billy in Easy Rider and psychopathic Frank Booth in Blue Velvet helped put the icon in iconoclastic, has died after a decade-long battle with prostate cancer. He was 74.

The legendary actor died about 9 a.m. Saturday surrounded by family in his Los Angeles home.

Taken ill with flu-like symptoms last September, Hopper later said he was suffering with prostate cancer. Family members told PEOPLE that the disease had spread to other organs in his system.

Early Rebel Role

Born in Dodge City, Kansas – his father, Jay Hopper, reputedly was an intelligence officer in the pre-CIA Office of Strategic Services, which explained his son’s peripatetic American upbringing – Hopper was 19 when he was cast in his very first movie opposite none other than James Dean: 1955’s Rebel Without a Cause. Hopper played a character named “Goon.”

Known off-screen as a rabble-rouser and impossible when it came to taking direction, the young Method actor was soon virtually blacklisted from movies. Resorting to TV dramas and even moonlighting as a Vogue photographer, his turnaround came in 1969 when he joined forces with Peter Fonda, screenwriter Terry Southern and a then unknown B-movie actor named Jack Nicholson to costar in and direct a $400,000 road picture called Easy Rider.

The movie proved a box-office phenomenon, launched the youth movement in Hollywood and turned Hopper into a household name, though not necessary a bankable one. His next directorial effort, 1971’s The Last Movie, literally went up in pot smoke.

At the same time, his first marriage – to Hollywood princess Brooke Hayward (daughter of two legends, actress Margaret Sullavan and producer Leland Hayward) – flamed out, and Hopper would go on to marry (and divorce) four more times – including the singer-actress Michelle Phillips, to whom he was wed for nearly a week.

As far as children were concerned, the 1961-69 marriage to Hayward produced a daughter, Marin, now 47; with wife Daria Halprin (1972-76) he had a daughter Ruthanna, 35; and with Katherine LaNasa (1989-92), a son, Henry, 19.

Fighting convention to the very end, only last January, amid bitter claims about her out-of-control spending, a direly sick Hopper filed for divorce from his fifth wife, Victoria Duffy, whom he wed in 1996. The couple also had a daughter, Galen, born in 2003 and to whom Hopper was said to be devoted.

Coleman was hospitalized Wednesday after falling and suffering a head injury at his home south of Salt Lake City, according to family members. He died Friday at age 42. The diminutive actor was best known for his role on TV’s Diff’rent Strokes. He played precocious Arnold Jackson, who, with his brother Willis (Todd Bridges), was adopted by a wealthy, white Manhattan man (Conrad Bain) and his daughter (Dana Plato).

Coleman’s pudgy cheeks and flawless comic timing made him the break-out star of the popular series, which ran from 1978-86.

His signature line, “Whatchoo talkin’ ’bout, Willis?” became a national catchphrase.

But Coleman’s bright beginnings were overshadowed by domestic disputes, legal troubles and health issues. Coleman was born with a congenital kidney disease that resulted in his small stature. He had two kidney transplants and required frequent dialysis.

At the height of Diff’rent Strokes‘ popularity, Coleman reportedly received up to $100,000 an episode. Beginning in 1980, he won four consecutive People’s Choice Awards as Favorite Young TV Performer

He parlayed his prime-time success into steady work in TV guest spots, made-for-TV movies and feature films, including On the Right Track and The Kid with the Broken Halo. The latter inspired the animated TV series The Gary Coleman Show.

But in the years after Diff’rent Strokes, Coleman was in the headlines more often for his off-screen troubles than for his acting.

In 1989, he successfully sued his parents and former advisers for misappropriation of his trust fund, which had dwindled. He was awarded $1.3 million.

In 1999, Coleman filed for bankruptcy, blaming his troubles on financial mismanagement.

In 1998, while working as a security guard, he was charged with assault for hitting a woman who had been seeking an autograph. He pleaded no contest and received a suspended sentence.

In 2007 he was cited for disorderly conduct after arguing with his wife, Shannon Price, whom he married that August. They had met on the set of the 2006 comedy Church Ball.

In 2008, he and Price appeared on the syndicated TV show Divorce Court in an attempt to save their marriage.

But last year, the two were involved in a domestic dispute which resulted in Price being arrested and both receiving disorderly conduct citations.

And he recently settled a lawsuit with a man he allegedly hit with his car outside a Utah bowling alley in 2008.

In January, Coleman was arrested for failure to appear in court for an unspecified earlier charge.

Coleman’s troubles led him to be the butt of jokes for comedians and he even inspired a character by the same name in the Tony-winning musical Avenue Q.

Through it all, Coleman maintained his perspective and sense of humor. “I parody myself every chance I get,” he said. “I try to make fun of myself and let people know that I’m a human being, and these things that have happened to me are real. I’m not just some cartoon who exists and suddenly doesn’t exist.”

Despite his real-life travails, Coleman will remain an ’80s TV icon, a quick-witted boy whose onscreen charm lives on in television syndication.

No offense to Kid ‘n Play, but Art Linkletter’s House Party was always better. Linkletter’s program, which began on radio in 1944 before moving to TV eight years later, set a record for daytime longevity and featured Linkletter — who died Wednesday at age 97 at his home in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles — interviewing children who could always be counted on to blurt out truths too uncomfortable for grown-ups to tell. It was a perfect showcase for the genial host, whose self-deprecating manner and masterful talent for pulling unintentionally funny cracks from everyday people made the show a hit for 25 years running. “What do your parents do for fun?” the host once asked a youngster. “Search me,” the kid replied, “They always lock the door.” Linkletter eventually turned some of the more inspired moments into Kids Say the Darndest Things. The book sat atop the nonfiction best-seller list for two years and remains one of the top-selling books in American publishing history.

Linkletter was also one of the fathers of modern reality TV with his People Are Funny, an audience participation quiz show that began on NBC in1954. Contestants were chosen from the studio audience to complete challenges or perform wacky stunts, such as trying to cash a check written on a 40-pound watermelon. Losers would be doused with water or pelted with pies. Like House Party, People Are Funny found Linkletter graciously ceding the spotlight to regular folks.

Linkletter’s success is particularly astonishing considering his hardscrabble background. Born in Moose Jaw, Canada, in 1912, he was abandoned by his parents and grew up the adopted son of a poor preacher. After high school, Linkletter enrolled at San Diego State, hoping to become a teacher, but his plans changed after he got an unexpected phone call offering him a job at a local radio station. “I said sure,” Linkletter recalled. “It was 1933, the bottom of the Depression. If a gravedigger called me, I would bedigging graves today.”

Linkletter never slowed down, even toward the end of his life. He was a regular fixture on the speaking circuit and spent his freetime skiing and surfing. “No one can keep from aging, but there is no need to grow old,” he said. He also served as the national chairman for the United Seniors Association, an AARP alternative now known as USA Next. (In 1969, Linkletter’s daughter committed suicide, and the TV personality blamed LSD, even though official reports said drugs played no part.) “Over the years I have tried to create an image of a happy man dedicated to fun and laughter,” Linkletter said in 1960. “I have been willing to joke about my own faults and foibles and to talk about the troublesome things in my life, and I have kidded people about theirs. The world needs laughter more than ever, and I intend to spread it around.” Mission accomplished. –Reed Tucker