The Untold Truth Of Regis Philbin

Publish date: 2024-05-03

In his 2011 memoir How I Got This Way, Philbin offered a very different account of his headline-grabbing on-air walkout from The Joey Bishop Show. In an excerpt (via NPR), Philbin laid the whole thing at Bishop's feet.

"Bishop said, 'You're going to walk off the show. You're going to be angry about what you heard in the hallway — that ABC doesn't like you and that you're not doing the job. But I'm going to bring you back because I think you're doing the job,'" wrote Philbin, insisting Bishop himself was responsible for the ruse. This, added Philbin, presented a win-win for Bishop. "In other words, Joey was making himself a hero and also getting some attention for the show [thinking], 'Maybe people would tune into see what happens,'" he wrote.

"But he did bring me back," added Philbin. "It's just a show business stunt to attract attention and build a rating." However, the stunt — if it actually went down as Philbin said it did — didn't improve the show's ratings, noted the The New York Times' obituary of Bishop; it was cancelled in 1969 after just two struggling seasons. 

Ed Bark of the Dallas Morning News later cited Philbin's "bad-mouthing [of] Bishop in a book" as the source of Bishop's lingering ire towards Philbin. So, does that mean Bishop was calling Philbin a liar, or was he just upset at the blown secret? 

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